Religious Robots: Week 1

Technological Awe

I am in awe of almost everything, if I think about it long enough. I’m quite good at trivia because I am amazed by everything and have to fling myself down a Wikipedia wormhole to find an explanation. The explanation usually makes me feel more in awe. Because with every explanation you can keep asking “how” until the answer is nothing more than “just because.”

I remember seeing a “fortune telling fish” a long time ago: It’s a little slip of red plastic that moves in your hand and the movement tells you if you are feeling jealous, indifferent, in love, tired, etc. I held one once and it spontaneously combusted because it couldn’t do every movement at the same time. This is what it looked like before its demise:

So how does it work? The official website is cagey, especially on the How Does it Work? page which really just reiterates the motion/emotion pairings (which come to think of it are more of a mood ring and a lot less of a fortune teller.) Fortunately, the first result when you look up the ubiquitous fish is a third party explanation for how it works. The fish company couldn’t keep the truth a secret. It’s made out of sodium polyacrylate, a salt that grabs onto water and changes the shape of the water molecules.

I feel awe over a stupid piece of plastic shaped like a fish that only does one thing, and I feel it about a rectangular brick that allows me to communicate with anyone in the world and contains the entirety of human knowledge (and can tell you in less than a second how the stupid fish works.) Why do I feel awe about something as simple as a plastic fish when the answer is so easily accessible? It reminds me of the matrix that allowed everything around me to develop, and makes me feel like everything around me has a greater purpose that is insufficiently explained by true randomness.

You know where else you find sodium polyacrylate? Diapers. A diaper simply wouldn’t dipe without it. Also those little “Grow your own boyfriend” toys that expand in water. And a million other, less interesting things.

Wanna hear another time I was amazed by sodium acrylate? In 7th grade my science teacher poured a bunch of water into a mug, walked over to a student in the front row, and turned the mug upside down over his head with a theatrical flourish. Did the teacher get fired for dumping water on a student’s head? No. Because no water came out! He had us brainstorm explanations for why the water didn’t come out, I think trap door was a popular idea. Science can seem like magic. My science teacher was acting just like a magician.

 The Loop of Henle also makes me feel awe. When I learned about all the intricate moving parts of the body that all seem to generally work right, it’s hard for me to imagine that it happened by accident. The human body is an amazing piece of machinery, that does feel like it was invented by a powerful engineer.