From Automatons to Doppelgängers: A Spectrum from "Utterly Foreign" to "Exactly Me"

Melanie Walton, Belmont University

Location

Beaman A&B

Presentation Type

Presentation

Start Date

25-9-2013 1:00 PM

Description

What does it mean to see the world through the eyes of the other? Does one become the other? Empathize with the other? Or is the other always off-limits? Postmodernism invokes a theory of becoming illustrated by cinematic representations of doppelgängers, one’s identical double. Phenomenology proposes a theory of analogical apperception, an empathy, through which one transfers one’s own feelings of being a self. And Descartes, after wondering whether passersby were actually automatons, decides on the weakest of approximations for the other, never allowing certainty. In this spectrum from robots and radical difference to doubles and pure identity, Dr. Walton will explore whether the moderate answer is actually the most problematic.

Comments

Convocation Credit: Academic Lecture

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Sep 25th, 1:00 PM

From Automatons to Doppelgängers: A Spectrum from "Utterly Foreign" to "Exactly Me"

Beaman A&B

What does it mean to see the world through the eyes of the other? Does one become the other? Empathize with the other? Or is the other always off-limits? Postmodernism invokes a theory of becoming illustrated by cinematic representations of doppelgängers, one’s identical double. Phenomenology proposes a theory of analogical apperception, an empathy, through which one transfers one’s own feelings of being a self. And Descartes, after wondering whether passersby were actually automatons, decides on the weakest of approximations for the other, never allowing certainty. In this spectrum from robots and radical difference to doubles and pure identity, Dr. Walton will explore whether the moderate answer is actually the most problematic.