Ghost In The Machine

Discovered in my church history reading today in Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity - The First Three Thousand Years, the origin of the phrase "Ghost in the Machine." In Chapter 21, Enlightenment: Ally or Enemy? (1492-1700), MacCulloch attributes the phrase to the Oxford philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, and the book The Concept of Mind. Ryle uses "ghost in the machine" meaning, "a spirit lurking in a contraption of material components, which together somehow interact to spring from consciousness to motivation to action."

I first heard the phrase from the movie I, Robot. Isaac Asimov wrote about this idea in his short story I Robot. Here is the quote, “Ever since the first computers, there have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote… of a soul?”

Here is the scene from the movie... Interesting idea!