JAMES REITTER is an Assistant Professor of English at Dominican College. He’s published in poetry magazines, literary journals, and zombie anthologies. He’s convinced that his two cats are planning to take over Earth along with their fellow Thubanians. Then again, he also believes that there’s nothing wrong with anything, as long as he has Shasta and a Rush mix-tape.
HEATHER SALAZAR wills to be cryogenically unfrozen only above ground, as she loves the sun and has become accustomed to having binocular vision for the enjoyment of art and nature. Her career chip was implanted in her early and she remembers philosophizing as a freshman in high school. Heather is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Western New England University, where she teaches and writes about ethics and philosophy of mind. She also enjoys hiking, yoga, and all kinds of adventures. She’s most recently begun performing stand-up comedy live.
TRAVIS TAFT graduated from St. Johns College in 2011 having studied Mathematics, Laboratory Science, Music, Language, Literature, and Philosophy. Some accuse him of being an extraterrestrial visitor like his fellow Renaissance alien Leonardo DiCaprio (errrr, da Vinci). Personally, he considers himself more like the humble Hyper-Chicken from a backwoods asteroid (often referred to as Los Angeles). He spends his time writing for Able Gamers Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at disability awareness in the gaming industry, origami art, and saving the world through his extensive knowledge of television programming. ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
CURTIS D. VON GUNTEN is a Doctoral student in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. After completing an MA in Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, he decided he wanted to peer into people’s minds using EEG and brain slug scanning. He’s currently pursuing work in Social Cognitive Neuroscience examining the self-regulation of impulsive social judgments. In his leisure, you can find him eating Bachelor Chow and drinking Slurm in his favorite red velour pajamas.
DAMIEN PATRICK WILLIAMS is a time-traveling, black-market cyborg from the twenty-first century. He teaches about the implications of philosophical and comparative religious traditions for cybernetics and artificial intelligence, among many other things, and his career chip says that he’ll be doing that for a long time to come. He’s pretty okay with it.
SHAUN P. YOUNG is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Manager for the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. He has a doctorate in political science and has taught at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Carleton University, York University, Brock University, and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. His research interests focus on issues of justice in multicultural societies, and he’s the author or editor of five books—including Jeopardy! and Philosophy: What Is Knowledge in the Form of a Question?—and fifteen essays in scholarly journals. He has decided that the next course he teaches will be “The Mathematics of Wanton Burrito Meals.”
Index
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 105, 125
“A Head in the Polls,” 63, 255
“A Big Piece of Garbage,” 24, 31, 164, 204, 255
“A Taste of Freedom,” 3, 36, 214, 257
Academy of Science, 16
addiction, 13–15, 20–21, 110
aging, 84–87, 248
“Amazon Women in the Mood,” 126, 256
“Anthology of Interest II,” 15, 62, 256–57
Apology, 198, 200–02
Aristotle, 91, 155, 187–87, 213
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, 127
Atlantic City, 20
autonomy, vi, 125, 128–131, 134–35
Bachelor Chow, 268
Bender: Gender Bender, 60
Bender’s Big Score, 73, 144, 146, 176, 258, 260
Berlin, Isaiah, 14, 21
Blade Runner, 125
Big Bang, 149, 153, 184, 187–190
Box Network, ix
Brain Spawn, 33, 160, 199, 202–03, 218
“Brannigan, Begin Again,” 37–39, 46
capitalism, 24–25, 31
career chip, 81–82, 267–68
Christianity, 214
El Chupanibre, 225
Cologne, 18
“Conga!,” 16, 240–41
consciousness, 78, 239–244
consumption, 24, 28, 115, 117–19, 123–24
contradiction, 41, 53, 141–47
Copleston, Frederick, 155
Cosmological Models, 185
“Crimes of the Hot,” 26, 64, 257
“The Cyber House Rules,” 89, 133, 208–211, 256
cyclops, 211, 217
death, v, 10, 17, 39, 55, 57, 58, 65, 77–87, 120–21, 129, 139, 163, 189–190, 200, 202, 205, 250, 259, 266–67
depression, 81–82
Descartes, René, 62, 92, 179, 241
difference, 8, 36, 76, 96–97, 101, 110, 131, 151, 156, 187, 226, 243, 246–47
dualism, 179
Dwayne, 224–26
economy, v, 23–24
Emperor Nikolai, 65
enhancement, 172, 174, 178, 234
environment, viii, 12, 23–26, 28–29, 31, 103–04, 110, 153, 166–67, 174, 180, 218, 266
Epicurus, 78–79
epistemic distance, 166–68
eternal recurrence, 184, 190–91
ethics, viii, 107, 113, 117, 122–23, 127, 265, 267
evil, vi, viii, 38–39, 53, 62, 107–08, 157, 160–68, 197–99, 227, 231
fate, v, 74, 77, 80–81, 83, 86–87, 189, 192, 222
fine-tuning argument, 152–54, 156, 157
folklore, 223–25
Fonfon Ru, 211
Foucault, Michel, 213, 266
free choice/free will, 111, 132, 135, 157, 164, 186, 259
French Revolution, 21
“Fry and the Slurm Factory,” 13, 15, 167, 255
garbage, 24–31, 89, 164, 204, 217, 251
Gilgamesh, viii
Globetrotters, 146–47, 153
God, vi, 15, 47, 56, 139, 149, 152, 154–57, 160, 161–62, 164–68, 186–87, 221, 247, 252, 265
“Godfellas,” 33, 39, 69, 71–72, 157, 160, 165–66, 168, 257
the Good Book 3.0, 21, 161
Grandfather Paradox, 140
Greasy Sue’s Truck Stop, 17
handicap, 178, 209–210, 215
harm principle, 6–7, 10, 15
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, vi, 239–244
“Hell Is Other Robots,” 19, 38, 64, 126, 129, 132, 255
Hick, John, 166–68
holophonor, 232–35
homosexuality, 209
“The Honking,” 62, 256
“How Hermes Requisitioned
His Grove Back,” 66, 256
Hume, David, 91–92, 213
I, Robot, 125, 128
“I Dated a Robot,” 212, 232, 257
“I Second That Emotion,” 64, 218, 223, 255
identity, 4, 8, 9, 47–48, 59–64, 66, 79, 82, 84, 86, 128, 177, 181, 211, 239, 241
insanity, 52, 245, 250–52 integrity, 86, 180
intelligent worms, 17
Iron Giant, The, 125
jacking on, v, 13, 19–21, 110
Kif, 45–46, 48, 101, 103, 214, 257, 260
knowledge, 8, 41, 89, 126, 156, 184, 197, 203, 229, 236, 240–41, 243–45, 267–68
landfill, 25–26, 29–31
“The Late Philip J. Fry,” 168, 183, 191, 242, 258
“Leela’s Homeworld,” 198, 211, 218, 226, 257
Lenin, Vladimir, 21
“The Lesser of Two Evils,” 90, 227, 256
liberty: positive; negative, 4–5, 9, 14–15, 17–19, 21, 79
Locke, John, 63
logical possibility, 141
Lrrr, 37, 40, 61, 119, 121, 246, 258, 260
Lucy Liu, 208, 212, 232
metaphysically primitive, 155–56
metaphysics, 52
The Miami Sound Machine, 16
Mill, John Stuart, 5–9, 15
Mom (MomCorp), 24, 34, 40, 48, 65, 85, 92, 126–28, 130–31, 133, 261
Monkey Fracas Jr., vii
moral responsibility, viii, 129–131, 133
“Mother’s Day,” 34, 40, 94, 126, 131, 256
multiverse, 149–150, 152, 154–57
mutants, v, 34–35, 107, 109, 121, 153, 163, 210, 218–226, 258
Nagel, Thomas, 80, 87
Nibbler, 58, 60, 64, 103, 106–07, 139, 144, 199, 204, 211, 224, 244, 261, 263
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 53, 191, 193, 265–66
normalcy, viii, 48, 207–09, 211–16
objective truth, 246–250, 253
“Obsoletely Fabulous,” 61, 63, 65, 128, 134, 257
Ockham’s Razor, 156
Odysseus, ix
Old Man Waterfall, 5, 214, 260
Omicron Persei 8, 37, 61, 123, 230, 242
orphanarium, 17, 209, 211, 218
Other, The, 220, 222–23, 226
O’Zorgnax’s Pub, 15
paradox, 140–41, 144–45, 147, 177, 183, 187, 219
“Parasites Lost,” 17, 232, 235, 256
personal identity, 59, 61–64
physicalism, 179–181
Planet Express ship, 19, 21, 37, 51, 71, 139, 171, 176, 199
Plato, 198, 200, 202, 219–220
Preacherbot, 20, 161, 261
“The Prisoner of Benda,” 65, 258
Proctor, Morgan, 49, 66
Proposition 8, 214
“Proposition Infinity,” 73, 214–15, 258
Raoul, 224, 226
“Raging Bender,” 60, 256
recycling, 23, 25, 29–31, 164, 225
regression, 73, 79, 85
responsibility, viii, 129–131, 133
reverse fossilization, 15
Roberto, 65–67, 172–74
robosexuality, 209, 212–14
Robot 1–X, 65–66, 128, 131, 134
Robot Devil, viii, 234–35, 260
Robot Hell, 20–21, 38, 65, 126, 132, 161
robot subjectivism, 128
Roboticon 3003, 63
Robotology; Temple of; Church of, 20, 64, 161–62
“Roswell that Ends Well,” 69, 95, 139, 181, 199, 219, 257
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 15, 19
Rush, ix, 267
Russell, Bertrand, 155
Said, Edward, 220
sanity, 233, 248–250
Scruffy, 128, 130, 134, 228
sexlexia, v, 45–46, 51, 57–58
Shasta, ix, 267
The Ship of Theseus, 177, 182
Sicily 8, the Mob Planet, 19
“The Silence of the Clamps,” 66, 259
Simone de Beauvoir, 222
“Single Female Lawyer,” 36–37, 230
Slurm: Royal Slurm; Slurm Queen, v, 13–15, 21, 29, 76, 103, 161, 163, 167–68, 242, 255, 260–61
soul detector, 63
Soul-making, 166–167
“Space Pilot 3000,” vii, 79–80, 95, 198, 208, 239, 255
Sparky’s Den, 20
Star Trek, viii, 40, 46, 162, 231–32
Stoicism, 186
suicide booths, 80–82, 208
“Three Hundred Big Boys,” 239, 257
time-skips, 242
time sphere, 144–45, 147
time travel, viii, 139–142, 144–48, 183, 187, 190, 231, 263, 268
truth, viii, 5–8, 86, 89, 160, 246–253
utilitarianism, 127
Vyolet, 224–25
What-If? machine, 60, 62
“When Aliens Attack,” 33, 38, 230–32