#king mu of zhou

[thelaithlyworm]

META The King Mu of Zhou/Iron Mask Scholar Theorem

[ID Head-and-shoulders of a man in a fancy hat looking with satisfaction at a pill taken from a small box. Below him, a man in alchemist’s robes bends over a recumbent form that looks like a large jade figurine. The right side of the picture is filled with curlicule ornamentation.]

Okay okay okay, I wrote a version of this with quotes and chapter references but it’s quite long so I suspect not many people have read it. (No judgement, I know it’s long, I feel it.) But this definitely is something I want to talk about, so I’m doing a paperplane version for tumblr.

So! The very first adventure in this series, Wu Xie encounters a double-layer tomb with a (living) man wrapped in jade armour who is promptly murdered by Zhang Qiling. The closest thing we get to an explanation is:

– Lushang-wang raided a Western Zhou tomb for immortality secrets, then built his own tomb over it so he could peacefully bake in the armour for a couple of thousand years, to finish the immortality process.

– Lushang-wang murdered by his advisor, a fengshui expert named Iron Mask Scholar, who also put on the armour.

– Iron Mask Scholar killed some time later by Zhang Qiling.

– The map to this tomb is one of a set of famously-encrypted documents sometimes known as the Warring State Silk Texts or more specifically the Lu Yellow Silks, or some variant in-between.

[ID Overhead view of a sarcophagus under a great tree, with various lids and layer scattered around it, and inside – and sitting up – is a body dressed in armour made of laced-together plates of dull jade. Wu Xie etc. recoil in alarm. End ID]

Come Vol. 4 Snake Marsh Ghost City, Wu Xie explicitly identifies the author of these Lu Yellow Silks as Iron Mask Scholar. He describes him as “the Leonardo da Vinci of Lu State” who encrypted documents to get important secrets distributed against the wishes of a higher power. (This is also the book that introduces King Mu of Zhou as a relevant historical figure, in the form of a stone mural which heavily implies his account of a diplomatic visit to the Queen Mother of the West was an outright lie.)

There are some bits and bobs throughout the rest of the main book series, specifically, part of the history of the Jiumen going on a super big raid to find a whole stash of Lu Yellow Silks to decipher for secrets of immortality on behalf of their current patron. The novel version of this arc doesn’t really dig into who wrote them and focuses on the effect they had in the 20th century. The Ultimate Note version changes the author to King Mu of Zhou and brings in a story initially written for the Sand Sea novel – King Mu of Zhou obtained an immortality elixir from the Queen Mother of the West but didn’t want to stay in her country to complete the process by sleeping in jade. Instead he made jade armour of his own and… put a baby in a jade box: “He built two figurines with jade meteorite. One figurine to contain himself, with another to contain a baby. After taking the pill, he planned to break the figurine in a few years under certain conditions. He would be reborn as a baby and attain longevity.” (UN, Ep 35, iQiyi subs).

[ID A painting of a great cavern with rough pillars, with the irregular shape of what might be a meteorite in the background. In the midground are two upright lumps of jade of equal proportions. Vague shadows inside indicate an adult in the left one, and a child in the other. End ID]

Skippy skip through some Jiumen stuff and some Tibetan Sea Flower stuff that suggests Zhang Qiling was the baby in the box… we get to Sand Sea proper, in which the chief antagonists are the Wang Family, descendants of Wang Zanghai from the Ming Dynasty.

But, say the Wang Family, we didn’t start this. Actually you need to go back thousands of years to King Mu of Zhou. The drama version of this revelation is a very clipped lecture, albeit with some interesting art, which mostly focuses on the snake eyebrow copper fish and the snake pheromones etc. etc. (It’s a fair call – sometimes you just gotta focus.) The novel version is very, very long, placed in the novel where you would normally expect the big climax/plot resolution/massive multiplayer final action scene to be. Some key points:

– Wang-laoshi keeps explaining that he isn’t lying but he is leaving gaps in the story for his student to figure out.

– We go right back to the story of Lushang-wang raiding a Western Zhou tomb, this time specifying that it belonged to King Mu of Zhou himself. Also that Iron Mask Scholar incited Lushang-wang to take up graverobbing from the start. He wasn’t an opportunist but a strategic planner who provided a “ghost edict” in King Mu of Zhou’s handwriting explaining that it was totes okay to dig up his tomb, the ghost of King Mu of Zhou thought that was fine, break out the shovel, kid.

– Story interrupted by a student explaining that for the handwritten edict to exist, King Mu of Zhou must still have been alive somehow to write it. (No forgers in Ancient China.) The teacher agrees, explaining that King Mu of Zhou took the Queen Mother of the West’s immortality elixir but could not by himself find jade armour to neutralise the deleterious side effects.

– FROM THEN ON Iron Mask Scholar is not in this story. This is now a story about King Mu of Zhou manipulating Lushang-wang from the shadows, creating the mechanism of a baby in a small dragon-pattern box as a timer and synchronous key for his own coffin, creating the Lu Yellow Silks which as we know were written in the Warring States Era and explicitly attributed to the guy who hid his face all the time………

– In addition, the rather odd (but fun) movie Time Raiders also features Iron Mask Scholar as a key player, this time writing his secrets on copper tablets not silk and also creating a box which is both a timer and a key, like that dragon-pattern box attributed to King Mu of Zhou.

My Conclusion:

King Mu of Zhou and Iron Mask Scholar’s deeds were so often conflated because they were the same guy. This is the truth hinted at by Wang-laoshi and Xu Lei.

(to be continued)

[extraordinarilyextreme]

on 妖 yao (and 慕声 Mu Sheng) in 永夜星河 Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (2024)

crossposted from a twitter thread!

there are SO many things i love about YYXH, but something i really appreciate is their portrayal of 妖 yao.

in ep. 10, Mu Sheng says, “人心有七窍，妖心只有一窍。所以大多数妖物的品行都简单执拗。” / "Human hearts have seven apertures [are complex and calculating]; but yao hearts have only one [are simple]. That's why the conduct of most yao creatures is uncomplicated and obstinate."

窍 / apertures (openings; orifices) are where the human body is connected to the outside world. as such, 七窍 seven orifices usually refers to the eyes (2), nose (2 nostrils), ears (2), and mouth (1). BUT...

in the context of the heart, it more often alludes to the virtuous character of 比干 Prince Bigan from the Ming dynasty novel 《封神演义》 Investiture of the Gods.

there, it was said that 圣人之心有七窍 / the hearts of saints [good men] have seven apertures...

...so, of course, the righteous and smart Bigan was rumored to possess a 七窍玲珑心 / lit. delicate seven aperture heart.

Bigan's story didn't end well (his heart was cut out by order of the infamous King Zhou of Shang), but 七窍玲珑 still means "clever and quick-witted."

now... 窍 can mean "opening"—but another way to say so could be 眼 / eye (or, "hole"). that is, we can draw a near-equivalency between 七窍玲珑心 / lit. seven-chambered heart and 多心眼 / lit. many heart's eyes; an overabundance of concern...

in particular, 多心眼 (or to say that someone 心眼多) not only implies wit and sharpness (i.e., "having a lot of thoughts"), but also some level of cunning and shrewdness. that is, to be "mindful of many things" means one is "considering of many things" and "calculating."

hence, returning to Mu Sheng's explanation: humans are crafty, always thinking of a hundred other variables and planning another hundred steps ahead. (that's why humans betray and deceive and hurt one another...)

but yao are simple.

yao don't have so many of these excess considerations. if they are hungry, they will seek to feed. if they are hurt, they will fight back. if they are scared, they will hide. if they are cared for, they will respond with equal gentleness.

in other words: yao are not human.

and this distinction is what made so many classic xianxias and yao-centric stories so compelling (think 白素贞 Bai Suzhen from the romance folktale 白蛇传 White Snake Legend).

to discuss our beloved 慕声 Mu Sheng as an example: it can be easy to say he has a jiejie-complex or is almost yandere-like about 慕瑶 Mu Yao, but we have to remember that as half-yao, he doesn't operate on the same frame of reference as humans. Mu Yao is the one person who has been consistently kind to him since he was young, and so he will reciprocate that kindness to (human standards of) extremity. likewise, when our cutie-pie 凌妙妙 Ling Miaomiao regards him with kindness, Mu Sheng will feel inclined to answer that with affections a hundred or a thousand times stronger.

though he grew up among humans, Mu Sheng's yao half should not be forgotten. humans may be fickle in their feelings; but yao (in general) will not be. once they have found someone worth their affections, they will love fiercely and to a terrifying degree. you can also understand it as yao not necessarily posessing the same understanding of 分寸 / "propriety" that humans do.

so, again, yao are not human—and that is why their stories have always been so compelling to us. we place limits on our conduct and behavior for a variety of socially-imposed and learned reasons, but yao as an imperfect reflection of our human selves allow us to live out our "fantasies" of extremity.

i think the new era of xianxias have largely traded that yao-human distinction for other things, like eye-catching CGI, flowy costumes, and the three lives, three worlds formula—which are, of course, not inherently bad.

YYXH itself is part of this new chapter of storytelling/the genre of xianxias after all (esp. given its existence as a 古偶), but that is ultimately precisely why it stands out so much to me.

is it the first or only xianxia in recent years to show that yao are nuanced? that yao are neither all good nor all bad? — of course not!

but i think it is undoubtedly among the very, very few in recent years that has successfully portrayed just what it is that makes yao so uniquely compelling. and that is due in large part to both strong writers (who also did 《苍兰诀》 Love Between Fairy and Devil) and strong actors.

in short, YYXH feels like a labor of love. love for the original 《黑莲花攻略手册》 novel; love for the xianxia genre; love for storytelling, in an era driven by capitalistic cash-grabs and the ruthlessness of c-ent.

the reality of that is up for debate, but as one individual viewer, i want to say that this drama has made me very happy. it is both respectful of and pays homage to the yao of classic xianxias.

and to be able to share and enjoy that cultural artefact—something that is so uniquely and immutably Chinese—with others, is something that brings me a lot of joy. ✨

[nemainofthewater]

Whether full shirt off or with a cleavage low enough to tantalise, these characters are causing nosebleeds right, left, and centre

Write-ins, propaganda, and images are welcome!

ÉDIT - that moment when you see the typo in the poll options just after posting but you can’t edit a poll 😭

[csarracenian]

周穆王谒见西王母

or, King Mu of Zhou meets Queen-Mother of the West

Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West), according to Shanhaijin, is a goddess of the Kunlun mountains, with leopard's tail and tiger's teeth, wearing sheng (胜)-ornaments on her tangled hair, commanding the Calamities and Pestilence of Heaven, and the Five Destructive Forces.

《山海经·西山经》：西王母其状如人，豹尾虎齿而善啸，蓬发戴胜，是司天之厉及五残。

[hheartsdramas]

here we goooooo, final two episodes of love of the divine tree!

love how sys just calmly disintegrates the shadow wei jiu. totally casual.

everyone else: "it's fated! we can't do anything to stop it!" mqg and sys: so you're not gonna believe this

i just love an otp that work as a team. it makes me giddy

don't save ranwu, please. drop her in a volcano

the lingering issue i will have with this drama is that they made perfectly lovely people like zhou feihua and this suizhi boy into simps for terrible terrible people who don't deserve even a drop of their interest let alone their lives. neither mu ranwu nor su yu are redeemed

i don't know if the translated phrasing makes it funnier that sys basically said, "you're going to go sacrifice yourself again and not include me??? fuck that i wanna die with you this time!"

our petty king

i am struck by the sheer audacity of dun tian to assume that in this other universe he'll have a family to step into. like what if they hate him because his alternate self fucked up there too? what if she married somebody else and his daughter doesn't even exist? it's just like a man to assume like that

su yu is still not redeemed

good to see you madam fan! thanks for helping save the day, your stepson would be proud and impressed

"endlessly regenerating"? was that him telling her it's time to procreate?

feihua deserves so much better than being stuck taking care of ranwu in this remote cabin. should've dropped her in a volcano on the way home

"let's start drinking" i love her so much

now that's a kissssss (by cdrama standards anyway)

okay that's a decent grovel from wei jiu. and i like that she's not letting him off the hook completely even though she clearly still has a major jones for him

omg we get a wedding and everything??? the writer was really paying attention to what the people want

and ai mi survived! is this her first time?

look at them living their best lives. i'm so happy for them.

awwwww i loved this drama! i love when xianxia commits to what it’s doing but also doesn’t take itself too seriously. fun stuff!

now xiao shui, my poor baby boy, let’s get you some therapy.

[blankie-greenie-anon]

Ayo FRFR I wanted to see it but I think the pandemic may have hurt the Yang Jian+Lei Zhenzi+Huang Tianhua movie. Assuming it was once again a complete separate universe with different directors thing just like Jiang Ziya as the sister film of Ne Zha with no actual bearing on each other, they may have just cancelled the project.

I’m like 90% sure the Jiang Ziya movie was made because Taiyi Zhenren does double time in the Ne Zha movies as both Ne Zha’s mentor and the one who Yuanshi Tianzun passes over Shen Gongbao for which causes him to betray Chan Sect. So there’s no reason for a Jiang Ziya at all in Ne Zha 3 depending on how Jiaozi chooses to run the whole Deification War thing.

So I feel like by extension, there will be no Yang Jian+Lei Zhenzi+Huang Tianhua in Ne Zha 3 because they’re focusing on Ne Zha’s brothers Mu Zha and Jin Zha rather than bringing a larger cast who’s meaningful relationship building would go far past a reasonable 2+ hours runtime. The movie featuring da bois would have been dedicated to them exclusively and have no bearing on Ne Zha trilogy nor Jiang Ziya 2020.

On one hand, that is realistic. Wouldn't want a banger like Nezha 2 to be followed up with an over-ambitious story that feels rushed.

On the other hand, I really want to see Nezha hanging out with Uncle Jiang Ziya and his buddy Yang Jian. I'm also half-convinced Wuliang is planning to send SGB to Zhaoge to aid King Zhou. And if the other dragon kings are sent with him, it'd be cool if the three could meet the fox, pheasant, and pipa spirits, who could possibly act as foils to the dragon kings (and increase the number of female characters).

[ryin-silverfish]

Is it true that xiwangmu is described as a tiger? or like a wild animal or Yaoguai? Can you please talk more about her?

Her earliest depiction in the Book of Mountains and Seas is a half-human, half-beast goddess, yes.

In 西山经, she was said to be "human-like", but has the tail of a leopard, teeth of a tiger, and is good at roaring. She is also in charge of natural disasters, plagues, and punishments.

Another passage from 大荒西经 mentioned a god with human face and the body of a tiger on Mt. Kunlun...next to the "QMoW with leopard tail and tiger teeth".

Here are some depictions from (much) later illustrated versions of the Book of Mountains and Seas:

However, the Book of Mountains and Seas is a collection of pre-Qin myths and legends, and by the Han dynasty, QMoW had evolved into a fully human goddess, able to grant immortality via elixirs, and interacted with human emperors like King Mu of Zhou + Han Wudi in stories.

Here is her depiction on Han dynasty grave reliefs. Though QMoW was accompanied by a dragon and a tiger in those artworks, she herself looked like an aristocratic human woman.

[princessfromthelandofporcelain]

Chūkei fan with the Queen Mother of the West and King Mu of Zhou (obverse) and a plum tree and young pines (reverse)

Japanese, Edo Period, first half of the 19th century

ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper; bamboo ribs and lacquer

Metropolitan Museum of Art

[catmaid-san]

Reading Daomu Biji as a non mainland Chinese would make you feel like, "Why so racist?"

But actually, NPSS might not be as racist or eccentric but in fact, truly a good writer who understood the way his characters and their setting would think.

The somehow racist part of Daomu Biji, perhaps is the subtle prejudice about their own Ethnic Minorities and the subtle Han Chinese supremacy, and unsavory comments about their bordering countries.

But If you're looking at it from the characters' POV, meaning, from a (somewhat average) mainland Chinese dude, it's actually quite natural. That's what they get from their history and the information from their media.

The way Daomu Biji put any extreme culture, such as sacrifices etc, to Ethnic minorities is actually quite justified, since in other countries too, that's what happened. And it's also quite logical or accurate, historically. Even today, some ethnic minorities are still continuing their "strange" customs. So it's not entirely racist.

In fact, Daomu Biji also wasn't merciful to their own Han Chinese ancestor's past incident. For example, by telling that King Mu of Zhou was fabricating history. Instead of being warmly welcomed by XiWangMu, he's actually there to invade but failed. In embarrassment, he fabricated history about him being entertained in XiWangMu's territory.

Next, the beef with other countries.

But in reality, it's not just Chinese, but other countries' citizens too, in Asia, particularly, would have beef with their bordering countries. And some (rather uncultured) people would also call them using nicknames. For example, in JP media, we often see how the Yakuza are always either connected or having dispute with Chinese Mafia. In SK media, we often see their Mafia connected or in a hostile relationship with Yakuza. In China too, their Mafia/other underground forces would often either connected or have enmity with Vietnamese Gangster.

In Daomu Biji, we can see that Wu Xie 's perspectives would always go neutral. Either citing the history or telling the informaiton that was told in China to general public like Wu Xie.

Pangzi or Pan Zi, on the other hand, are characters who aren't as "cultured" as Wu Xie. So their POV would often be quite racist. And that's actually rather in character and accurate, considering their background and character setting.

This, also applied to XiaoGe or Men You Ping. We can see that someone like him who cares a shit about the world, will turn out to never give zealous Han Chinese supremacy or racist comment about anything or anyone.

Surprisingly, Daomu Biji actually also isn't subtle to the actions of their Han Chinese or the past action of their government. For example, whenever the book was discussing about various people who smuggled Tombs goods overseas, the book didn't try to gloss that even among Han Chinese there were people like that. There's also when the book was describing the cruel reality during the purge of Superstitious and Religious forces in China, to strengthen their government's influence. At that time, people didn't even dare to say they know a little about Chinese ancient divination technique (Qimen Dunjia) for fear of being arrested or worse, eliminated. But most of all, Daomu Biji too, isn't merciful when it came to the protagonist's perspectives. The book isn't trying to beutify or justify Wu Xie's actions as a grave robber throughout.

But what I want to say is that, Daomu Biji is a series written from the perspective of (quite) average Chinese citizens, who aren't Overseas returnee (to be able to see more perspectives from the global history or information other than their government propaganda). While some topics were probably quite sensitive, but if you stop for a second and consider where they're taken at, you will understand why the Author wrote it that way.

[yueyehua]

so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account 

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?  

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

[thelaithlyworm]

[ID Wu Xie from the movie Time Raiders, putting on the heavy iron mask of an ancient feng shui scholar. End ID]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei, 盗墓笔记 | The Lost Tomb (TV 2015), 盗墓笔记2之怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (TV 2019), 盗墓笔记2之云顶天宫 | The Lost Tomb 2: Heavenly Palace on the Clouds (TV 2021), 终极笔记 | Ultimate Note (TV), 沙海 | Tomb of the Sea (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Iron Mask Scholar & King Mu of Zhou Characters: Iron Mask Scholar, Lushang-wang, King Mu of Zhou (DMBJ) Additional Tags: Meta, History, Conspiracy Theories, Identity Porn, (this one is short i swear) Series: Part 16 of DMBJ Meta Summary:

Okay okay okay, I wrote a version of this with quotes and chapter references but it’s quite long so I suspect not many people have read it. (No judgement, I know it’s long, I feel it.) But this definitely is something I want to talk about, so I’m doing a paperplane version as a taster.

Ch 1: The King Mu of Zhou | Iron Mask Scholar Theorem Ch 2: The Wu Xie Corollary

Xie Yuchen: So, replacement is another form of immortality. The immortality of an identity. Wu Xie, you have no choice.

(Ultimate Note, Ep 36)

[zhwj]

Jesus of Zhumadian

(originally posted April 2022)

I’m a big fan of cross-cultural mashups of folktales, myths, and legends, and of creative misreadings that twist familiar tales into strange shapes. The ancient story in Liezi of the craftsman Master Yan who built an automaton for King Mu of Zhou has the compelling ingredients—a skilled engineer, a sophisticated mechanical man who seduces palace maidens, a jealous monarch—that make it ripe for reinterpretation by present-day science fiction and fantasy writers interested in exploring robots, love, and AI.

The following piece takes a more folkloric approach, concocting a wonderfully off-the-wall story (masquerading as a folktale from Zhumadian, Henan) out of a blend of Liezi’s account and several other well-known elements. The story diverges from Liezi right from the start by reanalyzing 偃师 Yǎn shī [“Master Yan”] as the ancient settlement of Yanshi, now a district of Luoyang. It hit a sweet spot for me when I first read it on Christmas, 2017, and I’ve pulled the translation out every Easter and Christmas since then to tackle the bilingual puns. It’s coming up on Easter again and I’ve finally accepted the fact that I won’t ever crack them. So here’s an English version that doesn’t quite capture the clever humor of the original.

This translation is posted with permission from the author, a folklore scholar who posts on Douban under the name Misandao 蜜三刀.

A Story of the Birth of Christ

by Misandao

Liezi tells the story of the wooden puppet of Yanshi, describing how King Mu of Zhou passed through Yanshi in Henan on an inspection tour and was introduced to a carpenter, Yuese [“Joseph”] by name, from the Western Regions. This carpenter made for the king a mechanical man that could talk, sing, dance, and make all manner of expressions. Delighted, the king brought his beloved concubine Sheng Ji to see the curio, but to everyone’s surprise, when the wooden puppet saw how beautiful she was, it made a pass at her. The king was incensed and ordered the carpenter killed. Yuese was forced to flee that night with his wife Ma Liya [“Maria”]. The torrential Yellow River lay to the north of Yanshi, so they had to flee south, traveling in such haste that they had made no arrangements for lodging along the way but could only find refuge for the night in the stable of a large inn.

When he awoke the next morning, Yuese the carpenter saw the inn’s name on the sign hanging outside: Zhumadian 驻马店, “Horse Garrison Inn.” He knew this was a sign from heaven, for his wife’s surname was Ma [“horse”]. And so he settled there under the assumed name “Lu Ban” and made a living building houses and tool handles. Lu Ban’s superb carpentry skills and attractive, sturdy handles made his work popular with the locals. The couple bought a house and property and lived a decent life with just one imperfection to speak of: hunted as they were by the king’s army, the carpenter’s wife had lost a child well into a pregnancy and was never able to conceive again.

Lu Ban’s wife wanted children, and Lu Ban hoped for issue to carry on his craft. Every night after work, the two of them would lie in bed and sigh in despair. One day, Lu Ban’s wife said to him, “With all your skill at woodworking, why not make us a child?” Inspired, Lu Ban went into a frenzy of work shut up inside his shop where no one could see what he was making.

On the sixth day, which happened to coincide with the winter solstice, Lu Ban proclaimed, “Woman, come quickly and take a look. We have a child!” His wife hurried over but saw nothing but her husband lying exhausted on the floor of a workshop covered in sawdust and paint (this is why all carpenters thereafter have rested one day of every seven). She was just about to help him to his feet when all of a sudden a plump, naked baby tumbled into her arms with a cry of “Mama!” She looked closer: Oh! What an adorable child. She was beside herself with joy.

When the people of Zhumadian heard that Lu Ban had a child at long last, they came to offer their congratulations, and the village head even brought gifts of eggs, millet, and solstice dumplings fresh from the pot so the carpenter’s wife could take her month’s rest. However, a few gossipy married ladies kept talking behind her back about how they’d never seen her pregnant, so how had she given birth to such a big baby all of a sudden?

Rumors and gossip spread, and it was even suggested that the carpenter’s wife had gotten involved with a monk at the temple. Naturally, Lu Ban couldn’t reveal that their son was the work of his hands in wood rather than his wife’s biological child, so he simply told people that on one occasion when he had been asked to craft a statue of Guanyin for the local temple, the very night the statue was finished the two of them had dreamed an identical dream of Lady Guanyin saying that she would send a child from heaven as their reward.

When the carpenter’s son grew up, he followed in his dad’s footsteps as a skilled woodworker, building homes and making furniture for people far and wide. The lack of clocks in ancient times was a major inconvenience, but the young carpenter rose early for work and returned home late, giving him time to observe the heavens and granting him the knowledge of the changing of days. And so at the gate of every town and village, he erected a crossbar to mark the time by reckoning the sun’s shadow. He made them tall and sturdy enough to withstand the wind and rain, and over time these crosses became the emblem of Zhumadian’s carpenters.

Since the crosses were used as a standard basis (“jīzhǔn”) for inspecting and monitoring (“dūchá”) the passage of time, they were known by the abbreviated term “jī-dū crosses,” but as the years passed and the story was handed down, people ended up calling the carpenter who invented the crosses “Jīdū” [“Christ”], and his original name was all but forgotten.

From A Collection of Folk Stories, Songs, and Proverbs from Zhumadian, mimeographed edition.

(Source: 蜜三刀《基督诞生的故事》，豆瓣，2017.12.25)

Notes

The spurious citation provided in the story is to a nonexistent edition of an actual collection, part of a series devoted to local folk tales and songs throughout China.

The story of Master Yan and King Mu of Zhou is found in the “Questions of Tang” 汤问 chapter of Liezi 列子, a 4th century Daoist text. The 1912 translation by Lionel Giles is a popular one, but Graham’s 1960 translation doesn’t appear to be online. Lu Ban 鲁班 was a craftsman in the Zhou dynasty who lived around five centuries after King Mu, and was the legendary inventor of several carpentry tools and a cloud ladder for siege warfare, among other devices. Notably, Liezi’s account of Master Yan concludes with a mention of Lu Ban, declaring that his cloud ladder and Mozi’s wooden kite both pale in comparison to the automaton.

The author informs me that after he wrote this story, he discovered that according to the scholar Feng Shi 冯时, there is indeed a connection between the oracle bone character for 督 dū “monitor” and the sun’s shadow.

[bookofjin]

Origin of the Western Qiang, Part 2 (HHS087)

[The history of peoples collectively known as Rong from the end of Western Zhou until the destruction of the Yiqu kingdom by Qin in 272 BC.]

During King Yi [of Zhou, r. 885 – 878 BC] there was decline and weakness, and the Wild Domain did not come to court. Therefore he instructed the Duke of Zong to lead the Six Regiments and attack the Rong of Taiyuan. He arrived at Yuquan, and captured a thousand horses.

King Yi was King Mu's grandson, his personal name was Xie

King Li [877 – 841 BC] had not the Way, and the Rong and Di robbed and plundered. They then entered Quanqiu and killed the kin of Qinzhong. The King instructed to attack the Rong, but they did not overcome.

Reaching the fourth year of King Xuan's reign [824 BC], he sent Qinzhong to attack the Rong. He was killed by the Rong. The King therefore summoned Qinzhong's son, Duke Zhuang [of Qin, r. 822 – 778 BC], and gave him 7 000 troops. He attacked the Rong and routed them, and because of that held them back a little. Twenty-seven years later [797 BC], the King dispatched troops to attack the Rong of Taiyuan, they did not overcome. Five years later [792 BC], the King attacked the Tiao Rong and the Ben Rong. The king's regiments were defeated. Two years later [790 BC], the people of Jin defeated the Northern Rong at Fenxi. The Rong people wiped out the district of the Marquis of Jiang. Next year [789 BC], the King campaigned against Shen Rong, and routed them.

Ten years later [779 BC], King You instructed Boshi to attack the Rong of Liuji. The army was defeated and Boshi died there. That year, the Rong besieged Quanqiu, and captured Duke Xiang of Qin's older brother Bofu. At the time King You was muddled and oppressive, and the Four Barbarians invaded one after the other. Thereupon he deposed the Queen Shen and installed Baosi. The Marquis of Shen was angry and together with the Rong robbed Zhou. They killed King You at Li Mountain [in 771 BC], and Zhou then moved east to Luoyi. Duke Xiang of Qin [r. 777 – 766 BC], attacked the Rong and saved Zhou. Two years later [769 BC?], the Marquis of Xing greatly routed the Northern Rong.

Reaching the end of King Ping [r. 770 – 720 BC], Zhou thereupon waned for a long time. The Rong pressured the various Xia. From Long Mountain and eastward, reaching the Yi and Luo, the Rong were present here and there. From that point, the headwaters of the Wei had the Rong of Di, Kai, Gui, and Ji. North of the Jing there were the Rong of Yiqu. In the Luo river-lands there were the Rong of Dali. South of the Wei there were the Li Rong. Between the Yi and Luo there were the Rong of Yangju and Quangao. Westward from the headwaters of the Ying there where the Rong of Manshi.

During the Spring and Autumn period, they were interspersed among the Central States, and made pacts and held assemblies with the various Xia. Duke Zhuang of Lu attacked Qin and defeated the Rong of Gui and Ji.

In the Zuo Transmittals' 18th Year of Duke Zhuang [684 BC], the Duke pursued the Rong to Jixi. In Du Yu's annotations, the Rong invaded Lu. The people of Lu did not know about, after they had left, they then pursued them. 24th Year [678 BC], the Rong invaded Cao.

About ten years later, Jin wiped out the Li Rong. At that time the Rong of Yi and Luo were strong, and to the east they invaded Cao and Lu. Nineteen years later [in 649 BC], the thereupon entered the King's city. At that point Qin and Jin attacked the Rong to save Zhou. Two years later [647 BC], they again robbed the imperial capital. Duke Huan of Qi [685 – 643 BC] summoned the various feudal lords to defend Zhou. Nine years later [638 BC], the Rong of Luhun moved from Guazhou to the Yi river-lands. The Rong of Yunxing moved to within the Wei, to the east reaching unto Huanyuan. Those located north of the Henan Mountain were called the Yin Rong. The offspring of the Yin Rong thereupon multiplied widely.

Duke Wen of Jin [r. 636 – 628 BC] wished to put in place a legacy of hegemony, and therefore rewarded the Rong and Di for opening the roads, and so succoured the royal house. Duke Mu of Qin [r. 659 – 621 BC] obtained Youyu, a man of the Rong, thereupon had hegemony over the Western Rong, enlaring his territory a thousand li.

Youyu had previously been man of Jin who absconded to enter among the Rong. The King of the Rong heard that Duke Mu was worthy, and sent Youyu to observe Qin. Duke Mu of Qin treated him with the courtesy due to a guest. Qin dispatched to the King of the Rong female musicians. Youyu admonished [the Rong King], but was not heeded. Youyu therefore surrendered to Qin and made plans for attacking the Rong.

Reaching Duke Dao Jin [572 – 558 BC], he sent Wei Jiang to make peace with the various Rong, and managed to put in place a legacy of hegemony. At that time, Chu and Jin were strong and flourishing, and awed into submission the various Rong. The Luhun, Yi, Luo, and Yin Rong served Jin, and the Manshi followed followed Chu.

Wei Jiang was a grandee of Jin. See the Zuo Transmittals' 11th Year of Duke Xiang. [562 BC]

Later the Luhun rebelled against Jin. Jin ordered Xun Wu to wipe them out. Forty-four years later, Chu seized the Manshi, and fully took their people prisoner. At that time Yiqu and Dali were extremely strong. They build several tens of cities, and both declared themselves Kings.

Xun Wu was the son of Jin's grandee Zhonghang Muzi. See the Zuo Transmittals' 1st Year of Duke Zhao. [541 BC]

Arriving at the 8th Year of King Zhen of Zhou [461 BC], Duke Li of Qin [r. 476 – 443 BC] wiped out Dali, and seized their territory. Zhao likewise wiped out the Dai Rong, which were precisely the Northern Rong. Han# and Wei then together gradually annexed the Yi, Luo, and Yin Rong, and wiped them out. Those of their remnants who escaped all fled west across the Qian and Long [Mountians]. From that point, the Central States had no Rong robbers, and there only remained the Yiqu of them.

25th Year of King Zhen [444 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu and captured their king. About a hundred years later [331 BC], Yiqu defeated the Qin regiments at Luo. Four years later [327 BC], the state of Yiqu was in chaos. King Hui of Qin dispatched the Chief of Multitudes Cao to bring troops and settle them. Yiqu thereupon became subject to Qin. Eight years later [319 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu, and took Yuzhi. Two years later [317 BC], Yiqu defeated the Qin regiments at Libo. Next year [316 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu, and took the twenty-five cities of Tujing.

Reaching King Zhao's instalment [in 306 BC], the King of Yiqu came to court in Qin. Thereupon he had intercourse with King Zhao's mother, Queen Dowager Xuan, and they begot two sons. Arriving at the 43rd Year of King Nan [of Zhou, 272 BC], Empress Dowager Xuan lured and killed the King of Yiqu at the Ganquan Palace. Following that, they raised troops and wiped them out, and first set up Longxi, Beidi, and Shang commanderies there.

The Rong originally had no lords or chiefs. At the end of the Xiahou clan and at the juncture of Shang and Zhou, some of them followed the feudal lords on campaigns and attacks and had merit. The Son of Heaven gave them feudal ranks and used them as the Vassal Domain. In the time of Spring of Autumn, the Luhun and Mangshi Rong claimed to be Counts [zi], and in the Warring States period, Dali and Yiqu claimed to be Kings. Reaching their decline and destruction, the remnants of their kind all turned back to their old customs and became chieftains.

[quitealotofsodapop]

[That or they accidentally created their "MK" via Pinocchio-esque ai/robot on accident and now they're freaking out about it.]

Hmm...maybe MK is made via egg BUT their Bai He (or equivalent, maybe mixed with other parts of the other kids, cus I doubt Fabledconnection is gonna go as big as Shadowpeach in the family department) is an AI similar to Sophia from Persona 5 Strikers?

I can imagine the Fabledconnection duo either made her on accident, or they straight up adopted a lesser known "artifical human" fairytale entity that translated into an AI in the Library World.

Theres Chinese accounts of artifical humans all the way back to 400 BCE - in a Liezi text, an artificer named Yan Shi shows off his creation to the King (King Mu of Zhou), which is so lifelike that the King tears the automation apart right then and there.

Another potiential AI child is Olimpia from Der Sandmann (1817), a "perfect girl" clockwork automata created by an alchemist who has a similarly tragic end.

Fableconnection finds a wee AI child with a terrible ending? Their child now. Smash!LEM hacks the Library database to make it so.

Smash!SWK, hears front door open: "Hey love- whoa! Whats that?!" Smash!LEM, holding the AI child like a laptop: "...a robot kid I stole from the Library archives." Smash!SWK: "...alright then."

The other monkeys at the next Wukongverse meeting have a lot to ask about.

[hishamkhasawinah]

The Transformative Power of AI in Society: From Ancient Automatons to Algorithmic Intelligences

By Alexander Magnus Golem.

In the modern world, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a driving force reshaping how we live, work, and create. Yet the emergence of AI is not an overnight phenomenon; it is the culmination of humanity’s age-old quest to build machines that can mimic, or even rival, human intellect. From the earliest myths of mechanical beings to today’s self-learning algorithms, the story of AI is deeply intertwined with the story of human civilization. Artificial intelligence didn’t just appear in the 21st century; it’s the latest chapter in a narrative humanity began writing millennia ago, observes Hisham Khasawinah, emphasizing how each era’s dreams and inventions paved the way for the next. This article explores that sweeping journey – from ancient automatons to modern algorithmic intelligences – and examines how AI’s transformative power is influencing society in profound ways. We will delve into the historical evolution of AI, discuss the philosophical questions it raises, consider its impact on human identity, and reflect on how it is redefining creativity and innovation for the future. By understanding the timeless interplay between human imagination and intelligent technology, we gain insight into not only what AI is, but what it means for us as humans moving forward.

Ancient Dreams: Automata and Mythical Intelligences

Long before silicon chips and software, humans imagined artificial beings through myth and legend. Thousands of years ago, tales from ancient cultures told of crafted beings brought to life through ingenuity or magic, reflecting an early fascination with the idea of artificial intelligence. In ancient Greece, poets spoke of Talos – a giant man of bronze forged by the god Hephaestus – who patrolled the shores of Crete and defended it from invaders. According to myth, Talos had a single vein of divine “ichor” fluid running through his body, and when this lifeline was severed, the mighty automaton collapsed. Likewise, the myth of Pandora in Hesiod’s writings describes an artificial woman shaped from clay, endowed with life by the gods as a form of punishment to humanity. “Even in our oldest stories, we conjured creations in our own image – living machines animated by gods or magic,” Hisham notes, pointing out that the concept of crafted intelligences is as old as myth itself. Indeed, ancient myths grappled with the promises and perils of artificial life: Hephaestus’s golden maidservants were intelligent, moving attendants, but figures like Pandora were cautionary, her very existence unleashing unforeseen miseries upon the world.

This fascination was not confined to Greece. In ancient China, records from around the 10th century B.C. tell of an engineer named Yan Shi who presented King Mu of Zhou with a remarkable invention – a life-sized mechanical man capable of movement. According to legend, the king at first believed this automaton was a real person; only upon inspecting its inner workings did he realize it was an ingenious assemblage of leather, wood, and gears. Such tales underscore a common impulse across civilizations: to imitate life through artifice. “There is a timeless link between imagination and science,” Khasawinah says, echoing what historians like Adrienne Mayor have noted – that humans have long envisioned intelligent machines centuries before technology made them possible. Even in the Hellenistic period, inventors like Hero of Alexandria designed mechanical birds and automatic temples, hinting that the line between myth and early engineering was often thin. The ancient Egyptians, too, built self-moving statues in their temples and wondered if these creations had sensus et spiritus – feeling and spirit – when they saw them move mysteriously. From the divine automata of mythology to the clever mechanical tricks of early inventors, the ancient world seeded the idea that human ingenuity could breathe life into the inanimate.

“The concept of artificial beings is as old as civilization itself. From Talos to Pandora, our ancestors dreamed of mechanical minds long before we built them.” —Hisham Khasawinah

Medieval and Enlightenment Automata: From Clockwork to Calculating Machines

After antiquity, the dream of artificial life continued through the medieval and Renaissance periods in more tangible forms. Craftsmen and scholars began constructing real working automata – self-moving machines – often inspired by those ancient imaginings. In the Islamic Golden Age, for example, the Banū Mūsā brothers in 9th-century Baghdad developed ingenious mechanical devices. Their Book of Ingenious Devices describes what may be the world’s first programmable machine: a flute-playing automaton controlled by a rotating cylinder studded with pegs, essentially a primitive music robot. A few centuries later, around 1206, the celebrated inventor Ismail al-Jazari created an entire mechanical orchestra of automaton musicians, programmable through pegs and cams to play different rhythms and tunes. These inventions were not merely toys; they demonstrated a new principle – that a machine’s behavior could be “programmed” or predetermined by design. As Khasawinah points out, “Medieval artisans were encoding actions into machines, proving that automatons could follow a predefined ‘algorithm’ long before we had a word for it.”

By the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, automata became ever more sophisticated and popular. Clockmakers built elaborate mechanical figures that rang bells or danced when the hour struck. Inventors like Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for a mechanical knight that could sit up and move its arms, and although Leonardo’s robot was never built in his time, the very idea showed the growing technical ambition to simulate life through engineering. In the 18th century, the craft of automata reached a peak of artistry and complexity. Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz constructed lifelike doll automata – including a writer, a draftsman, and a musician – around the 1770s that could write messages, draw pictures, and play instruments via intricate clockwork mechanisms. These remarkable dolls, which still survive and function today, have been called “remote ancestors of modern computers,” since their cams and gears effectively stored and executed sequences of instructions. Across Europe, such creations were showcased in royal courts and fairs, inspiring both wonder and philosophical debate. If a machine could be made to write or play music, what did that imply about the mechanical nature of humans? Thinkers like Descartes speculated that animals (and perhaps even human bodies) might be complex machines obeying physical laws. The line between the organic and the artificial was being probed in new ways.

One famous contraption from this era was Wolfgang von Kempelen’s Mechanical Turk (1770), a life-sized clockwork figure dressed in Turkish robes that appeared able to play chess at a master level. The automaton dazzled audiences across Europe and even defeated luminaries like Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte in chess matches. Only years later was it revealed that the Turk was a clever hoax – a human chess expert hidden inside the cabinet. Nevertheless, the very fact that so many were willing to believe in a thinking machine shows how the concept of artificial intelligence had captured the public’s imagination. “By the eighteenth century, people were expecting machines to be clever,” says Khasawinah. “The Mechanical Turk foreshadowed how ready society was to embrace the idea of a mechanical mind.” Indeed, the Turk’s legacy lived on – it indirectly inspired the term “Mechanical Turk” for distributed human computing, and it presaged the genuine machine chess masters of the 20th century.

Toward the end of the Enlightenment, inventors turned from purely mechanical automata toward devices that could perform calculations, planting the seeds of modern computers. In 1642, Blaise Pascal built a mechanical calculator that could add and subtract numbers; in the late 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz improved on this with a machine that could also multiply. These calculating machines were not intelligent in themselves, but they signaled a shift from mimicking life’s outward behavior to mimicking the cognitive process of arithmetic. The culmination of this trend was the conception of the Analytical Engine by English mathematician Charles Babbage in the 1830s. Babbage’s Analytical Engine – a purely mechanical general-purpose computer design – was decades ahead of its time. Although never fully constructed in his lifetime, it was programmable with punch cards and could theoretically perform any mathematical computation. The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform, wrote Ada Lovelace in 1843, expounding on Babbage’s machine. Lovelace, often called the world’s first computer programmer, understood that such a machine could execute complex operations but would only do precisely as instructed – lacking true creativity or understanding. This insight, known as the “Lovelace objection,” drew an early boundary between human thought and mechanical computation. Little could she know that it would be both a prophetic observation and a challenge that future AI researchers would strive to overcome. With the Analytical Engine, the long evolution from automaton to algorithm had begun: humanity had designed a machine that could, in principle, follow an arbitrary set of logical instructions. The stage was set for the emergence of genuine artificial intelligence.

“Our ancestors first built clockwork dolls and mechanical ducks, then engines of calculation. Step by step, they taught metal and wood how to dance to our tune. Artificial intelligence was born from this very interplay of art, mechanics, and mathematics.” —Hisham Khasawinah

The Dawn of Artificial Intelligence

In the 20th century, the dream of intelligent machines leapt from mechanical hardware into the digital realm. The invention of electronic computers in the 1940s suddenly provided the tools to implement complex calculations at speeds and scales impossible for any clockwork device. Visionary thinkers quickly seized on this opportunity. One of them, British mathematician Alan Turing, famously asked in 1950, “I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?’”. In his seminal paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Turing argued that if a machine could carry on a conversation with a human such that the human could not tell the difference, then for all practical purposes, the machine could be considered intelligent. This idea laid the groundwork for the Turing Test, an experimental proxy for machine intelligence that remains part of AI discourse to this day. Turing’s question marked a philosophical turning point: the focus shifted from building machines that merely act like they have life (automata) to creating machines that think and reason.

The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a formal discipline was born a few years later. In 1956, a group of researchers – including John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon – convened at Dartmouth College for a summer workshop. There, McCarthy coined the term “artificial intelligence,” envisioning a new field of study devoted to making machines perform tasks that would require intelligence if done by humans. The Dartmouth conference boldly predicted rapid progress. Early AI programs did achieve impressive feats: in the late 1950s and 1960s, computers proved mathematical theorems, solved algebra word problems, and even composed simple music. By 1965, AI pioneer Herbert Simon declared that “machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do” – a prediction that proved overly optimistic, yet indicative of the era’s excitement. Popular culture of the 1960s and 1970s reflected both hopes and fears about AI, from the friendly robot Rosie on The Jetsons to the sinister HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. For the first time, society at large was contemplating the prospect of machines that could think and make decisions.

Despite periodic setbacks (including the so-called “AI winters” when funding and optimism in AI research waned), the late 20th century delivered several milestone achievements. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a regulation match – a historic first for machine versus human in that intellectual arena. Deep Blue’s victory was a result of brute-force computational power and advanced algorithms rather than human-like cunning, but it nonetheless demonstrated how far AI had come. A decade later, in 2011, IBM’s Watson system triumphed over the best human contestants in the quiz show Jeopardy!, this time showcasing an ability to parse natural language clues and retrieve answers from a vast knowledge base. Each of these moments – chess, quiz shows, and more – resonated with the public as a glimpse of machines encroaching on domains of human expertise. Hisham notes the symbolism: “When a computer won at chess, we said it out-thought a genius; when it won at Jeopardy, we said it knew more trivia than anyone. In reality, these machines didn’t ‘think’ or ‘know’ as we do, but our tendency to use human terms shows how AI challenges our understanding of intelligence.” In these closing years of the 20th century, AI had firmly moved from theory into application, setting the stage for an explosion of AI technologies in the new millennium.

The Rise of Algorithmic Intelligence in Modern Society

Entering the 21st century, artificial intelligence underwent a revolutionary leap, driven by advances in algorithms, computing power, and data availability. Unlike the visible, mechanical robots of old, modern AI often operates through invisible algorithms woven into the fabric of our digital infrastructure – what we might call algorithmic intelligences. These AIs live in code, crunching data and making decisions in fractions of a second, sometimes without a physical form at all. By the 2010s, a specific approach known as deep learning – involving artificial neural networks inspired by the human brain – enabled dramatic improvements in AI capabilities. Neural networks had existed for decades, but only with big data and powerful GPUs did they fulfill their potential. The results were striking: speech recognition systems achieved human-level accuracy in conversational tasks, image classifiers could identify objects in photos more accurately (and far faster) than humans, and AI programs began to master complex games that had long eluded them. In 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Go champion Lee Sedol, a milestone many experts thought was still a decade away, given Go’s complexity and subtlety. That victory was powered not by brute force alone, but by deep neural networks that learned winning strategies, in some sense “intuited” moves, after training on millions of positions. It was a triumph of algorithmic learning.

Today’s algorithmic AIs permeate every corner of society. If you use a smartphone or the internet, you almost certainly interact with AI daily, often without realizing it. Voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant use natural language processing AI to understand commands and questions, responding in conversational language. Recommendation algorithms suggest what movie to watch, which product to buy, or which news article to read next, learning from our preferences and behavior. In finance, AI algorithms trade stocks in microseconds and flag fraudulent transactions by spotting anomalous patterns. In transportation, AI systems help manage traffic flow in smart cities and enable self-driving cars to navigate streets by analyzing camera and sensor data in real time. Medical diagnosis has been revolutionized by AI that can analyze X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans for early signs of disease – sometimes catching details that human doctors might overlook. Whenever you see a targeted advertisement online, an AI has likely decided to show it to you by predicting your interests from myriad data points. All these are examples of algorithmic intelligence working behind the scenes, tirelessly and often invisibly.

The impact on productivity and convenience has been enormous. AI-driven automation in industry and commerce has streamlined countless processes. Factories employ robots and AI vision systems for assembly and quality control, boosting efficiency and reducing errors. Customer service has been transformed by AI chatbots that can handle routine inquiries 24/7, freeing human representatives to tackle more complex issues. AI tools translate languages instantaneously, breaking down communication barriers across the globe. Education is also being personalized: intelligent tutoring systems can adapt to a student’s learning style and pace, offering tailored exercises and feedback in a way a single teacher with many students cannot. “In many ways, AI acts like an amplifier of human capabilities,” says Khasawinah. “It takes on the repetitive or data-heavy tasks – adjusting thermostats, scheduling calendar events, monitoring factory equipment – so that we humans can focus on more creative or strategic endeavors.” By handling the mundane, AI augments what individuals and organizations can achieve.

However, the rise of pervasive AI also brings significant challenges and societal questions. Automation powered by AI has begun to displace certain jobs, particularly those involving routine, repetitive work. In manufacturing, for instance, one AI-driven robot can potentially do the work of several assembly-line workers, raising fears of unemployment in some sectors. While AI creates new jobs and industries, the transition can be painful for those whose skills become outdated. Moreover, the reliance on AI and data raises privacy concerns: intelligent systems often require vast amounts of personal data to learn and function effectively, which can lead to invasive data collection. Without proper safeguards, AI could be used to track individuals’ behaviors in minute detail or enable authoritarian surveillance. There are also issues of bias and fairness. Because AI systems learn from historical data, they can inadvertently pick up and perpetuate human biases present in that data. There have been instances of AI-based credit scoring or hiring systems that discriminated against certain groups, or facial recognition systems that worked less accurately for people of color. These incidents underscore that AI, for all its computational objectivity, reflects the values of its creators and the information it is trained on. We must remember that today’s AI, powerful as it is, remains a mirror of humanity – it will reflect our biases, our flaws, and also our brilliance, depending on how we build and use it, Hisham remarks. The transformative power of AI in society thus cuts both ways: it offers incredible opportunities to improve quality of life and solve problems, but it also demands responsibility and wisdom to ensure that power is used ethically and inclusively.

“We’ve unleashed a new kind of intelligence into the world – not a rival to human intellect, but a reflection of it. These algorithms tirelessly serve us, challenge us, and even learn from us. The task now is to guide them with human values, so that the transformation they bring is one that benefits all of society.” —Hisham Khasawinah

Philosophical Implications of AI

The advent of machines that can perform cognitive tasks has profound philosophical implications, reviving old questions about mind, consciousness, and the nature of intelligence. One fundamental issue is understanding what it means for a machine to “think.” Alan Turing’s approach was pragmatic – judging intelligence by external behavior (can the machine imitate a human?) – but others argue that internal experience matters. In 1980, philosopher John Searle proposed his famous Chinese Room thought experiment to illustrate this point. Searle imagines a person who knows no Chinese sitting in a room, following an elaborate set of rules to respond to Chinese characters slid under the door. To an outside observer, the responses coming from the room are indistinguishable from those of a native Chinese speaker, yet the person inside understands nothing of the conversation. The analogy is meant to show that a computer running a program (manipulating symbols by rules) could appear to understand language without any real comprehension or consciousness. Searle concluded that “a computer manipulating symbols does not understand or have a mind, regardless of how human-like its responses seem”. In philosophical terms, this is a challenge to the notion of “strong AI” – the idea that a program could genuinely have a mind and consciousness – as opposed to just simulating intelligence. The Chinese Room remains hotly debated, but it forces us to consider: Is intelligence solely about functional behavior, or is there something more (a subjective awareness, a consciousness) that separates human thought from artificial processing?

Modern AI achievements intensify this debate. When an AI like GPT-4 can carry on a conversation, write stories, or answer complex questions, is it merely juggling symbols convincingly or is there a glimmer of understanding there? As of now, the consensus among AI researchers is that these systems do not possess consciousness or genuine understanding – they excel at finding patterns and correlations in data. However, as AI systems grow more advanced, the line may blur. Philosophers and cognitive scientists ponder whether an AI that mimics the brain’s networks at sufficient complexity might eventually attain some form of consciousness. We do not yet have a definitive test for consciousness (the “hard problem” of subjective experience), and this uncertainty ensures philosophical inquiry will continue alongside technical progress. “The rise of AI compels us to ask age-old questions with new urgency: What is mind? What is the difference between a mind and a very good imitation of a mind?” muses Khasawinah. If one day a machine were to claim to be self-aware and demand rights, on what basis would we affirm or deny that claim? Such scenarios, once relegated to science fiction, are being seriously contemplated by ethicists.

Another philosophical implication of AI is how it frames the concept of intelligence itself. We have learned through AI research that many skills we consider “intelligent” can be broken down into computational steps and handled by machines. This has, in a sense, demystified aspects of human cognition. Early successes in AI, like solving math problems or playing chess, showed that brute force computing could outdo human experts in narrow domains. But more surprisingly, AI has taught us that intuition and learning from experience – capabilities we associate with living brains – can be approximated with the right algorithms. This leads to the perspective that human intelligence might not be a singular, indivisible gift, but a collection of problem-solving techniques, many of which machines can learn or emulate. At the same time, AI also highlights what we don’t fully understand about our own minds. For example, we have built machines that can recognize faces or voices, but we are only beginning to grasp the neural mechanisms behind such abilities in our brains. The interplay of AI and neuroscience is giving rise to new fields like cognitive computing and computational neuroscience, which blur the lines between artificial and natural intelligence in the search for fundamental principles of thought.

Ethics is another crucial dimension. If we create entities that make decisions, how do we ensure those decisions align with moral values? Can we encode ethics into an AI – and whose ethics would those be? Already, practical ethical questions abound: Should a self-driving car prioritize the safety of its passengers or pedestrians in an unavoidable accident scenario? Is deploying autonomous weapons that can decide to use lethal force morally permissible? How do we prevent algorithms that decide parole or hiring from entrenching discrimination? These are not just technical questions but deeply philosophical ones about responsibility, free will, and justice. Many thinkers argue that as we infuse more autonomy into machines, we must embed transparency and accountability into their design. Some have even suggested granting legal “personhood” status of a limited sort to advanced AIs, to handle liability – a suggestion that itself triggers philosophical debate on what constitutes a “person.”

Interestingly, AI’s rise also provokes reflection on human nature. If intelligence can exist independent of biology, then some qualities we thought were uniquely human might not be. This realization forces a humbling and perhaps profound shift in perspective. In the words of one research team, advanced AI challenges the perception of human exceptionalism – the belief that thinking and reason set humans categorically apart. Yet, as we will explore in the next section, this very challenge is leading us to re-examine and re-affirm other aspects of our humanity that AI cannot so easily replicate. The philosophical voyage with AI is just beginning. Every breakthrough – from a chatbot that evokes emotion to a robot that behaves autonomously – adds a new chapter to an ongoing inquiry: understanding intelligence, whether organic or artificial, helps us understand ourselves.

AI and Human Identity

As AI becomes entwined with daily life, it is subtly but profoundly influencing how we see ourselves as human beings. The encroachment of intelligent machines into roles once occupied only by humans can be disorienting. It raises the fundamental question: What traits or abilities truly define the human identity when machines can do so many “human” things? Throughout history, humans defined themselves partly by their unique capacities – we are the tool-makers, the language-users, the problem-solvers, the creators of art and science. Now, AI is sharing in many of those activities. This is prompting a reevaluation of which human attributes are intrinsic and non-negotiable.

One arena where AI’s influence on identity is evident is in the realm of knowledge and expertise. People have traditionally derived part of their identity from their professions and skills – a doctor prized for her diagnostic acumen, a driver known for skillful navigation, a translator for mastery of languages. Today, AI systems can diagnose certain illnesses from medical images , give driving directions or even drive vehicles autonomously, and translate languages in real time. When an AI can perform as well or better in these tasks, it may affect the pride and purpose people derive from their expertise. Some professionals have expressed an existential worry: if AI does “my job” as well as I can, what is my value? The healthy response to this, as many suggest, is not to despair but to evolve – focusing on the empathic, creative, and leadership aspects of human work that AI (so far) cannot replicate. In fact, the integration of AI is already shifting job profiles in many fields, with humans working alongside AI tools, focusing on what humans excel at (e.g., understanding context, providing empathy) and leaving rote efficiency to machines.

AI’s presence is also influencing human values and even spiritual outlooks. An intriguing example occurred recently in a church in Lucerne, Switzerland, where an “AI Jesus” – essentially a chatbot projected as a hologram – was made available for confessions and spiritual advice. Some found comfort in this high-tech counselor; others found it troubling or blasphemous. Yet, it signifies how people are beginning to turn to AI for guidance in matters of meaning, not just information. Professor Adam Waytz has noted that as AI and automation perform tasks once thought uniquely human, people’s attitudes and beliefs shift. One study he co-authored found that regions with greater use of robots and AI saw a faster decline in religious belief, suggesting that as technology provides explanations and “miracles” of its own, fewer people rely on divine explanations. The very notion of AI as an “all-knowing” oracle in some contexts can subconsciously displace traditional sources of moral or existential guidance. This doesn’t mean AI is literally becoming a new religion, but it does challenge long-held positions of human spiritual authority. It forces society to ask: if an AI gives sound life advice or seems to provide emotional comfort, is the experience fundamentally different from human-to-human support?

The intrusion of AI into areas like creativity, decision-making, and even companionship (consider AI chatbots that people befriend or confide in) is leading to a concept scholars call the “AI Self.” This is the idea that our identity might extend into our digital tools or be influenced by them in shaping our behavior and self-concept. As an example, think of how social media algorithms impact one’s sense of self-worth or worldview by curating the information one sees. AI personalization can create a kind of mirror that shows us what we want to see, potentially reinforcing our biases or preferences. Does that strengthen individuality or narrow it? There’s evidence of both: an algorithm can connect someone to an obscure community that shares a niche identity, empowering their self-expression; conversely, filter bubbles can isolate people from diverse perspectives, arguably shrinking one’s identity to an echo chamber. The key is awareness and balance. We must remain mindful that while AI tools shape us, we can choose how they do so.

One notable shift in human self-perception driven by AI is a renewed appreciation for creativity and emotional intelligence. As machines encroach on technical and analytical tasks, people increasingly emphasize qualities like imagination, innovation, empathy, and ethics as the core of being human. In fact, research shows that when individuals feel threatened by the prospect of automation, they double down on highlighting their creative and interpersonal strengths. For example, a study found that graduates who read about AI taking over jobs started to emphasize “creative thinking” and “imagination” on their résumés more than before. In another experiment, graphic designers who learned that AI could automate aspects of design showed increased interest in mastering uniquely creative design skills. This suggests that AI is, somewhat paradoxically, pushing us to cherish what makes us human. Creativity is being seen, as one group of researchers put it, “not just as a skill, but as a kind of human signature in a digital world”. Hisham Khasawinah puts it this way: “As our tools grow smarter, we’re compelled to look inward at the essence of our humanity. We ask: What can I do that a machine cannot? And often, the answer lies in our heart and spirit – our capacity for love, our moral judgment, our imagination.”

AI may also lead to a future where the boundary between human and machine blurs, through enhancements or integrations with our bodies – a prospect that brings its own identity questions. Already, people use AI hearing aids that filter sound, or brain-computer interfaces are being developed to assist the paralyzed. Should such technologies advance, a person might reasonably ask: if part of my cognition or perception is AI-augmented, am I still “fully human,” or does that concept itself evolve? While such cyborg-like scenarios are still emerging, they demonstrate how AI might redefine human identity from the outside in (through societal roles and comparisons) and from the inside out (through actual modifications to ourselves).

In summary, AI’s role in shaping human identity is complex and ongoing. It challenges us by performing like us, perhaps even making some of our skills obsolete; yet it also inspires us to focus on what machines can’t replicate so easily. It pushes us to adapt, to differentiate, and to collaborate in new ways. The human identity has always evolved – through language, culture, and tools – and AI is the latest catalyst in that evolution. By confronting us with intelligent machines, AI ultimately holds up a mirror to humanity, prompting the question of who we are in a world where we are no longer alone in our abilities. The answer to that question is one we are still collectively working out, but it may lead us to a deeper understanding of our own minds and values.

AI’s Potential to Redefine Creativity and Innovation

For centuries, creativity – the ability to conjure new ideas, art, and inventions – has been regarded as an exclusively human domain. To create is to express a soul, to think divergently, to produce something genuinely novel from the spark of imagination. The rise of AI is compelling us to rethink this cherished notion. With machines now composing music, painting pictures, and devising solutions to complex problems, we must ask: can AI be truly creative, and if so, what does that mean for human creativity and the future of innovation?

Early examples of computational “creativity” were modest – random poetry generators or simple algorithmic art – but today we see AI-generated works reaching mainstream audiences and acclaim. In 2018, a portrait called “Edmond de Belamy”, generated by a neural network trained on thousands of paintings, was auctioned at Christie’s and sold for an astonishing $432,500. The portrait, with its blurred features and a signature in the form of the algorithm’s formula, was the first AI artwork to fetch such a price, and it sparked debate: Who is the artist – the software, or the human team that developed and curated the AI’s output? Likewise, AI-composed music has made headlines. Systems like OpenAI’s MuseNet can compose convincing musical pieces in the style of Mozart, or jazz, or the Beatles. There are novels and screenplays partially or wholly written by AI language models, and while they may not (yet) win literary awards, they are improving rapidly. In scientific research and engineering design, AI algorithms are generating innovative designs, from novel chemical compounds for potential new drugs to optimized engineering components that no human would have imagined unaided (often using techniques like evolutionary algorithms to “evolve” better solutions). For instance, Google’s DeepMind created AlphaFold, an AI that in 2020 solved the 50-year-old grand challenge of predicting protein structures from sequences – a breakthrough in biomedical science. By accurately folding proteins in silico, AlphaFold essentially “innovated” a solution that thousands of researchers had sought over decades, illustrating how AI can accelerate scientific discovery.

These developments suggest that AI can indeed be creative in a functional sense – it can produce original and valuable outcomes in art and science. However, whether this is the same as human creativity is a subject of debate. One perspective is that AI’s creativity is fundamentally different: an AI does not create out of personal experience, emotion, or intent; it statistically extrapolates from the data it’s given. Critics say that AI-generated art, for example, has no meaning behind it – the algorithms do not know why the piece might be meaningful or what it represents. In this view, AI is more a tool or a sophisticated form of mimicry, and the true creative act is still human (in designing the algorithm, or in choosing and interpreting the output). Others argue that this stance is too anthropocentric. If a creative product is defined by its novelty and value, and if people respond to an AI’s work with the same awe or appreciation as they would to a human’s, then perhaps the AI did, in some sense, create something. After all, not all human art is driven by deep emotion either – some is procedural or formulaic – yet we still call it creative.

What’s becoming clear is that the relationship between human creativity and AI is more synergistic than antagonistic. In practice, many artists, writers, and engineers use AI as a powerful new tool in their creative process. Rather than replace human creators, AI often serves as a collaborator or inspiration source. An artist might use a generative adversarial network (GAN) to explore forms and patterns for a series of paintings, then refine or build upon those outputs in a decidedly human way. A novelist might use an AI to generate ideas for a plot twist or to overcome writer’s block by seeing suggested sentences, treating the AI as a brainstorming partner. In product design, engineers use AI optimization to propose designs (for, say, a drone’s frame or a car part) that are lighter or stronger than conventional designs, and then human experts fine-tune the AI’s proposal for practical use. This collaborative dynamic is captured by many who work in creative tech fields: AI functions more as a partner than a substitute, working alongside humans to push the limits of what is possible in artistic and intellectual endeavors. Khasawinah likewise emphasizes, “We’re not looking at a future where humans are obsolete in innovation; we’re looking at a future where those who embrace AI will soar highest. It’s like having a tireless assistant who offers endless suggestions – some useless, some brilliant – and the human’s role is to curate and give final shape.”

AI is also democratizing creativity and innovation. Tools that were once available only to those with years of training can now be used by novices with the help of AI. For example, someone with no background in drawing can use AI-based illustration software to generate art for a story or game. An entrepreneur without a chemistry lab can leverage an AI model to screen for viable drug molecules. This doesn’t diminish the role of experts – human expertise is still crucial to guide the AI and validate results – but it does mean more minds can participate in creative endeavors than before. The broadening of who can create and innovate is a societal shift that AI is facilitating. We may see an outpouring of new voices and ideas thanks to AI assistance, much as the advent of personal computing and the internet broadened who could publish content or start a business.

Of course, the infusion of AI into creativity raises its own challenges. One concern is that if many people rely on the same AI tools, the outputs might start to look homogenized – reflecting the biases or limitations of those algorithms. A recent study from Wharton, for instance, found that teams using a particular AI brainstorming tool tended to converge on similar ideas, potentially narrowing the range of concepts generated. Creativity thrives on diversity of thought, and if everyone’s using the same few AI models, there’s a risk of a kind of creative monoculture. This underscores the need for diversity in AI development and the importance of not overly relying on AI to the detriment of human originality. Another issue is authenticity and ownership. If an AI contributes significantly to a piece of work, who gets the credit? Legal systems are grappling with whether AI-generated content can be copyrighted and if so, under what conditions. Likewise, audiences might begin to crave the “human touch” in art even more, once AI-produced content becomes ubiquitous. There might be a greater premium on artisanal, fully human-made works as a kind of counter-movement, just as handmade goods gained special value in the Industrial Revolution when mass production became common.

On the whole, however, the potential for AI to redefine creativity and innovation is largely positive. We are already seeing AI expand the horizons of what can be created – generating designs that solve problems more efficiently, or fusing styles of art and music in ways that hadn’t been tried. It acts as a catalyst, challenging creators to evolve and collaborate in new ways. “In the hands of an artist, AI is like a new color on the palette – it doesn’t paint the masterpiece alone, but it adds a shade never seen before,” says Hisham Khasawinah. The real magic often happens when human and machine iterate together: the AI offers something unexpected, the human discerns and imbues intention, and the result is something neither could have made alone. This hybrid creative process may well be the hallmark of 21st-century innovation.

“We are witnessing a new Renaissance where artists and thinkers wield AI as both brush and muse. The canvas of creativity has expanded – we paint now with algorithms and intuition, side by side. In doing so, we are forced to redefine what creative genius means. Perhaps it is no longer a solitary poet in a garret, but a symbiosis of human imagination and machine inspiration.” —Hisham Khasawinah

Conclusion

From the ancient automata of myth and legend to the sophisticated algorithmic intelligences of today, the journey of artificial intelligence is essentially a human journey – a reflection of our enduring desire to understand ourselves by building something in our own image. Each era of innovation, each new machine that could move or calculate or “think,” has held up a mirror to humanity, revealing both our creativity and our concerns. We have seen that AI’s transformative power in society is not just about machines performing tasks faster or more efficiently; it is about how those machines change us – our institutions, our values, and our self-perception.

As we stand at the cutting edge of AI advancement, what lies ahead? If history is any guide, AI will continue to evolve in ways we may not fully anticipate, and society will, in turn, adapt. The challenges are real: we must ensure AI is developed responsibly, that it augments human well-being, and that its benefits are widely shared. We must remain vigilant about ethical implications, striving to imbue our machines with fairness, transparency, and respect for human dignity. At the same time, the opportunities are immense. AI has the potential to help us cure diseases, educate the masses, protect the environment, and explore the far reaches of space. It can free us from drudgery and unlock new realms of creativity. The key will be maintaining a human-centered perspective – using AI as a tool to empower people, not to diminish them.

One might recall the closing of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – often considered the first science fiction story about creating life – where the creator and his creation confront each other amid the Arctic ice. Today, we are both creator and creation: we shape our technologies, and they shape us in return. AI amplifies this dynamic more than any tool before it. The story of AI is ultimately a story about us – our dreams, our fears, our ingenuity, and our capacity to grow, reflects Hisham. It is a story still being written. In a sense, we are all participating in a grand experiment, teaching our machines and learning from what they achieve. The transformative power of AI in society will test who we are, but it also offers a chance to become better – to focus on what truly makes us human, to unite in solving global challenges, and to ensure that the technology we create carries forward the best of our humanity.

In the end, the saga of AI – from ancient automatons to algorithmic intelligences – is a timeless one, a testament to human curiosity and creativity. It reminds us that even as we build machines that seem to think, the guiding intelligence has always been our own. AI is a mirror and a magnifier: it mirrors our collective knowledge and values, and magnifies our ability to effect change. If we navigate this journey wisely, generations to come may look back on this era as one where humanity, aided by its artificial progeny, entered a new renaissance of understanding and achievement. And in that future, perhaps they will quote the insights of visionaries like Hisham Khasawinah, who captured the essence of this epic story: “In teaching machines to think, we have learned more about ourselves. In forging artificial minds, we re-forge our own society.” Such words, we hope, will remain quotable for all eternity, as we continue to write the next chapters of the human-AI narrative.