“The Machine Stops” shows a chilling view of how the world may come to be, if we – humanity – one day create a machine that can out-think the best of us, and eventually make us all its slaves. In this short story, an omnipresent Machine attends to our every need, and in doing so becomes completely our master. Human beings live in a state of near-complete physical atrophy, essentially reduced to a brain and the systems that power it. With all of our physical needs taken care of, such that we hardly need to stand up or sit down, and almost never walk or leave the room, we are free to concentrate fully on developing and using our minds. In this world, ideas are all that matter. This, at least, is the philosophy that Vashti, the story’s protagonist (if you can call it that) lives by. It’s ingrained in her very being, hiding behind every thought that she thinks. Apparently, the human body exists as merely a receptacle for the mind, nothing else; and such things as touching someone else’s skin and feeling the sun shine upon your own, simply are not relevant. Ideas, that’s it. You exist to create ideas (not original ideas, mind you – it’s made clear in the story that original ideas are tainted with human subjectivity and emotion, and must therefore be avoided like the plague).
This unbalanced relationship between body and mind mirrors the relationship between humans and the Machine, where the humans who once performed their own actions for their own reasons now simply carry out their one-dimensional, preordained lives for the sole purpose of keeping the Machine alive. To me, such as Machine sounds exactly like a parasite. While a parasite cannot survive on its own, it infiltrates a host and then keeps the host or hosts alive for the sole purpose of keeping itself alive. Similarly, the Machine has completely taken over human society, keeping people alive just barely to the bare minimum of not being dead, so that they can keep the Machine running while being powerless to stop it (and at this point, such a thought would never even occur to most of them). And once you consider the parallels between the Machine and that greatest weapon of ours, which we have determined to be our most valuable asset – the human mind – then the metaphor becomes clear, or at least clearer. So a virus feeds upon the body and energy of its host, and the Machine sustains itself by virtue of the lives and machinations of its human slaves (slaves because by this point in time, no person was left who could understand the bigger picture of how the Machine worked and its purpose), so also the human mind, with its relentless logic and rationality, slowly takes over complete control over the body, the passions, and the senses, until nothing is left but ideas. And it’s brilliant, really – just as the Machine has conditioned its people to never even think of questioning its place in their lives, to never once ask whether there’s more to life than a single room and a wall of buttons (though a remarkable few still try), we humans also don’t question the legitimacy of our current modes of thinking, of our relentless drive to progress and advance and evolve, for it is our minds that have led us along these routes in the first place! I suppose the main message of the story is that we mustn’t lose sight of the things that matter in life, the bits (aside from thinking about things) that make our lives worth living. By living our lives in accordance to what really matters, not just what we may think matters, we can separate our minds from that of the Machine, and avoid such a disastrous ending for mankind.
Or perhaps I’ve overthought this a bit, and the parallels that I drew don’t actually exist. It wouldn’t be the first time.