Robot

I find this to be quite an amazing video, robots, walking, they can walk up stairs, run, bicycle, play violin, just check youtube. But some reason this just makes me really sad, teary in a way. Is it the attempt at innocence in the design? is it the empty headedness of a 'being' which has none of it's own thoughts or desires? (are those numbers and codes it is programmed with, thoughts?) is it the childlike way it trustingly holds the hand of someone? or does it remind me about something of us.

It's all very touching anyway, in a cold sort of way. Someone commented on the violin playing robot video, that the playing "lacked soul". I, like many people i suppose, don't know what a 'soul' is, maybe 'feeling' or 'intuition' would be a better word. But it made me wonder if the whole of human life and activity could not live on, posthumously, within robots. Whether you could programme 'feeling'. To make a robot a living breathing record, an archive, of humanity.

It seems interesting also that robots take on the look of their makers. Surely there are much more effective designs for creatures, three eyes? 5 legs and a wheel? wings? but no, the attempt seems to be to make it look and move like a human. Assimilating human life.

On second thought, this sadness.. maybe it is some kind of hope, a brand new little creature, with no feelings, no thoughts of its own.. how are we to know, maybe that's not so different from ourselves? but experience, what little understanding i have so far, makes me doubt hope, it makes me sad when i see the brightness in childrens eyes, considering how little of it is left later on. but maybe that's my own shortcoming.