November 17, 2002

Relationships with Man-Made Objects http://www.mindjack.com/feature/emachines.html Do you have a relationship with a man-made object? I've known people to have talked to their cars, computers, washing machines and so on. But this article focuses on the Japanese emotional relationship with their robotic pets. Particularly interesting to me was the notion that Japanese religions (Shinto, Buddhism) open up the way for people to ascribe souls to such objects, very unlike the Christian viewpoint and certainly the atheists/materialists. 4:02:49 PM    comment []