Post by Rabbi Neil on Mar 6, 2019 16:53:12 GMT
Facebook has a rather enjoyable feature where it shares memories of things you posted the same day but in previous years. The other day, a memory popped up from five years ago that started with the words “You were in my life for 9 years, 3 months and 16 days.” I couldn’t remember who that was, but clearly it was someone who had died and I was expressing real grief. It continued by saying, “You took us all around the UK, you took us on honeymoon, you took us to Scotland….” I quickly realized this wasn’t a eulogy for a person, but for the first ever car that I bought. It ended with the words “Goodbye, old friend, I shall miss you.” My first response on reading this five years later was “Seriously? Why was I so emotional about a car?” Sure, it was the first car I ever bought and yes, it was extremely reliable and surprisingly spacious inside for a car that was so small! Yes, it took us all around Wales on our honeymoon. At the same time, the clutch was really heavy and really wasn’t good for my left knee when I had to press it down every time to change gear. The car salesman told me that it had air conditioning, but it didn’t, it just had fans. Why was I so emotional about selling a car?
That Facebook memory appeared in the same week that NASA confirmed that the Opportunity rover had died on Mars, and all over social media there was a surprising outpouring of grief. There was a palpable sense of loss. Memes appeared with little thought bubbles coming from Oppy, as it was usually called by NASA, wondering whether it was doing a good job, and when it would be allowed to come home. The last words of Oppy spread online as “My batteries are low and it’s getting dark.” That’s heartbreaking. Those are the words of a lonely little robot, yearning to leave the dry, barren wastes of Mars and return to the moist, life-filled water-world of Earth, but knowing that his mission is coming to an end, and instead he’s going to die alone on Mars. Of course, he didn’t die because he was never alive. He wasn’t even a he, he was an it. And the Mars rover Opportunity did not send the message saying “My batteries are low and it’s getting dark.” It sent a series of readings that were understood as a low battery warning and a light-reading. But for some reason, NASA, and countless people in society, felt the need to humanize the robot. NASA even played it “happy birthday” on the same day every year while it was on Mars! Why? It’s not like the robot had any understanding of what a birthday was. Why is it that we often take things that clearly aren’t human and give them human characteristics? And why, when it comes to robots, do we do it with some and not with others? Why do so many people get attached to a robot exploring Mars that they’ve never met, but not to a Roomba that cleans their own floor?
Disney were acutely aware of our propensity to humanize robots when they made the cinematic masterpiece Wall-E in 2008. In Wall-E, a single robot is left cleaning up Earth while the humans have escaped all the pollution to seek a new life in the stars. Because he’s been alone by himself for so long, Wall-E has started to pick up a personality. The actual process of why a robot following its programming for a long time should suddenly become slightly sentient is never explained and when we stop to think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. Wall-E should remain true to its programming, because that’s what computers do. Yes, occasionally they might pick up a glitch, but never a personality, unless that was specifically programmed within them. But Wall-E gets excited, he sighs with disappointment, he cares. And Oppy, the Mars rover, certainly bears a physical resemblance to Wall-E. Maybe that’s why people automatically connected with it, because they connected with Wall-E. But I believe there’s actually far more than that. Why do some people name their cars, even though they are in no way sentient? Interestingly, I never named the car I was lamenting selling – the Facebook post actually says “Goodbye, W176 DKF,” simply mentioning its license plate. That, of course, was totally different to Molly Metro, a car that came to me with a name already!
So, why do we do this? Why do we name cars? We do we humanize robots? Why do we ascribe sentience where there isn’t any? For many mechanical things, I think it’s the avoidance of fear. Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001 – A Space Odyssey – presents that fear very well. The computer is named HAL-9000 and is designed to be a companion for the humans on the ship as they head out to space. Unfortunately, HAL’s humanity isn’t real and it’s his cold, programmed logic that causes disaster for those on board. For decades, science fiction has expressed a similar fear of technology surpassing us, often harming us and trying to replace us, from HAL-9000 to Hector the robot in Saturn 3 to Skynet in The Terminator. We humanize technology when it surpasses our abilities, when it becomes more than us, especially when it bears some kind of physical resemblance to us – which is why so many people cannot but help see robotic cameras or even car headlights as eyes. Part of that humanization is to help us not be afraid of the technology that surpasses our ability. Part of it is because the fact that it surpasses us – the fact that it can walk around on Mars where we can’t – is that it carries hope. It helps us transcend. The humanization of technology is a response to fear and also to hope. We anthropomorphize – we project our own humanity – onto that which simultaneously causes fear and inspires hope.
There is one more aspect to humanizing that which is not human that goes beyond fear and hope. We don’t want to be alone in the universe – we want our human journey to be accompanied by other beings whom we imagine share the same journey. They don’t, but we bring them into our journey because we need to emotionally. That’s why so many people name their cars, because they literally journey with them. That’s why – named or not – it can be sad to let go of a car that has been part of our life journey for so long. We don’t want our journey to just be a human one.
So, I believe that these are the three underlying reasons for humanizing things that are not human – firstly because we are afraid of their power transcending our own and of our subsequent replacement or invalidation. Secondly, because (perhaps rather ironically alongside the fear) these things give us hope, they extend what we can do and inspire us to transcend the limits of what we thought was possible. And thirdly, because we want differing companions on our human journey. Fear of human fragility, hope for the human future, and companionship on the human journey – the three reasons for projecting humanity onto that which is clearly not human.
The Greek theologian Xenophanes wrote that “The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.” Humanizing technology and humanizing gods have the same roots – fear of human fragility, hope for the human future, and companionship on the human journey. The God of the Bible, the God of our liturgy, the God of Jewish tradition, has almost always been humanized, has almost always been described in our image. There were, of course, exceptions as Jewish philosophy developed – Maimonides, Spinoza, Buber, Kaplan immediately come to mind. On the whole, though, God is expressed in our tradition through thoroughly human language. God walks, God talks, God loves, God gets angry, God cares, God rebukes, God forgives, God calls to us, God responds to our call. We humanize God because God’s power is so much greater than ours and has the potential to destroy us in an instant. As the prophet Jeremiah says, “God made the earth with Divine power and God preserves it by Divine wisdom. With Divine understanding, God stretched out the heavens. When God speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. God causes the clouds to rise over the earth. God sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from Divine storehouses” (Jer. 10:12-13) Power, indeed! God as described in the Bible teeters on the brink of rendering us extinct, either with the Flood for all of humanity save Noah or with expressions of wanting to wipe out the entire Israelite people save for Moses. At the same time as that fearful expression of power, though, God also inspires hope. Again, Jeremiah informs the people that God has said, “I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11). Psalm 39 says, “Now, Eternal God, for what do I wait? My hope is in You” (Ps. 39:7). And as well as fear and hope, our tradition humanizes God as a companion who accompanies us on our human journey. In Exodus, God says to Moses, “I will surely be with you” (Ex. 3:12) and later says to him, “My Presence shall go with you…” (Ex. 33:14). In Deuteronomy, we read that “God will be with you. God will not fail you nor forsake you” (Deut. 31:8).
The humanization of technology is, therefore, very similar to the humanization of God. The way we have chosen to most commonly describe God is a reflection of our fears, our hopes and our need for companionship. I share this not to demean our textual history or to invalidate our liturgy. Instead, I share it because the public response to the end of the Opportunity mission on Mars can help us as we pray. It can help us see the metaphors in our siddur that instill fear, that inspire hope, and that provide comfort. It can help us realize where we project onto something non-human and what that projection says about ourselves. In so doing, it can help us not just to express particular emotions but to explore our own selves and to assess our own needs through the liturgy. Our liturgy is not an extensive description of God, it is an expression of ourselves, of our fragility and our needs, in the presence of an indescribable God. When we humanize God, just as when we humanize technology, we are really expressing our own core needs and feelings. Those feelings should be acknowledged, honored and explored, and then we can say we have truly prayed.
May we, then, all learn more about ourselves as we express metaphors of Divinity. May talk of God also be meaningful talk of ourselves. May we all find security, hope and comfort within our community and within our tradition. And let us say, Amen.
That Facebook memory appeared in the same week that NASA confirmed that the Opportunity rover had died on Mars, and all over social media there was a surprising outpouring of grief. There was a palpable sense of loss. Memes appeared with little thought bubbles coming from Oppy, as it was usually called by NASA, wondering whether it was doing a good job, and when it would be allowed to come home. The last words of Oppy spread online as “My batteries are low and it’s getting dark.” That’s heartbreaking. Those are the words of a lonely little robot, yearning to leave the dry, barren wastes of Mars and return to the moist, life-filled water-world of Earth, but knowing that his mission is coming to an end, and instead he’s going to die alone on Mars. Of course, he didn’t die because he was never alive. He wasn’t even a he, he was an it. And the Mars rover Opportunity did not send the message saying “My batteries are low and it’s getting dark.” It sent a series of readings that were understood as a low battery warning and a light-reading. But for some reason, NASA, and countless people in society, felt the need to humanize the robot. NASA even played it “happy birthday” on the same day every year while it was on Mars! Why? It’s not like the robot had any understanding of what a birthday was. Why is it that we often take things that clearly aren’t human and give them human characteristics? And why, when it comes to robots, do we do it with some and not with others? Why do so many people get attached to a robot exploring Mars that they’ve never met, but not to a Roomba that cleans their own floor?
Disney were acutely aware of our propensity to humanize robots when they made the cinematic masterpiece Wall-E in 2008. In Wall-E, a single robot is left cleaning up Earth while the humans have escaped all the pollution to seek a new life in the stars. Because he’s been alone by himself for so long, Wall-E has started to pick up a personality. The actual process of why a robot following its programming for a long time should suddenly become slightly sentient is never explained and when we stop to think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. Wall-E should remain true to its programming, because that’s what computers do. Yes, occasionally they might pick up a glitch, but never a personality, unless that was specifically programmed within them. But Wall-E gets excited, he sighs with disappointment, he cares. And Oppy, the Mars rover, certainly bears a physical resemblance to Wall-E. Maybe that’s why people automatically connected with it, because they connected with Wall-E. But I believe there’s actually far more than that. Why do some people name their cars, even though they are in no way sentient? Interestingly, I never named the car I was lamenting selling – the Facebook post actually says “Goodbye, W176 DKF,” simply mentioning its license plate. That, of course, was totally different to Molly Metro, a car that came to me with a name already!
So, why do we do this? Why do we name cars? We do we humanize robots? Why do we ascribe sentience where there isn’t any? For many mechanical things, I think it’s the avoidance of fear. Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001 – A Space Odyssey – presents that fear very well. The computer is named HAL-9000 and is designed to be a companion for the humans on the ship as they head out to space. Unfortunately, HAL’s humanity isn’t real and it’s his cold, programmed logic that causes disaster for those on board. For decades, science fiction has expressed a similar fear of technology surpassing us, often harming us and trying to replace us, from HAL-9000 to Hector the robot in Saturn 3 to Skynet in The Terminator. We humanize technology when it surpasses our abilities, when it becomes more than us, especially when it bears some kind of physical resemblance to us – which is why so many people cannot but help see robotic cameras or even car headlights as eyes. Part of that humanization is to help us not be afraid of the technology that surpasses our ability. Part of it is because the fact that it surpasses us – the fact that it can walk around on Mars where we can’t – is that it carries hope. It helps us transcend. The humanization of technology is a response to fear and also to hope. We anthropomorphize – we project our own humanity – onto that which simultaneously causes fear and inspires hope.
There is one more aspect to humanizing that which is not human that goes beyond fear and hope. We don’t want to be alone in the universe – we want our human journey to be accompanied by other beings whom we imagine share the same journey. They don’t, but we bring them into our journey because we need to emotionally. That’s why so many people name their cars, because they literally journey with them. That’s why – named or not – it can be sad to let go of a car that has been part of our life journey for so long. We don’t want our journey to just be a human one.
So, I believe that these are the three underlying reasons for humanizing things that are not human – firstly because we are afraid of their power transcending our own and of our subsequent replacement or invalidation. Secondly, because (perhaps rather ironically alongside the fear) these things give us hope, they extend what we can do and inspire us to transcend the limits of what we thought was possible. And thirdly, because we want differing companions on our human journey. Fear of human fragility, hope for the human future, and companionship on the human journey – the three reasons for projecting humanity onto that which is clearly not human.
The Greek theologian Xenophanes wrote that “The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.” Humanizing technology and humanizing gods have the same roots – fear of human fragility, hope for the human future, and companionship on the human journey. The God of the Bible, the God of our liturgy, the God of Jewish tradition, has almost always been humanized, has almost always been described in our image. There were, of course, exceptions as Jewish philosophy developed – Maimonides, Spinoza, Buber, Kaplan immediately come to mind. On the whole, though, God is expressed in our tradition through thoroughly human language. God walks, God talks, God loves, God gets angry, God cares, God rebukes, God forgives, God calls to us, God responds to our call. We humanize God because God’s power is so much greater than ours and has the potential to destroy us in an instant. As the prophet Jeremiah says, “God made the earth with Divine power and God preserves it by Divine wisdom. With Divine understanding, God stretched out the heavens. When God speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. God causes the clouds to rise over the earth. God sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from Divine storehouses” (Jer. 10:12-13) Power, indeed! God as described in the Bible teeters on the brink of rendering us extinct, either with the Flood for all of humanity save Noah or with expressions of wanting to wipe out the entire Israelite people save for Moses. At the same time as that fearful expression of power, though, God also inspires hope. Again, Jeremiah informs the people that God has said, “I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11). Psalm 39 says, “Now, Eternal God, for what do I wait? My hope is in You” (Ps. 39:7). And as well as fear and hope, our tradition humanizes God as a companion who accompanies us on our human journey. In Exodus, God says to Moses, “I will surely be with you” (Ex. 3:12) and later says to him, “My Presence shall go with you…” (Ex. 33:14). In Deuteronomy, we read that “God will be with you. God will not fail you nor forsake you” (Deut. 31:8).
The humanization of technology is, therefore, very similar to the humanization of God. The way we have chosen to most commonly describe God is a reflection of our fears, our hopes and our need for companionship. I share this not to demean our textual history or to invalidate our liturgy. Instead, I share it because the public response to the end of the Opportunity mission on Mars can help us as we pray. It can help us see the metaphors in our siddur that instill fear, that inspire hope, and that provide comfort. It can help us realize where we project onto something non-human and what that projection says about ourselves. In so doing, it can help us not just to express particular emotions but to explore our own selves and to assess our own needs through the liturgy. Our liturgy is not an extensive description of God, it is an expression of ourselves, of our fragility and our needs, in the presence of an indescribable God. When we humanize God, just as when we humanize technology, we are really expressing our own core needs and feelings. Those feelings should be acknowledged, honored and explored, and then we can say we have truly prayed.
May we, then, all learn more about ourselves as we express metaphors of Divinity. May talk of God also be meaningful talk of ourselves. May we all find security, hope and comfort within our community and within our tradition. And let us say, Amen.