The Biography of Guillotin (Deluxe Edition)

The Biography of Guillotin (Deluxe Edition)

... Chapter VII: Guillotin in His Later Years "No one can know the root cause of every incident in the world. Humans are neither wise enough to predict the future nor able to stop unfortunate accidents from occurring. It's a shame. There's nothing more to say." — Alain Guillotin, in response to a question about his early years from Nellie Cochran, Chief Editor of The Steambird After retiring from the Fontaine Research Institute, Guillotin declined all invitations from the Palais Mermonia and civic organizations from the Court of Fontaine. Instead, he withdrew to the Beryl Region countryside, living in near-total isolation from society — notwithstanding, even prior to this, the reclusive old man had never formed any deep connections with others. If we were to take Madame Nellie Cochran at her word, then Alain Guillotin was, at heart, a lonely shut-in, always burdened by a profound sense of insecurity. It was for this reason that he maintained a detached attitude toward others, as if by pretending to be unperceptive, he could hide the keen sensitivity of his spirit. He could not ease his own pain, nor share it with anyone; all he could do was enclose it like a pearl within the shell of his heart, shaping and polishing it with his very flesh and blood. Of course, Guillotin's students would not accept such claims, dismissing them as attention-seeking nonsense and nothing more than a smear on their master's reputation. This was the main reason why Rogier Cotes, the third director of the Fontaine Research Institute, filed a lawsuit against The Steambird... He never employed any servants to tend to his daily needs. There were rumors that, in his youth, he had created a mechanical device capable of independent thought and had used it to assist him in his work with Mary-Ann Guillotin at the Marechaussee Phantom. As a result, he had no need for servants — he only needed to create more of the same device. However, such claims were clearly at odds with the facts: the personal effects that Guillotin left behind after his death include nothing of this nature, and so-called "mechanical devices capable of independent thought" are entirely inconsistent with the ideas he expressed in his manuscripts. As he wrote in Hierarchical Calculating Machines and Intelligence, "...The real question isn't whether machines can think, but whether humans can..." (Fontaine Natural Philosophy and Engineering Science Press, 3rd ed., Section 13, p. 5.) We have every reason to believe that whatever contraptions Guillotin crafted in his workshop in his later years were deliberately destroyed long ago. After all, it's hardly uncommon for an engineer to discard their designs. Popular fiction has offered many flights of fancy about these contraptions, yet all such tales contradict the surviving evidence. Nevertheless, we must recognize that, as a cultural symbol, "Alain Guillotin's posthumous work" has been instrumental in stirring the imaginations of the young... ...