Talk:What Is Man? (Twain essay)

Latest comment: 2 years ago by 82.95.254.249 in topic Asimov's story

Asimov's story

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I removed this:

Isaac Asimov apparently had in mind this story when he wrote "... That Thou Art Mindful of Him", since Asimov's title is from the same Bible verse, and two of Asimov's robots debate the same subject.[citation needed]

This has been uncited since 2009 (the tag has been there since 2014, but the edit that put this in is older). While both Twain and Asimov reference the same verse, it's not "apparent" at all that Asimov must have had Twain's essay in mind. The fact that Twain discusses man as a machine, and Asimov literally has robots discussing the nature of humanity, is an interesting parallel, but certainly no proof of influence. The fact that Asimov's title is the other half of the verse (with Twain using the first half) is wonderfully suggestive, but even then the very least we'd need is some kind of source of someone independently noting the parallel if we can't establish author intent outright. 82.95.254.249 (talk) 11:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)Reply