Transformers and Philosophy: More Than Meets The Mind comments/discussion

[GoktimusPrime]

contains spoilers






I only started reading this book so I'm not very far into it, but here are some thoughts about the first forty pages...

+ It's very movie-centric. I suppose this is essential to engage a casual audience of non-fans. It does draw on other canonical sources too, but mostly from the live action movie. Second to that it makes a lot of references to the G1 cartoon. It then makes few references to the G1 comics and even less frequent references to Beast Wars. I'm personally a bit disappointed by this as I think the G1 comics and Beast Wars would offer more to draw from in terms of having this kind of discussion, but I guess the authors felt it more prudent to rely more heavily on the movies and cartoon to make the book more accessible to non-fans.

+ The book seems to disregard the fact that Primus is a multiversal singularity and treats the G1 cartoon Transformers' genesis as being purely from the Quintessons. I personally think that they should have either accepted Primus as a multiversal singularity (as it is officially canon) or made a brief disclaimer stating that they're intentionally disregarding the retcon... even if done as a footnote.

+ The book begins by extensively almost implanting this assumption that the Transformers are descendant from machines originally built by organic life forms; suggesting that technological civilisations, given time, will be able to upload their minds into robotic bodies (much like the Cybermen in Dr. Who or even the Gobots! And of course the inhabitants of Gorlam Prime); implying that Transformers would have a similar genesis. At first this suggestion irked me as I immediately thought that it was rubbish... after all we know that the original 13 Transformers (one of which being the Fallen) was created by Primus and that the Transformers race are descendant from the original 13; another multiversal singularity. But since then I'm wondering if there could be some merit in what the book is suggesting; and I think it would've been better if the book had tried to draw more canonical sources to support this hypothesis. For instance, we know that Cybertron was originally an organic world before Primus reformatted it as a machine planet. This was established in 1. Beast Machines, 2. G1 cartoon (Trans-Organics, arguably the Quintessons are also transorganic/technorganic), 3. G1 comics (Cybertronian demons). There's also the fact that Cybertron has water and an Earth-like atmosphere in every continuity (humans are always able to walk around on Cybertron without the aid of a spacesuit). Furthermore one of the oldest mysteries in Transformers is _why_ they have cockpits/driver compartments, even in their original Cybertronian modes. Who are these cockpits designed for? I think Dreamwave was working on trying to answer this question but I never really got into it since their company collapsed.

+ The book provides interesting (and very extensive) justifications for why First Contact with extra-terrestrial sentient transforming robots is actually more realistic/probable than contact with organic extra-terrestrials. Furthermore it goes on to also explain that the way in which Transformers came in contact with Earth (i.e.: unintentionally / amidst a civil war / hiding in disguise) is also a more probable scenario than say an intentionally open visitation from a peace-loving pacifistic species. This was quite fascinating to read.

:)

[GoktimusPrime]

Furthermore it goes on to also explain that the way in which Transformers came in contact with Earth (i.e.: unintentionally / amidst a civil war / hiding in disguise) is also a more probable scenario than say an intentionally open visitation from a peace-loving pacifistic species.
The book mentions how civilisations like those on Earth and Cybertron revolve around conflict and how it is an essential thing to both civilisations. The biggest things that drive our advancements in technology have been:
1. Food. Our first tools were made for hunting and gathering and a lot of our technology is based on agriculture.
2. War. Things like guns and the atomic bomb have ushered in huge leaps and bounds in our technology, such as the modern concept of R&D.

It is stated that so long as a civilisation still needs to contend with death and energy then war will always be an option. And pretty much these issues are resolved once a species converts itself into beings of pure energy, in which case the Cybertronians would never care about contact with humans. For beings of pure energy to want to establish relations with humans would be like humans wanting to become intimate with a species of intelligent bacteria.

The book states that the view that the Decepticons (and probably even many Autobots) hold toward humans as insects (albeit intelligent insects) is quite rational. Imagine if we humans discovered a colony of intelligent ants. Best case scenario we would declare these ants a protected species, but we probably wouldn't want to establish communication with them and form a close relationship. This reminds me of the way that the Autobot Elite Guard views Earth and humans in Transformers Animated (with the arguable exception of Jazz). They don't really wish anything ill toward humans... but they don't particularly care about them either. Their primary goal is to fight Decepticons.

Imagine if we found a colony of intelligent ants in Australia while we were at war with an enemy country or terrorists. Unless we had a reason, would we care about interacting with these ants? If these ants' mound possessed an important resource that would assist in our war effort... what would we do?

[kup]

Being Movie centric ruins it for me since there is very little substance in it to do a proper Philosophy article much less a book. Much of the content must be made up things based on the author's preferences on how things should be just like individual fans make up their own over elaborate views on things which have very little canonical substance.

[roller]

this is so stupid, a gimmick to cash in on the franchise.

[GoktimusPrime]

I just finished reading the section on the relationship between the soul/spark (not in a spiritual sense but in terms of personal identity*) and the book points out that the identity is ultimately independent of the body. For humans we remain the same person despite physical changes (e.g.: puberty, amputation, cosmetic surgery etc.), and for a Transformer they remain the same individual despite being a robot or vehicle. Physical transformations don't necessarily alter the core aspect of an individual. Reminds me of that saying, "show me a boy at 7 and I'll show you the man he'll become" (which I believe was the basis behind the "7 Up" TV series which follows a select group of people at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 etc.)

One interesting thing the book points out is how Spike's mind went insane when it was transferred into the body of Autobot X, yet the minds of Rodimus Prime, Springer, Ultra Magnus and Arcee remained perfectly in tact when transferred into human bodies.

The book also makes a brief but interesting comparison between Cybertronian religion with Zoroastrianism. It also makes frequent reference to Aristotelianism which is something I've often mentioned before in previous discussions about Transformers philosophy. :)

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*Personal identity is one of the issues studied in some NSW HSC Languages courses (e.g.: 3 Unit Extension Japanese).

[GoktimusPrime]

Some useful references:
+ The Turing Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test)
+ The Chinese Room (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room)

The book makes references to these, particularly to the Turing Test.

[Sam]

Did you have to buy this book online or were you able to get it from a place such as Borders?

[GoktimusPrime]

Got it at Kinokuniya. I checked Borders in Parramatta but they were out of stock. They told me that it's available from their online store though.