"Ghosts In The Machine"was an annual collection of fourteen reports, generated by thehighest council of Mortal Engines until the year 1977. Since then, the whereabouts of thereports and the "ghosts" that were supposedly discovered by them are unknown...
With a focus on cybernetics, computers, hypothetical machine consciousness, and the socialresponse to these, the reports ensured the survival of the human race. In addition tospeculating on sociological effects, the reports explored some of the philosophical problemscomputers and cybernetics are likely to cause in the future.
For example, would human beings recognize conscious machine intelligence as havingequivalent human rights so that it could not be arbitrarily turned off (murder) nor toldwhat to do (slavery)? What, if anything, would constitute an equivalent human being havingsimilar rights? We can, perhaps, imagine a computer that simulates conscious thought, butcan we imagine one possessing an unconscious?
Could it dream and be motivated by unconscious needs? And without such experience, could ithave a subjective dimension or even use language the way human beings do? These and manymore questions were possibly answered by the reports. Faced with the possibility of aconscious computer, the perennial question of "who am I" must be treated with new evidence.
The central consideration in the reports is whether a machine intelligence can possess aself or a soul. The Christian (Western) notion of the soul (and the allied questions of whatconstitutes a self or what constitutes a person) is not as simple and culturallyself-evident as it initially appears to be.
Definition of the soul:
"Life as spirit is the life of the soul, which includes mind and body, but not as[substantive] realities alongside the soul. Spirit is not a 'part,' nor is it a specialfunction. It is the all-embracing [temporal] function in which all elements of the structureof being participate. Life as spirit can be found by man only in man, for only in him is thestructure of being completely realized" (Systematic Theology, vol. I, 250).
While the "ghosts" are presumed dangerous, there is an obvious evil abroad in the universeof Mortal Engines as well. There are tales told by robots who are systematically hunted andexterminated by the human race that created them, presumably because they are conscious. Itseems that human beings created very sophisticated thinking machines that they called "ironangels" out of mockery, for they held them in cruel bondage.
The robots were apparently too reverent of their creators, who were "unlike intelligentones, crystal ones, ones of steel or beaten gold, unlike anyone who lives in metal" thus, ina strange turn of events, their respect for their creators outweighed their desire to killthem. So, like the Israelites in Pharaoh's Egypt, the robots flee. Then, in a genocideattempt of unimaginable proportions, it is the human beings who "use their twisted power torevenge themselves for that desertion of yore," while the robots submit to death likeChristian martyrs.
The tales explain how "white creatures throughout the Universe hunt down all life born ofmetal, and annihilate it for the sake of vengeance".
Because of these conflicting tales, and with the whereabouts or contents of the reportsbeing unknown, the high council of Mortal Engines is extremely concerned. The last reportwas rumored to contain information about a certain "ghost", named "HollowGraphiK" that had gainedhuman consciousness. The importance of this ghost's existence is extreme. Hopefully, it doesnot possess the same basic destructive nature as it's humanoid counterparts.
Or, is it the humans that are the real danger? The world's fate relies on the answer to thisquestion.
Final Note:
When the high council discovered the reports to be missing, the only entry that remained inthe database was the following:
"As for the soul, consciousness, sentience, the 'ghosts in the machine,' wereindemonstrables- in men as well as in machines."
The true meaning of this is unknown...
BREAK DANCE CIRCLE / GITM LIVE @ ULTRA 2007
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