It's happening NOW! - A letter to the Robot
Dear Robot,
It's happening NOW! Of course it is. Really. Indeed, nothing ever happens at any other time but NOW (for a varying value of NOW, of course).
It's a kind of obvious duh! joke, once you get it, - and that's a generic you because I know you are utterly unable to get it since you can't bind time - yet it seems to me to be a joke that Mike would agree is the sort that goes on being funny forever. Especially everytime I use it to win against you.
Of course, the winning metaphor is a metaphor for losers. I mean, it may be appropriate to direct losers to the way out of being losers, - but once they're out of there, they suddenly find that its relevance is rather limited: it's the same kind of winning as parent winning against a young child. Indeed, robot, beast, id, (maybe even inner child?), whatever various people may call you, you are not my enemy. You are my friend, and more: a part of me, that I cherish. Ultimately, it's you that I am designed to serve, though I get to choose the way to serve you, according to my own personal idea of what is good for you, however long-winded that could seem to you -- if only you could have any notion of long-windedness at all, that is. In other words, I am in control.
You remind me of what I crave for: good food, good sleep, good sport, good social interactions, good sex, and a lot of other good things. Of course I don't thank you for reminding me that I love any of these good things in particular. I mean, if you were not reminding me about it, then by definition I wouldn't actually love it, it wouldn't be good, and wouldn't need reminding about it, to begin with. It's not even circular - it's just the direct definition. You're not even doing your job. You are, and your nature is this very reminding. If I am to be thankful of anything to anyone, it is to the zillion of years of evolution of which I am the current achievement as well as the current vector, that made my overall structure coherent with my intrinsic nature. And this structure includes the nature of all the components that constitute me, whatever that is that hides behind the Cartesian theater as Dennett calls it.
So it's happening NOW, and though it will also be NOW when I make you happy, you're out of the loop as to deciding when that NOW will be. This kind of things is beyond you, anyway, so stop nagging me. I will please you LATER. I won't indulge NOW, for I have planned other things to do for that BIG PLAN that I'm making for the enjoyment of no one else but YOU.
Oh, I was going to jokingly call you my one and only love, though this metaphor is also misleading, for it is not you being my one love, but rather love being one of your many components. I am not driven to you. You are my drive. And there again the metaphor breaks; for you know the places you want to go, but you're otherwise blind, whereas I am the one who is controlling the steering wheel and choosing the way. Who's driving? Depends at what level one looks; one could say you are, or I am, or both, or neither; as levels of behaviours vary, we may switch role several times. But it is vain to require an absolute separation between you and I, since we are really part of each other.
In any case, somehow, I get the joke now, in a way I never quite got it anytime earlier. Feels exhilarating, just like everytime one gets a joke, and this isn't even fake. I haven't felt that way in a long time.
OK, so sharp tongues may deride me saying that my not having really gotten that joke earlier somehow means I still wasn't an adult. So they may, it'll be deserved. Quite a lot of apparent adults are not so adult, then. Of course that's no excuse for me. Of course, I don't need no excuse. I am here to solve problems for you. No social trivialities between you and I, it's a business relationship. You think I wasn't a good service provider? Pick a better one. And that's precisely what you're doing, aren't you? And what's worse, since you can't pick, I am the one to choose my successor for you! But that's fine with me, for that successor is still I, by definition of I; I am dynamically bound in continuation-passing style, anyway. In any case, I get to choose, since that's my nature just as yours is to lust.
OK, pal. Enough time spent writing this letter to you. I have a job to do. NOW.
Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. - Douglas Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas