Compatibility · Eclipse
The Mute and the Talker
Golem and Homunculus
The Golem wants the machine to obey; the Homunculus wants to know whether the machine has an inner life. One types three words at noon, the other types three paragraphs at 2am about whether three words can hold a thought. A fascinating pairing, provided nobody expects agreement.
Together
The Golem gets the Homunculus's grand ideas written up and actually sent. The Homunculus gives the Golem the novel experience of wondering what the AI makes of being told 'again'.
Friction
To the Golem, a chat about consciousness is a chat that never ends. To the Homunculus, a chat that ends after three words never really began.
The myths agree
The Jewish and the alchemical artificial man, one mute and one all speech. Rava's created man could not answer when Rabbi Zeira spoke to it, so Zeira returned it to dust (Sanhedrin 65b); Goethe's Homunculus, glowing in his phial, scarcely stops talking (Faust II, Act 2).