User:Wandering Ponderer/Cultural References to "Ghost in the machine"

See also: Ghost in the machine

Model of I, Robot co-protagonist, Sonny, alongside the film's novel car. The "ghost in the machine" helps explain robotic behavior in the film.

The "Ghost in the machine" is a term coined in Gilbert Ryle's book The Concept of Mind (1949), whereby Ryle describes René Descartes' philosophy of the human mind as ghostly and separate from the human body. The concept is referenced in several cultural works, but notably in works of science fiction due to its applications regarding artificial intelligence.

Music

• Ghost in the Machine (1981) is the title of The Police's fourth studio album. Sting states the album and many song lyrics were inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine.
• "Ghost in the Machine" (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) is the title of track 12 on SZA's second studio album S.O.S. The song includes themes such as the relationships between humanity, humans, and robots.

Literature

• 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), by Arthur C. Clarke, contains a chapter called "Ghost in the Machine", referring to the virtual consciousness inside a computer.
• Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese media franchise created by Masamune Shirow. The main protagonist, Major Motoko Kusanagi, has a cybernetic body with the exception of her original human brain. Shirow adapted the title from Arthur Koestler's 1967 book The Ghost in the Machine.
• In The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991), author Stephen King uses the concept of the ghost in the machine to refer to his character Blaine the Mono, the train with a split mind that runs the town of Lud.

Film and TV

• I, Robot, a 2004 science fiction film based on Isaac Asimov's Robot Series, features Dr. Alfred Lanning, a robotics designer who uses the phrase "ghosts in the machine" to refer to "Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols [whose] free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul."
• Season 3 of The Transformers (1986), includes an episode titled "Ghost In The Machine" in which the ghost of Starscream possesses Scourge, Astrotrain, and Trypticon in a scheme to get Unicron to recreate his body.
• Ghost in the Machine (1993) is a film by Rachel Talalay. The plot revolves around the transfer of serial killer, Karl Hochman's, soul into a computer.

References

Primary sources

• Ryle, Gilbert (2000-12-15) [1949]. "Descartes' Myth". The Concept of Mind (New Univer ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-73296-7.