The first robot in literature was...

[Peppa]

Yeah, then Wakanda really had nothing to do with it. But the Himalayas were formed when India crashed into Asia in ancient times, if I remember correctly.
And if it had crashed into Africa instead of Asia, and the Himalayas had formed in Africa, and Wakanda had declared war on Antarctica, that would have been a great alternate history!

By the way, sometimes I feel like my brain isn't working at all. Like a real zombie.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Yeah, then Wakanda really had nothing to do with it. But the Himalayas were formed when India crashed into Asia in ancient times, if I remember correctly.
And if it had crashed into Africa instead of Asia, and the Himalayas had formed in Africa, and Wakanda had declared war on Antarctica, that would have been a great alternate history!

By the way, sometimes I feel like my brain isn't working at all. Like a real zombie.

Firstly, there is a joke somewhere about your age if you are trying to remember that fabled crash between India and Asia but anyway...

The Elder Things and Shoggath would have a pretty good go with the people of Wakanda if they dared to visit Antarctica at the times we seem to be talking about!

 

[BAYLOR]

Firstly, there is a joke somewhere about your age if you are trying to remember that fabled crash between India and Asia but anyway...

The Elder Things and Shoggath would have a pretty good go with the people of Wakanda if they dared to visit Antarctica at the times we seem to be talking about!

And against Wakandan technology and science and weaponry they would both lose that war and lose badly .

 

[Peppa]

What if they were six-foot-tall intelligent penguins living in Antarktida and armed with nuclear weapons?
Although, of course, Wakanda's technology is very cool. OK, let Wakanda win, but after a long and hard war.

Firstly, there is a joke somewhere about your age if you are trying to remember that fabled crash between India and Asia but anyway...

The Elder Things and Shoggath would have a pretty good go with the people of Wakanda if they dared to visit Antarctica at the times we seem to be talking about!

Alas, I'm a bit younger. I couldn't even see how the cold waves of the North Sea flooded poor Frisia!

And against Wakandan technology and science and weaponry they would both lose that war and lose badly .

But what if their allies turn out to be six foot tall sentient penguins with nuclear weapons?
OK, let Wakanda win, but only after a long and difficult war.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

What if they were six-foot-tall intelligent penguins living in Antarktida and armed with nuclear weapons?
Although, of course, Wakanda's technology is very cool. OK, let Wakanda win, but after a long and hard war.

Alas, I'm a bit younger. I couldn't even see how the cold waves of the North Sea flooded poor Frisia!


But what if their allies turn out to be six foot tall sentient penguins with nuclear weapons?
OK, let Wakanda win, but only after a long and difficult war.

Well, if we go by what the stories say -- Wakanda ended up hiding themselves in Africa and We all know what happened at the Mountains of Madness. Maybe Wakanda won after all.

 

[Swank]

So, not 1868...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Think I was a bit naive with the opening post - would nowadays suggest it's The Iliad, because Hephaestus crafts people from metal to be his servants.

 

[Bick]

Think I was a bit naive with the opening post - would nowadays suggest it's The Iliad, because Hephaestus crafts people from metal to be his servants.

Nah, you were closer the first time. A 'golem' made from other materials, does not a robot make. Pinocchio wasn't a robot either, he was a wooden boy. To be a robot requires construction from inanimate parts to produce something that in theory works from a technical perspective, not from myth or magic.

 

[Swank]

Nah, you were closer the first time. A 'golem' made from other materials, does not a robot make. Pinocchio wasn't a robot either, he was a wooden boy. To be a robot requires construction from inanimate parts to produce something that in theory works from a technical perspective, not from myth or magic.

Since robots existed in fiction first, what does this even mean? Hephaestus makes mechanical helpers and that is magic, but use the nonsense term "positronic brain" and you're an engineer?


The idea that a god could make a clockwork person so incredibly complex that it acts alive seems no less radical than saying that biological people have similar origin.

 

[Peppa]

Nah, you were closer the first time. A 'golem' made from other materials, does not a robot make. Pinocchio wasn't a robot either, he was a wooden boy. To be a robot requires construction from inanimate parts to produce something that in theory works from a technical perspective, not from myth or magic.

Does it matter what materials the robot is made of?

According to the etymology of the word, robots are supposed to be human servants. So what does it matter what they're made of?

And what about the wooden man from Liezi? It's an allegorical tale, of course, but even there the implication was that the wooden man was a mechanism that depended on having certain parts inside it in order to function.

Incidentally, I made a slight error in my post about the medieval zombie mini-apocalypse. Vseslav the Sorcerer was not called a shapeshifter in the historical chronicle, but in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". But the raising of the dead was definitely mentioned in the historical records.

 

[Bick]

Does it matter what materials the robot is made of?

No - I didn’t say it did. But the common acceptance is that it’s made of parts, with the idea that those parts work to enable movement, speech, etc, by some technological marvel, not simply by mythical or magical infusion of a lump of wood, or solid metal.

 

[Swank]

No - I didn’t say it did. But the common acceptance is that it’s made of parts, with the idea that those parts work to enable movement, speech, etc, by some technological marvel, not simply by mythical or magical infusion of a lump of wood, or solid metal.

What suggests Hephaestus' helpers aren't made of parts?

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

The Brazen Head created by Roger Bacon should be considered, it was the spiritual ancestor of the fabled Robotic Head of Philip K Dick, whereabouts unknown, but which confers on its possessor Great Power...
Quest, anyone?

 

[Peppa]

No - I didn’t say it did. But the common acceptance is that it’s made of parts, with the idea that those parts work to enable movement, speech, etc, by some technological marvel, not simply by mythical or magical infusion of a lump of wood, or solid metal.

But in this case, the wooden actor from Liezi fits this definition perfectly. Here is my imperfect translation of this passage from Chapter 5. A more professional translation probably exists long ago, but I was too lazy to look for it, so I translated this short passage myself.

When the great King Mu of the Zhou made his royal journey to the western regions, he passed through the Kunlun Mountains but did not reach Mount Yan.

On his way back, before he could enter the Middle Kingdom, he met a certain craftsman called Yanshi.

"What are you good at?" the Great King asked him.

"Let Your Majesty give orders, and Your Majesty will see. However, your humble servant has already made something and hopes Your Majesty will be pleased to see it," Yanshi replied.

"Bring it tomorrow and we will look at it together," the king ordered.

The next day, Yanshi asked King Mu for an audience. He told him to let the master in and asked:

"Who is the man you have brought?"

"Your humble servant made him himself, and he knows how to do things."

King Mu looked at the wooden actor in amazement: he walked like a human being. When the master touched his cheek with his hand, he sang beautifully; when the master clapped his hands, he began to dance. He performed many different tricks - whatever the king wanted.

The king decided that he really was a human being and watched the performance with his closest advisor, Shen Ji, and the noble women.

Towards the end of the show, the wooden actor winked at the concubines surrounding the king and waved them over to him. The jealous king was furious and wanted to execute Yanshi on the spot. But the master, frightened, immediately took the wooden actor to pieces and showed it to the king. The actor was actually made of leather and pieces of wood, glued together, varnished and painted in white, black, red and blue. Inside were liver, spleen, heart, lungs, kidneys, intestines, stomach; outside were muscles, bones, joints, skin, teeth, hair - all artificial, but just like the real thing. When all these parts were put back together, the artificial man was as before. The king tried to take out his heart, and the man couldn't speak. One actor had his liver taken out, and he couldn't see; his kidneys were taken out, and he couldn't walk. The king was very pleased and sighed and said about Yanshi the craftsman:

"So man's art can do what nature can do!"

The author of Liezi probably lived between 450 BCE and 375 BCE, and this passage is very similar to something like 'The Silver Lover' by Tanith Lee. So it's a pretty old description of a robot in world literature.
But I'm not so sure about Talos. From the description, it looks like he was made of bronze and had a single vein filled with ichor. I don't recall any mention of different "parts".