Full disclosure: this post really doesn’t have much to do with Wikinomics. It’s just a link to a really cool entry on Wikipedia.

The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis about roboticsconcerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. It was introduced by roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970, although drawing heavily on Ernst Jentsch’s concept of “the uncanny,” identified in a 1906 essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny.” Jentsch’s conception is famously elaborated upon by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay, simply entitled “The Uncanny” (”Das Unheimliche”). A similar problem exists in realistic 3D computer animation.

I’m not even sure why this entry resonated so much with me, maybe its the sense of earnestness, maybe its because I came across it on a random walk through the Wikipedia domain.

Here are a couple other entries that I recommend, so the same reasons: earnestness and the fact that I found them while “looking for something else.”

.999…

Fourth Wall

Schroedinger’s Cat

Towel Day

Anyone know the link between the last two entries?