Robot philosopher-calligrapher
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I was aware of this article more than four years ago when it first appeared, but didn't post on it then because I didn't think many people would be interested in it:
"Forget Marx and Mao. Chinese City Honors Once-Banned Confucian", Ian Johnson, NYT (10/18/17)
(Credit: Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times)
Now that we're on a Chinese calligraphy and philosophy roll and have a number of robot calligraphy posts under our belt (see "Selected readings" below), writing a post about a robotic philosopher-calligrapher is not so outlandish after all.
That imposing gentleman-robot in the photograph is Wang Yangming (1472-1529), a famous Neo-Confucian philosopher who has always been one of my favorite Chinese thinkers because of his unconventionality and eclecticism, so much so that he has often been characterized as a closet Buddhist with Zennish tendencies. Wang was also a general, politician, and writer.
Wang's favorite aphorism is "zhīxíng héyī 知行合一" ("unity of knowledge and action"). His robotic likeness can write that phrase and a thousand others that are associated with him.
Selected readings
- "Calligraphic tie: 'Letter on the Controversy over Seating Protocol'" (5/2/22)
- "Christian Dior's 'Quiproquo' cocktail dress and the florid rhubarb prescription written on it" (6/5/15)
- "Robot calligraphy" (12/27/19)
- "Robotic copying" (2/22/19)
- "Mechanistic writing of Chinese characters" (9/14/19)
- "Heart-mind" (9/29/14)
- Bryan Van Norden, "Wang Yangming", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (7/11/14; rev. 9/6/19)
[h.t. Bryan Van Norden; thanks to Mark Metcalf]
Victor Mair said,
May 8, 2022 @ 9:57 pm
From an anonymous contributor:
Well, I feel that this is just a trendy AI gimmick to attract "blue-collar" audience. You may also stretch its underlying semiotics by suggeting that this is an high-tech tactic to "de-elitize" classical Chinses scholarship and engage "lay" (or common) readers for the purpose of promoting and globalizing traditional Chinses culture (as part of this country's nationalist agenda).
Victor Mair said,
May 8, 2022 @ 10:25 pm
From another anonymous contributor:
THERE'S SOMETHING SYMBOLIC GOING ON HERE, BUT I'M GOING TO
HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE. I'M THINKING ALONG THE LINES OF:… HAVING A SCHOLAR REDUCED TO A MARKETPLACE SCRIBE, WITH A COIN SLOT IN HIM/IT (PREFERRED PRONOUN?), OR MAYBE THESE DAYS A BAR-CODE? LINK TO ONE'S CELL PHONE. :-)