El pulgar de Dédalo: una breve--e incompleta--arqueología de 'robot'.

Mecha Tribal (Aslan, 2011)

“This is the workshop of Daedalus, and about it are statues, some with forms blocked out, others in a quite complete state in that they are already stepping forward and give promise of walking about. Before the time of Daedalus, you know, the art of making statues had not yet conceived such a thing." 

Philostratus de Lemnos en Immagines (1.16)

****

La humanidad ha estado obsesionada con automatizar el trabajo y mejorar la calidad de vida desde la antigüedad. Y es a través de Aristóteles—no dudo que otros pensadores asiáticos hayan llegado a conclusiones similares—que nos llega la utópica idea de reemplazar esclavos con máquinas:

“For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.” (Libro 1, sección IV de la Política de Aristóteles, traducido por Benjamin Jowett)....

 Continúe leyendo la pieza aquí (vía Revista Cruce).