A further thought on robots and blushing

in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons

I’ve been thinking about how to make this an actual post for months and I still can’t figure out how to articulate the entire concept how I want to so I’m just going to present the thought experiment I have in mind

On the idea of falling in love with a robot

I think to fall in love with a robot would be perversion of the concept of falling in love, because you would really just be in [a] relation[ship] with/[to] yourself

In a previous post I asked if a robot would blush, but I want to think here about whether you would blush in front of a robot. I don’t think the answer is obvious either way

Thought experiment

1. I can get undressed alone and not feel any kind of self-consciousness 

2. I can get undressed in the presence of someone else and feel intense self-consciousness, shame, confidence, the sense that I’m desired and being seen, something about exposure of the self through exposure of the body, etc.

Or

3. I can get undressed alone, but in front of a mirror and feel something reminiscent of getting undressed in front of another person, because I am reminded or made aware of how I am perceived when I do this, but this not actually all that similar to the real experience of being naked with someone else, it’s all in my head, the whole thing is a mental exercise, there’s no {spiritual exchange}

I think undressing in front of a robot (even if it is indistinguishable from a human, but you know it is a robot), would be scenario 3. You might feel the feelings you would feel when you are with another human person, but that’s because you’re internally going to the place of meeting someone in a spiritual sense, but then the meeting doesn’t actually occur because there is no Other to meet you. You might project personhood onto the robot and narcissistically take on both roles of self and Other, but you aren’t really having the actual experience of being with and before another.

Whatever is happening, it’s all in your head.

To be continued probably