Phoenix
12-07-2006, 06:46 AM
One of the so called Bi products created by alchemists is the Humunculus.
The term appears to have been first used by the alchemist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy) Paracelsus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus). He once claimed that he had created a false human being that he referred to as the homunculus. The creature was to have stood no more than 12 inches tall, and did the work usually associated with a golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem). However, after a short time, the homunculus turned on its creator and ran away. The recipe consisted of a bag of bones, sperm, skin fragments and hair from any animal of which the homunculus would be a hybrid. This was to be laid in the ground surrounded by horse manure for forty days, at which point the embryo would form.
In Carl Jung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung)'s studies of Alchemy, he believed the first recording of a homunculus in Alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of Zosimos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zosimos_of_Panopolis), written in the third century A.D, although the actual word "homunculus" was never said. In the visions, Zosimos mentions encountering a man who impales him with a sword, and then undergoes "unendourable torment," his eyes become blood, he spews fourth his flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion, and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into himself," which is a rather grotesque personification of the uroboros, the dragon that bites it own tail [which represents the dyophysite nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man, the Leaden Man, and so fourth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit themselves to unendourable torment" and undergo alchemic transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.
There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant involved the use of the mandrake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_%28plant%29). Popular belief held that this plant grew where semen ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed" with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and protect its owner. Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Christianus&action=edit) at the University of Giessen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Giessen) during the 18th century, was to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human sperm, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms.
The homunculus argument in philosophy of mind
Today the term is used in a number of ways to describe systems that are thought of as being run by a "little man" inside. For instance, the homunculus continues to be considered as one of the major theories on the origin of consciousness, that there is a part (or process) in the brain whose purpose is to be "you". The homunculus is often invoked in cybernetics as well, for similar reasons.
A Homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory (1987)). Homunculus arguments are always fallacious. In the psychology and philosophy of mind 'homunculus arguments' are extremely useful for detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.
Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a person watching a movie. He sees the images as something separate from himself, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person, or homunculus, behind the eye who gazes at the retinas. A more sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinas are transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain 'projection', the experience that the viewing point is separate from the things that are seen. (Adapted from Gregory (1987), (1990)).
A homunculus argument should be phrased in such a way that the conclusion is always that if a homunculus is required then the theory is wrong. After all, homunculi do not exist.
Very few people would propose that there actually is a little man in the brain looking at brain activity. However, this proposal has been used as a 'straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)' in theories of mind. Gilbert Ryle (1949) proposed that the human mind is known by its intelligent acts. (see Ryle's Regress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryle%27s_Regress)). He argued that if there is an inner being inside the brain that could steer its own thoughts then this would lead to an absurd repetitive cycle or "regress" before a thought could occur:
"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical problem. . . . Must we then say that for the agent's . . . reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion."
The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that if there is a need for a 'little man' to complete a theory then the theory is wrong. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent would need to think before it could have a thought.
If the homunculus argument is applied to the problem of the "intelligent agent" a subtly different result from the regress argument occurs. The homunculus argument applied to Ryle's theory would be phrased in terms of whether the mental attribute of 'reflecting upon things internally' can be explained by the theory that 'the mind is intelligent acts' without the appearance of a homunculus. The answer, provided by Ryle's own logic, is that internal reflection would require a homunculus to prevent it from becoming an infinite regress. Therefore with these assumptions the Homunculus Argument does not support the theory that mind is wholly due to intelligent acts.
The example of Ryle's theory demonstrates another aspect of the Homunculus Argument in which it is possible to attribute to the mind various properties such as 'internal reflection' that are not universally accepted and use these contentiously to declare that a theory of mind is invalid.
Early literary representations
The idea of the homunculus has proven to be fruitful inspiration. Homunculi can be found in centuries' worth of literature. These literary references have spawned references in modern times in film, animation, video and card games.
One of the very earliest literary references to the homunculus which also hints of its origination occurs in Thomas Browne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne)'s Religio Medici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio_Medici) (1643) in which the author states-
I am not of Paracelsus minde that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction...., (Part 1:36) The alchemical connection also occurs in the German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe)'s rendition of Faust, Part 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust%2C_Part_2) which has that famed sorcorcer's former student, Wagner, create a homunculus, who then carries out extended conversations with Mephistopheles.
In his source study of Englishwoman Mary Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley)'s novel Frankenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein), Prof. Radu Florescu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Florescu) notes that her father, William Godwin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Godwin), and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley) were both quite familiar with the lives and works of alchemists like Paracelsus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus) and others. Florescu also suggests that Konrad Dippel (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Konrad_Dippel&action=edit), an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein whom he believes may have been the inspiration for Dr. Frankenstein, was a student of Dr. David Christianus.
In Laurence Sterne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Sterne)´s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy%2C_Gentle man), Volume I, Chapter II , there is a reference to the homunculus: "(...) the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception."
But a question remains, can it be done?
The biblical references stat perhaps...
Origins of the word
The word golem is used in the Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible) to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalms) 139:16 uses the word "gal'mi", meaning "my unshaped form" (in Hebrew, words are derived by adding vowels to triconsonantal roots, here, g-l-m). The Mishnah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah) uses the term for an uncultivated person ("Ten characteristics are in a learned person, and ten in an uncultivated one", Pirkei Avoth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirkei_Avoth) 5:7). Similarly, golems are often used today in metaphor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor) either as brainless lunks or as entities serving man under controlled conditions but hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language) slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.
Owning and activating golems
Having a golem servant was seen as the ultimate symbol of wisdom and holiness, and there are many tales of golems connected to prominent rabbis throughout the Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages).
Other attributes of the golem were gradually added over time. In many tales the Golem is inscribed with magic or religious words that keep it animated. Writing one of the names of God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism) on its forehead, a slip of paper attached to its forehead, or on a clay tablet under its tongue, or writing the word Emet (אמת, 'truth' in the Hebrew language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language)) on its forehead are examples of such words. By erasing the first letter in Emet to form Meit (מת, 'dead' in Hebrew) the golem could be deactivated.
The classic narrative
The most famous golem narrative involves Rabbi Judah Loew the Maharal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Loew_ben_Bezalel) of Prague (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague), a 16th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_century) rabbi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi). He is reported to have created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto of Josefov from Anti-Semitic attacks. The story of the Golem first appeared in print in 1847 in a collection of Jewish tales entitled Galerie der Sippurim, published by Wolf Pascheles of Prague. About sixty years later, a fictional account was published by Yudl Rosenberg (1909). According to the legend, Golem could be made of clay from the banks of the Vltava river in Prague. Following the prescribed rituals, the Rabbi built the Golem and made him come to life by reciting special incantations in Hebrew. As Rabbi Loew's Golem grew bigger, he also became more violent and started killing people and spreading fear. Rabbi Loew was promised that the violence against the Jews would stop if the Golem was destroyed. The Rabbi agreed. To destroy the Golem, he rubbed out the first letter of the word "emeth" (truth) from the golem's forehead to make the Hebrew word "meth", meaning death. (According to legend, the Golem of Prague's remains are stored in a coffin in the attic of the Altneuschul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_New_Synagogue) in Prague, and it can be summoned again if needed.) The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent - if commanded to perform a task, they will take the instructions perfectly literally.
In some incarnations of the legend of the Maharal's golem, the golem has powers that can aid it in its tasks. These include invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to use the Maharal's walking stick to summon spirits from the dead. This last power was often crucial, as the golem could summon dead witnesses, which the medieval Prague courts would allow to testify.
The golem in European culture
In the late nineteenth century the golem was adopted by mainstream European society. Most notably Gustav Meyrink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Meyrink)'s 1915 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915) novel Der Golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_%28Meyrink%29) based on the tales of the golem created by Judah Low ben Bezalel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Low_ben_Bezalel). This book inspired a classic set of expressionistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism_%28film%29) silent movies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_movies), Paul Wegener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wegener)'s Golem series, of which especially The Golem: How He Came Into the World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem:_How_He_Came_Into_the_World) (also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921) is famous. Another famous treatment from the same era is H. Leivick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Leivick)'s 1921 Yiddish-language "dramatic poem in eight sections" The Golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_%28Leivick%29). Also notable is Julien Duvivier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Duvivier)'s "Le Golem" (1936), a sequel to the Wegener film.
These tales saw a dramatic change, and some would argue a Christianization, of the golem. The golem became a creation of overambitious and overreaching mystics, who would inevitably be punished for their blasphemy, very similar to Mary Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley)'s Frankenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein) and the alchemical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy) homunculus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus). In Norse mythology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology), Mökkurkálfi (or Mistcalfa) was a clay giant, built to help the troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll) Hrungnir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrungnir) in a battle with Thor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor).
In Jewish folklore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_folklore), a golem (גולם, sometimes, as in Yiddish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language), pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language) the word golem literally means 'cocoon', but can also mean "fool", "silly", or even "stupid". The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material".
Do you think that we can state that it can´t be done?
it is not artificial insemination the act of creating homunculus?
:vengeance:
The term appears to have been first used by the alchemist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy) Paracelsus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus). He once claimed that he had created a false human being that he referred to as the homunculus. The creature was to have stood no more than 12 inches tall, and did the work usually associated with a golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem). However, after a short time, the homunculus turned on its creator and ran away. The recipe consisted of a bag of bones, sperm, skin fragments and hair from any animal of which the homunculus would be a hybrid. This was to be laid in the ground surrounded by horse manure for forty days, at which point the embryo would form.
In Carl Jung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung)'s studies of Alchemy, he believed the first recording of a homunculus in Alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of Zosimos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zosimos_of_Panopolis), written in the third century A.D, although the actual word "homunculus" was never said. In the visions, Zosimos mentions encountering a man who impales him with a sword, and then undergoes "unendourable torment," his eyes become blood, he spews fourth his flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion, and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into himself," which is a rather grotesque personification of the uroboros, the dragon that bites it own tail [which represents the dyophysite nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man, the Leaden Man, and so fourth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit themselves to unendourable torment" and undergo alchemic transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.
There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant involved the use of the mandrake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_%28plant%29). Popular belief held that this plant grew where semen ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed" with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and protect its owner. Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Christianus&action=edit) at the University of Giessen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Giessen) during the 18th century, was to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human sperm, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms.
The homunculus argument in philosophy of mind
Today the term is used in a number of ways to describe systems that are thought of as being run by a "little man" inside. For instance, the homunculus continues to be considered as one of the major theories on the origin of consciousness, that there is a part (or process) in the brain whose purpose is to be "you". The homunculus is often invoked in cybernetics as well, for similar reasons.
A Homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory (1987)). Homunculus arguments are always fallacious. In the psychology and philosophy of mind 'homunculus arguments' are extremely useful for detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.
Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a person watching a movie. He sees the images as something separate from himself, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person, or homunculus, behind the eye who gazes at the retinas. A more sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinas are transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain 'projection', the experience that the viewing point is separate from the things that are seen. (Adapted from Gregory (1987), (1990)).
A homunculus argument should be phrased in such a way that the conclusion is always that if a homunculus is required then the theory is wrong. After all, homunculi do not exist.
Very few people would propose that there actually is a little man in the brain looking at brain activity. However, this proposal has been used as a 'straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)' in theories of mind. Gilbert Ryle (1949) proposed that the human mind is known by its intelligent acts. (see Ryle's Regress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryle%27s_Regress)). He argued that if there is an inner being inside the brain that could steer its own thoughts then this would lead to an absurd repetitive cycle or "regress" before a thought could occur:
"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical problem. . . . Must we then say that for the agent's . . . reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion."
The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that if there is a need for a 'little man' to complete a theory then the theory is wrong. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent would need to think before it could have a thought.
If the homunculus argument is applied to the problem of the "intelligent agent" a subtly different result from the regress argument occurs. The homunculus argument applied to Ryle's theory would be phrased in terms of whether the mental attribute of 'reflecting upon things internally' can be explained by the theory that 'the mind is intelligent acts' without the appearance of a homunculus. The answer, provided by Ryle's own logic, is that internal reflection would require a homunculus to prevent it from becoming an infinite regress. Therefore with these assumptions the Homunculus Argument does not support the theory that mind is wholly due to intelligent acts.
The example of Ryle's theory demonstrates another aspect of the Homunculus Argument in which it is possible to attribute to the mind various properties such as 'internal reflection' that are not universally accepted and use these contentiously to declare that a theory of mind is invalid.
Early literary representations
The idea of the homunculus has proven to be fruitful inspiration. Homunculi can be found in centuries' worth of literature. These literary references have spawned references in modern times in film, animation, video and card games.
One of the very earliest literary references to the homunculus which also hints of its origination occurs in Thomas Browne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne)'s Religio Medici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio_Medici) (1643) in which the author states-
I am not of Paracelsus minde that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction...., (Part 1:36) The alchemical connection also occurs in the German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe)'s rendition of Faust, Part 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust%2C_Part_2) which has that famed sorcorcer's former student, Wagner, create a homunculus, who then carries out extended conversations with Mephistopheles.
In his source study of Englishwoman Mary Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley)'s novel Frankenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein), Prof. Radu Florescu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Florescu) notes that her father, William Godwin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Godwin), and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley) were both quite familiar with the lives and works of alchemists like Paracelsus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus) and others. Florescu also suggests that Konrad Dippel (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Konrad_Dippel&action=edit), an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein whom he believes may have been the inspiration for Dr. Frankenstein, was a student of Dr. David Christianus.
In Laurence Sterne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Sterne)´s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy%2C_Gentle man), Volume I, Chapter II , there is a reference to the homunculus: "(...) the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception."
But a question remains, can it be done?
The biblical references stat perhaps...
Origins of the word
The word golem is used in the Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible) to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalms) 139:16 uses the word "gal'mi", meaning "my unshaped form" (in Hebrew, words are derived by adding vowels to triconsonantal roots, here, g-l-m). The Mishnah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah) uses the term for an uncultivated person ("Ten characteristics are in a learned person, and ten in an uncultivated one", Pirkei Avoth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirkei_Avoth) 5:7). Similarly, golems are often used today in metaphor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor) either as brainless lunks or as entities serving man under controlled conditions but hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language) slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.
Owning and activating golems
Having a golem servant was seen as the ultimate symbol of wisdom and holiness, and there are many tales of golems connected to prominent rabbis throughout the Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages).
Other attributes of the golem were gradually added over time. In many tales the Golem is inscribed with magic or religious words that keep it animated. Writing one of the names of God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism) on its forehead, a slip of paper attached to its forehead, or on a clay tablet under its tongue, or writing the word Emet (אמת, 'truth' in the Hebrew language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language)) on its forehead are examples of such words. By erasing the first letter in Emet to form Meit (מת, 'dead' in Hebrew) the golem could be deactivated.
The classic narrative
The most famous golem narrative involves Rabbi Judah Loew the Maharal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Loew_ben_Bezalel) of Prague (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague), a 16th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_century) rabbi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi). He is reported to have created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto of Josefov from Anti-Semitic attacks. The story of the Golem first appeared in print in 1847 in a collection of Jewish tales entitled Galerie der Sippurim, published by Wolf Pascheles of Prague. About sixty years later, a fictional account was published by Yudl Rosenberg (1909). According to the legend, Golem could be made of clay from the banks of the Vltava river in Prague. Following the prescribed rituals, the Rabbi built the Golem and made him come to life by reciting special incantations in Hebrew. As Rabbi Loew's Golem grew bigger, he also became more violent and started killing people and spreading fear. Rabbi Loew was promised that the violence against the Jews would stop if the Golem was destroyed. The Rabbi agreed. To destroy the Golem, he rubbed out the first letter of the word "emeth" (truth) from the golem's forehead to make the Hebrew word "meth", meaning death. (According to legend, the Golem of Prague's remains are stored in a coffin in the attic of the Altneuschul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_New_Synagogue) in Prague, and it can be summoned again if needed.) The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent - if commanded to perform a task, they will take the instructions perfectly literally.
In some incarnations of the legend of the Maharal's golem, the golem has powers that can aid it in its tasks. These include invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to use the Maharal's walking stick to summon spirits from the dead. This last power was often crucial, as the golem could summon dead witnesses, which the medieval Prague courts would allow to testify.
The golem in European culture
In the late nineteenth century the golem was adopted by mainstream European society. Most notably Gustav Meyrink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Meyrink)'s 1915 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915) novel Der Golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_%28Meyrink%29) based on the tales of the golem created by Judah Low ben Bezalel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Low_ben_Bezalel). This book inspired a classic set of expressionistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism_%28film%29) silent movies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_movies), Paul Wegener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wegener)'s Golem series, of which especially The Golem: How He Came Into the World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem:_How_He_Came_Into_the_World) (also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921) is famous. Another famous treatment from the same era is H. Leivick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Leivick)'s 1921 Yiddish-language "dramatic poem in eight sections" The Golem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_%28Leivick%29). Also notable is Julien Duvivier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Duvivier)'s "Le Golem" (1936), a sequel to the Wegener film.
These tales saw a dramatic change, and some would argue a Christianization, of the golem. The golem became a creation of overambitious and overreaching mystics, who would inevitably be punished for their blasphemy, very similar to Mary Shelley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley)'s Frankenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein) and the alchemical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy) homunculus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus). In Norse mythology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology), Mökkurkálfi (or Mistcalfa) was a clay giant, built to help the troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll) Hrungnir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrungnir) in a battle with Thor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor).
In Jewish folklore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_folklore), a golem (גולם, sometimes, as in Yiddish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language), pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language) the word golem literally means 'cocoon', but can also mean "fool", "silly", or even "stupid". The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material".
Do you think that we can state that it can´t be done?
it is not artificial insemination the act of creating homunculus?
:vengeance: