Undisturbed by Reality
Undisturbed by Reality
Victor Frankenstein’s Technoscientific Dream of Reason
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is not a tale of modern science. Instead, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creature shows that the premodern, alchemical dream of animating lifeless things returns after science has studied its “realities of little worth.” If Frankenstein speaks to us today, it is because today’s technosciences carry forward the alchemical dream. Whereas science requires a calm and peaceful state of mind, Victor’s technoscience – then and now – is driven by a supernatural enthusiasm. Accordingly we may find that even the supposedly ordinary nanotechnologies and materials sciences of our day and age are not “befitting the human mind” – long before one seeks to create artificial life.
Keywords: Technoscience, Alchemy, uncanny valley, animation, complexity
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