Only today did I learned the correct meaning of Deus Ex Machine.
My entire life I have confused it with the phrase “Ghost in the Machine”, the title of Arthur Koestler’s famous book about evolution.
According to Wikipedia, Koestler borrowed the phrase from “British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s negative description of Rene Descartes‘ mind-body dualism.”
“Ghost in the machine” refers to our primitive brain structures (like the limbic system) which can and do overpower higher logical functions. According to Koestler these structures are responsible for base emotions like hate but also other destructive impulses and uncontrolled behaviour.
Deux ex Machina however is something completely different.
Again from Wikipedia:
Deus ex machina (deus ex mƒÅchinƒÅ, plural deƒ´ ex mƒÅchinƒ´s) is Latin for “god from the machine” and is a calque from the Greek mƒìchanƒìs the√≥s…It originated with Greek and Roman theatre, when a mechane would lower actors playing a god or gods on stage to resolve a hopeless situation. Thus, “god comes from the machine”. The phrase deus ex machina has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does not pay due regard to the story’s internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author to end it in the way he or she wanted. In short, deus ex machina refers to a cop out plot device.
In modern terms the Deus ex machina has also come to describe a person or thing that suddenly arrives and solves a seemingly insoluble difficulty. While in story telling this seems like cheating, in life, this type of figure might be welcome and heroic.
There is a Serbian band that uses the literal translation of Deux ex machine as a name: Neocekivana sila koja se iznenada pojavljuje i resava stvar.
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