Favorite Word—from Good Words

automaton

AO0 T AA1 M AH0 T AA2 N  :  

a mechanism that can move automatically
someone who acts or responds in a mechanical or apathetic way
[Source: WordNet]

Here is a some video of the actual automaton he created and documented in the book. Wonderful! He is so good with metals and contraptions. Link

Enlightenment thinkers were fascinated by machines called automata whose sole purpose was to mimic living objects, and they built some amazing examples of them. The frenchman Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanical duck that quacked, ate food, and defecated just like the real thing. But no automaton was more praised or more famous than the Great Chess Automaton of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Link

Almost all of us agree that we’re meat automatons in the sense that all our actions are predetermined by the laws of physics as mediated through our genes and environments and expressed in brains. Link

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