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Book of the Machines

Author(s): Samuel Butler
Contributor(s): Adam Skowroński (Translator)
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Cultural history, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Samuel Butler; theory of evolution; consciousness; artificial intelligence; neolamarckism
Summary/Abstract: 'The Book of the Machines' presents a literary fantasy that extends the theory of evolution to inorganic matter. The text proposes the hypothesis that machines may be to some extent conscious and that, through their unchecked progress, they will eventually become the dominant species on Earth. Initially conceived as a polemic against certain thinkers of its time, The Book of the Machines would come to be regarded not so much a critique, as a properly ontological proposition – one that remains significant today, as Butler’s intuitions align with later and still-resonant scientific reflections. This work of the Victorian enfant terrible is an eccentric labyrinth whose traversal remains a challenge even to the modern reader.

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