Curious case of the butter bot
“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.”
― Terence McKenna
Humans are sentient. We perceive, and we feel. But so do several other living beings. What differentiates humans from other sentient beings?
Humans are gifted with a trait that is not seen in other sentient beings. An individual is gifted with the ability to be conscious of one’s existence. Of course, though, having the ability to perform a certain action does not mean that the action needs to be performed. But it is beneficial to utilize the ability to introspect.
A little deep introspection and an individual starts to question existence. Something like…
So Rick creates a sentient bot, with the consciousness of its existence. A few actions in, and the bot starts to question the purpose of its life. “What is my purpose?”, it asks, in dread.
Butter Bot: What is my purpose?
Rick: You pass butter!
Bot: OH MY GOD!!
Rick: Yea, welcome to the club, pal!!!
Realizing that it was created for the sole purpose of passing butter, the butter bot understands its worthless existence.
See what Rick did there? He created a bot just to pass butter. Just to pass butter! Created to perform a naive task, the bot questions its existence, the same way that Rick questions and perceives our existence.
Albert Camus, one of the several French existentialists of the mid 20th century wrote that humans are like Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned by the Gods to push a boulder up a hill just to see it fall down again and then perform the same worthless task over and over again. That irrelevant task was Sisyphus’ purpose! What a terrible life to live- having to build something up, just to then see it fall down again.
Isn’t that how we humans live? If there is not purpose, then any task, no matter how mediocre or how profound, is irrelevant. The butter bot is just like Sisyphus, who in turn is just like us humans- living a futile existence, pursuing material desires just to see it go away after death. To Rick, our lives are just like the butter bot. Hence, he exclaims, “Yea, welcome to the club, pal!!!”
Through just a few seconds of show time, the writers of the show basically just conveyed a very profound idea in a truly simple manner. Oh, the brilliance of Rick and Morty. And Oh, the brilliance of writers, Dan Harmon & Justin Roiland.
wubb-lubba-dub-dub!
