“It is not even wrong.”

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

A familiar anecdote in theoretical physics has to do with one of its most imaginative researchers, Wolfgang Pauli. One of Pauli’s friends presented him with a paper by a young physicist for evaluation. The paper was so badly reasoned and written that Pauli encapsulated his judgment in a single sentence: “It is not even wrong.” (This seems to be the “original version” of the story. I have also heard it attributed to Enrico Fermi interrupting a physics thesis defense at the University of Chicago.)

This encapsulates my reaction to last month’s release on Signum Classics of Lim Fantasy of Companionship, composed by Manu Marin. The title is named after the Singaporean surgeon Susan Lim, who has shifted her attention to a topic she calls “Future of Companionship,” investigating the beneficial impact of robots as a new generation of caregivers. The selections on this new album were originally conceived as songs for a proposed musical, but almost all of the tracks involve piano and orchestra. The pianist is Tedd Joselson, and the ensemble is the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen.

The good news is that the entire album is only slightly longer than half an hour. The bad news is that the schmaltz is so thick that even the casual listener may have to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist. The fact is that anyone that follows the SYFY Wire Web site is well aware that no end of quality fiction, movies, and television series have explored myriad aspects of companionship involving humans and sentient robots in far greater depth than this flimsy musical composition. For my own part, I acquired enough battle scars during the debates over consciousness that unfolded during the pre-Internet days of Usenet to know sheer twaddle when I encounter it. I have definitely encountered it on the Lim Fantasy of Companionship album.