http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-3/ Philip K. Dick’s admittedly peculiar but passionately held worldview and the gnosticism it embodies does more than explain what some call the dystopian turn in science fiction from the 1960s onward, it also gives us what has arguably become the dominant mode of understanding of fiction in our time, whether literary, artistic or cinematic. This is the idea that reality is a pernicious illusion, a repressive and authoritarian matrix generated in a dream factory we need to tear down in order to see things aright and have access to the truth. And let’s be honest: it is simply immensely pleasurable… ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:42 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-3/ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/ In the very first lines of “Exegesis” Dick writes, “We see the Logos addressing the many living entities.” Logos is an important concept that litters the pages of “Exegesis.” It is a word with a wide variety of meaning in ancient Greek, one of which is indeed “word.” It can also mean speech, reason (in Latin, ratio) or giving an account of something. For Heraclitus, to whom Dick frequently refers, logos is the universal law that governs the cosmos of which most human beings are somnolently ignorant. Dick certainly has this latter meaning in mind, but — most important —… ]]> Tue, 22 May 2012 03:14:27 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/ http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/buying-the-body-of-christ//buying-the-body-of-christ-lt-killing-the-buddha Branding the communion wafer : “We’re proud to put our name on what will become the body of Jesus.” http://t.co/RBrsOghu #transubstantiation ]]> Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:06:18 -0700 http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/buying-the-body-of-christ//buying-the-body-of-christ-lt-killing-the-buddha http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/does-it-matter-whether-god-exists//does-it-matter-whether-god-exists-nytimescom John Gray is probably wrong about religion, but does it matter? http://t.co/mdv8yZih ]]> Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:51:43 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/does-it-matter-whether-god-exists//does-it-matter-whether-god-exists-nytimescom http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2012/02/neo-atheism-atheists-dawkins Atheism is just one-third of this exotic ideological cocktail. Secularism, the political wing of the movement, is another third. Neo-atheists often assume that the two are the same thing; in fact, atheism is a metaphysical position and secularism is a view of how society should be organised. So a Christian can easily be a secularist - indeed, even Christ was being one when he said, "Render unto Caesar" - and an atheist can be anti-secularist if he happens to believe that religious views should be taken into account. But, in some muddled way, the two ideas have been combined by… ]]> Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:42:54 -0700 http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2012/02/neo-atheism-atheists-dawkins http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/18187221884/the-exegete When Philip K. Dick died in 1982 of a series of strokes brought on by years of overwork and amphetamine abuse, he was seen within the science fiction genre as a cult author of idiosyncratic works treating themes of synthetic selfhood and near-future dystopia, an intriguing if essentially second-rank talent. At the time, he was more popular in France and Japan, which have always had a taste for America’s pop culture detritus, than he was in his native country. Thirty years later, Dick — known to his most avid fans simply by his initials “PKD” — has developed a reputation… ]]> Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:22:56 -0700 http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/18187221884/the-exegete http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/17762040844/life-after-papyrus/los-angeles-review-of-books-life-after-papyrus Life after Papyrus: A review of Stephen Greenblatt's "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" : http://t.co/Ck96u2WN #books #clinamen ]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:05:50 -0700 http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/17762040844/life-after-papyrus/los-angeles-review-of-books-life-after-papyrus http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/no-secularism-please-were-british-6917549.html/no-secularism-please-were-british-home-news-uk-the-independent No secularism please, we're British http://t.co/M2A2PHQt ]]> Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:20:20 -0700 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/no-secularism-please-were-british-6917549.html/no-secularism-please-were-british-home-news-uk-the-independent http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/ Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a number of serial documentaries and films for the BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage and a wide range of avant-garde filmmaking techniques. The films are linked through their interest in using and reassembling the fragments of the past—recorded on film and video―to try and make sense of the chaotic events of the present. I first met Adam Curtis at the Manchester International Festival thanks to Alex Poots, and while Curtis himself is not an artist, many artists over the last decade have become increasingly interested in how his films… ]]> Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:36:52 -0700 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/ http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=2056 A peculiar experiment inspired by the Enlightenment sheds light on the age-old question of what makes us human. ]]> Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:34:36 -0700 http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=2056 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b2004496-41c1-11e1-a1bf-00144feab49a.html#axzz1keb5eZxX/the-god-gap-ftcom The God Gap: http://t.co/gkEY64dU ]]> Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:35:55 -0700 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b2004496-41c1-11e1-a1bf-00144feab49a.html#axzz1keb5eZxX/the-god-gap-ftcom http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/28/science-move-away-materialism-sheldrake?CMP=twt_fd/its-time-for-science-to-move-on-from-materialism-mark-vernon-comment-is-free-guardiancouk It's time for science to move on from materialism | Mark Vernon http://t.co/p65QfBe0 ]]> Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:35:54 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/28/science-move-away-materialism-sheldrake?CMP=twt_fd/its-time-for-science-to-move-on-from-materialism-mark-vernon-comment-is-free-guardiancouk http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/01/nature-nurture-and-liberal-values-roger-scruton-jesse-prinz-david-eagleman-neuroscience/ Biology determines our behaviour more than it suits many to acknowledge. But people—and politics and morality—cannot be described just by neural impulses ]]> Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:35:21 -0700 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/01/nature-nurture-and-liberal-values-roger-scruton-jesse-prinz-david-eagleman-neuroscience/ http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/12/freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker//freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker-prospect-magazine John Gray on Freud (the last great Enlightenment thinker?) http://t.co/cKMdkDWl ]]> Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:07:00 -0700 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/12/freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker//freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker-prospect-magazine http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21334-kopimism-the-worlds-newest-religion-explained.html Isak Gerson is spiritual leader of the world's newest religion, Kopimism, devoted to file-sharing. On 5 January the Church of Kopimism was formally recognised as a religion by the Swedish government. Tell me about this new file-sharing religion, Kopimism. We were founded about 15 months ago and we believe that information is holy and that the act of copying is holy. Why make a religion out of file-sharing? Why not just be an ordinary club without defining yourselves as being a religious community? Because we see ourselves as a religious group, a church seems like a good way of organising… ]]> Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:32:57 -0700 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21334-kopimism-the-worlds-newest-religion-explained.html http://www.nytimes.com//the-new-york-times-breaking-news-world-news-amp-multimedia RT @nytimes: The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick — Edited by Pamela Jackson, Jonathan Lethem and Erik Davis — Book Review http://t.co/yrrheIoS ]]> Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:20:23 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com//the-new-york-times-breaking-news-world-news-amp-multimedia http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2011/11/the-mystery-of-the-five-wounds-ready-to-go/ Why, though, to begin with, did stigmata materialize in 13th-century Italy? Part of the answer seems to lie in the theological trends of the time. The Catholic Church of St. Francis’s day had begun to place much greater stress on the humanity of Christ, and would soon introduce a new feast day, Corpus Christi, into the calendar to encourage contemplation of his physical sufferings. Religious painters responded by depicting the crucifixion explicitly for the first time, portraying a Jesus who was plainly in agony from wounds that dripped blood. Indeed, the contemporary obsession with the marks of crucifixion may best… ]]> Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:07:55 -0700 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2011/11/the-mystery-of-the-five-wounds-ready-to-go/ http://www.google.com/url?null/redirect-notice Atheists, theists, and gnostics, oh my! - McGill Daily http://t.co/vqFZnHXw ]]> Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:36:04 -0700 http://www.google.com/url?null/redirect-notice http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/features/the-roots-of-religion Robert Bellah, one of America's most distinguished sociologists, caps off his luminous academic career with "Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age" , a near 800-page magnum opus that delves deep into the roots of humankind's encounter with mystery and the search for meaning. Underwritten in part by funding from the John Templeton Foundation, Bellah's book, out this month from Harvard University Press, has been described as “the most important systematic and historical treatment of religion since Hegel, Durkheim, and Weber. It is a page-turner of a bildungsroman of the human spirit on a truly global… ]]> Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:17:49 -0700 http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/features/the-roots-of-religion http://life.salon.com/2011/10/02/how_science_and_faith_coexist/singleton/?mobile.html As a both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science. The first step in this journey is to state what I will call the Central Doctrine of science: All properties and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws are true at every time and place in the universe. Although scientists do not talk explicitly about this doctrine, and my doctoral thesis advisor never mentioned… ]]> Sat, 08 Oct 2011 10:01:04 -0700 http://life.salon.com/2011/10/02/how_science_and_faith_coexist/singleton/?mobile.html