MachineMachine /stream - tagged with scifi http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher, (Part 3) : Adventures in the Dream Factory 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/ A Thomasson is any kind of "useless and defunct object attached to someone's property and aesthetically maintained" http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/05/useless-and-defunct-city-objects-are-named-thomassons/2075/ ...according to Akasegawa's definition. A publisher's blurb states that this includes the "doorknob in a wall without a door, that driveway leading into an unbroken fence, that strange concrete... thing sprouting out of your sidewalk with no discernible purpose." Learn more about what makes a Thomasson in the video below, which includes quixotic footage of real-life examples like a stairway ending in a window. The artist, who's birth name is Katsuhiko Akasegawa, picked the word in tribute to Gary Thomasson, an American baseball player who whiffed on so many balls during his 1980s stint with the Yomiuri Giants that the… ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 00:36:14 -0700 http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/05/useless-and-defunct-city-objects-are-named-thomassons/2075/ Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher (Part 2) : Future Gnostic 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/ Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher, Part 1 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-1/ The fish pendant, on Dick’s account, began to emit a golden ray of light, and Dick suddenly experienced what he called, with a nod to Plato, anamnesis: the recollection or total recall of the entire sum of knowledge. Dick claimed to have access to what philosophers call the faculty of “intellectual intuition”: the direct perception by the mind of a metaphysical reality behind screens of appearance. Many philosophers since Kant have insisted that such intellectual intuition is available only to human beings in the guise of fraudulent obscurantism, usually as religious or mystical experience, like Emmanuel Swedenborg’s visions of the… ]]> Tue, 22 May 2012 03:05:11 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-1/ Philip K. Dick : To the best of our KNOWLEDGE http://ttbook.org/book/philip-k-dick/philip-k-dick-to-the-best-of-our-knowledge “I wanted to write books exactly like the ones he didn't live long enough to write.” Lethem on Philip K Dick http://t.co/m3Y9WkpT ]]> Sun, 04 Mar 2012 02:35:20 -0700 http://ttbook.org/book/philip-k-dick/philip-k-dick-to-the-best-of-our-knowledge The Exegesis of Philip K Dick with Erik Davis http://tumblr.hrmtc.com/post/18676799423/the-exegesis-of-philip-k-dick-with-erik-davis/the-hermetic-library-tumblr-the-exegesis-of-philip-k-dick-with-erik-davis The Exegesis of Philip K Dick with Erik Davis - You might be interested in the episode “The Exegesis of... http://t.co/Uc7VEs5f ]]> Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:05:19 -0700 http://tumblr.hrmtc.com/post/18676799423/the-exegesis-of-philip-k-dick-with-erik-davis/the-hermetic-library-tumblr-the-exegesis-of-philip-k-dick-with-erik-davis The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick 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 Never go with a cultist to a second location http://www.metafilter.com/110638/Never-go-with-a-cultist-to-a-second-location?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter/never-go-with-a-cultist-to-a-second-location-metafilter Alan Moore talks about HP Lovecraft, The Courtyard and Neonomicon (audio) http://t.co/IZyHeXiW ]]> Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:05:45 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/110638/Never-go-with-a-cultist-to-a-second-location?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter/never-go-with-a-cultist-to-a-second-location-metafilter Metalosis Maligna - An Extraordinary disease http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtXMyAOop3s&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Sun, 27 Nov 2011 04:16:45 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtXMyAOop3s&feature=youtube_gdata Innovation Starvation http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation SF has changed over the span of time I am talking about—from the 1950s (the era of the development of nuclear power, jet airplanes, the space race, and the computer) to now. Speaking broadly, the techno-optimism of the Golden Age of SF has given way to fiction written in a generally darker, more skeptical and ambiguous tone. I myself have tended to write a lot about hackers—trickster archetypes who exploit the arcane capabilities of complex systems devised by faceless others. ]]> Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:47:54 -0700 http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation Brundlefly http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/10397814620

Brundlefly

]]> Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:25:49 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/10397814620 Slavoj Zizek - How to Read Lacan - Troubles with the Real: Lacan as a Viewer of Alien http://www.lacan.com/zizalien.htm/slavoj-zizek-how-to-read-lacan-troubles-with-the-real-lacan-as-a-viewer-of-alien Slavoj Zizek on how to read Lacan (hint: watch #Alien and #TheThing) : http://t.co/m8CjaBV #horror #SciFi #theory #cinema #x ]]> Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:32:26 -0700 http://www.lacan.com/zizalien.htm/slavoj-zizek-how-to-read-lacan-troubles-with-the-real-lacan-as-a-viewer-of-alien How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago http://t.co/Up1GQ5U/how-startrek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago-warning-minorityreport-yawn-httptcoup1gq5u-arstechnica-x-digital-scifi How #StarTrek artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago (Warning: #MinorityReport #Yawn) http://t.co/Up1GQ5U @arstechnica #x #digital #scifi ]]> Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:44:11 -0700 http://t.co/Up1GQ5U/how-startrek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago-warning-minorityreport-yawn-httptcoup1gq5u-arstechnica-x-digital-scifi Ubik: Philip K. Dick http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7527941832

Ubik

book-aesthete:

Philip K. Dick. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969 

First edition, first printing of this scarce title.

]]> Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:39:11 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7527941832 Win Sector http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7304255033

Win Sector

]]> Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:40:35 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7304255033 Another kind of logic http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7229748980

Another kind of logic

(hat tip to (((1/f))))

]]> Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:51:00 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/7229748980 Thing (The) http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/6868678121

Thing (The)

]]> Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:29:13 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/6868678121 Three arguments against the singularity http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html This is my take on the singularity: we're not going to see a hard take-off, or a slow take-off, or any kind of AI-mediated exponential outburst. What we're going to see is increasingly solicitous machines defining our environment -- machines that sense and respond to our needs "intelligently". But it will be the intelligence of the serving hand rather than the commanding brain, and we're only at risk of disaster if we harbour self-destructive impulses.We may eventually see mind uploading, but there'll be a holy war to end holy wars before it becomes widespread: it will literally overturn religions. That… ]]> Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:48:28 -0700 http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html The Things, by Peter Watts http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front.

I am being Copper. I am rising from the dead.

I am being Childs. I am guarding the main entrance.

The names don't matter. They are placeholders, nothing more; all biomass is interchangeable. What matters is that these are all that is left of me. The world has burned everything else.

I see myself through the window, loping through the storm, wearing Blair. MacReady has told me to burn Blair if… ]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:13:19 -0700 http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ New 'Solaris' translation locked in Limbo http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/104691 Solaris, Stanislaw Lem's 1961 masterpiece, has finally been translated directly into English. The current print version, in circulation for over 4 decades, was the result of a double-translation. Firstly from Polish to French, in 1966, by Jean-Michel Jasiensko. This version was then taken up by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox who hacked together an English version in 1970. Lem, himself a fluent English speaker, was always scathing of the double translation. Something he believed added to the universal misunderstanding of his greatest work. After the relsease of two film versions of the… ]]> Sun, 19 Jun 2011 05:29:33 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/104691