MachineMachine /stream - tagged with truth 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/ Does It Matter Whether God Exists? 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 The Roots of Religion: Myth, Play and Human Evolution 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 How Google Dominates Us http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false Most of the time Google does not actually have the answers. When people say, “I looked it up on Google,” they are committing a solecism. When they try to erase their embarrassing personal histories “on Google,” they are barking up the wrong tree. It is seldom right to say that anything is true “according to Google.” Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for “hamadryad,” and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it’s a rock band, too, wouldn’t you know). Google defines its mission as “to organize the world’s… ]]> Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:17:11 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false The truth is in there http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/06/12/the_truth_is_in_there/?page=full “I had all these ideas,” he said, speaking slowly and searchingly, like someone looking back on life and trying to figure out where it all went wrong. “I don’t know what happened to me.”

What happened, strictly speaking, was that Morris fought with the head of his program, Thomas Kuhn, a decorated philosopher specializing in the history of science at Princeton. Kuhn believed it was fundamentally impossible for someone in the present to understand the past — that what was considered “true” in one era might be thought false in another, and therefore “objective reality” as such… ]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:11:12 -0700 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/06/12/the_truth_is_in_there/?page=full Are Artists Liars? http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/ian-leslie/are-artists-liars Shortly before his death, Marlon Brando was working on a series of instructional videos about acting, to be called “Lying for a Living”. On the surviving footage, Brando can be seen dispensing gnomic advice on his craft to a group of enthusiastic, if somewhat bemused, Hollywood stars, including Leonardo Di Caprio and Sean Penn. Brando also recruited random people from the Los Angeles street and persuaded them to improvise (the footage is said to include a memorable scene featuring two dwarves and a giant Samoan). “If you can lie, you can act,” Brando told Jod Kaftan, a writer for Rolling… ]]> Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:55:27 -0700 http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/ian-leslie/are-artists-liars When the King Saved God http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105 Four hundred years ago, just as William Shakespeare was reaching the height of his powers and showing the new scope and variety of the English language, and just as “England” itself was becoming more of a nation-state and less an offshore dependency of Europe, an extraordinary committee of clergymen and scholars completed the task of rendering the Old and New Testaments into English, and claimed that the result was the “Authorized” or “King James” version. This was a fairly conservative attempt to stabilize the Crown and the kingdom, heal the breach between competing English and Scottish Christian sects, and bind… ]]> Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:57:36 -0700 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105 Realer than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari http://www.anu.edu.au/hrc/first_and_last/works/realer.htm There is a seductive image of contemporary culture circulating today. Our world, Jean Baudrillard tells us, has been launched into hyperspace in a kind of postmodern apocalypse. The airless atmosphere has asphyxiated the referent, leaving us satellites in aimless orbit around an empty center. We breathe an ether of floating images that no longer bear a relation to any reality whatsoever.1 That, according to Baudrillard, is simulation: the substitution of signs of the real for the real.2 In hyperreality, signs no longer represent or refer to an external model. They stand for nothing but themselves, and refer only to other… ]]> Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:46:32 -0700 http://www.anu.edu.au/hrc/first_and_last/works/realer.htm Hawking contra Philosophy http://www.philosophynow.org/issue82/Hawking_contra_Philosophy Professor Hawking has probably been talking to the wrong philosophers, or picked up some wrong ideas about the kinds of discussion that currently go on in philosophy of science. His lofty dismissal of that whole enterprise as a useless, scientifically irrelevant pseudo-discipline fails to reckon with several important facts about the way that science has typically been practised since its early-modern (seventeenth-century) point of departure and, even more, in the wake of twentieth century developments such as quantum mechanics and relativity.

Science has always included a large philosophical component, whether at the level of basic presuppositions concerning… ]]> Sat, 19 Feb 2011 06:31:20 -0700 http://www.philosophynow.org/issue82/Hawking_contra_Philosophy The New Athe­ists' Nar­row Worldview http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ With tongues in cheeks, Rich­ard Daw­kins, Chris­to­pher Hitch­ens, Sam Har­ris, and Dan­iel Dennett are embracing their reputation as the "Four Horsemen." Lampoon­ing the anx­i­eties of evan­geli­cals, these best-sell­ing athe­ists are em­brac­ing their "dan­gerous" sta­tus and dar­ing be­liev­ers to match their for­mi­da­ble philo­soph­i­cal acu­men.

Ac­cord­ing to these sol­diers of rea­son, the time for re­li­gion is over. It clings like a bad gene rep­li­cat­ing in the pop­u­la­tion, but its use­ful­ness is played out. Sam Har­ris's most re­cent book, The Moral Land­scape (Free Press, 2010), is the lat­est in the continuing bat­tle. As an ag­nos­tic, I find much of the… ]]> Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:58:29 -0700 http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ On the Absolute, the Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth http://www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/ This text was originally delivered by Werner Herzog as a speech in Milano, Italy, following a screening of his film “Lessons of Dark­ness” on the fires in Kuwait. He was asked to speak about the Absolute, but he spontaneously changed the subject to the Sublime. Because of that, a good part of what follows was improvised in the moment.]
*

The collapse of the stellar universe will occur—like creation—in grandiose splendor.

—Blaise Pascal

The words attributed to Blaise Pascal which preface my film Lessons of Darkness are in fact by… ]]> Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:33:00 -0700 http://www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/ Six scientists tell us about the most accurate science fiction in their fields http://m.io9.com/5644435/five-scientists-tell-us-about-the-most-accurate-science-fiction-in-their-fields What do scientists think about seeing their fields of research pulverized by science fiction? We asked researchers from diverse fields to tell us whether any science fiction gets it right.

Several of the scientists we contacted were simply at a loss when I asked whether they could think of any science fiction that was accurate when it came to their field of study. UC Santa Barbara geochemist David Valentine, who recently published a paper on the natural gas plumes from the Deepwater spill, asked us to let him know if we found any accurate geochemistry in SF.… ]]> Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:07:00 -0700 http://m.io9.com/5644435/five-scientists-tell-us-about-the-most-accurate-science-fiction-in-their-fields And Another ‘Thing’ : Sci-Fi Truths and Nature's Errors http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/09/and-another-thing-sci-fi-truths-and-natures-errors.html

by Daniel Rourke

In my last 3quarksdaily article I considered the ability of science-fiction – and the impossible objects it contains – to highlight the gap between us and ‘The Thing Itself’ (the fundamental reality underlying all phenomena). In this follow-up I ask whether the way these fictional ‘Things’ determine their continued existence – by copying, cloning or imitation – can teach us about our conception of nature.

Seth Brundle: What's there to take? The disease has just revealed its purpose. We don't have to worry about contagion anymore... I…

]]> Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:20:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/09/and-another-thing-sci-fi-truths-and-natures-errors.html An Amoral Manifesto (Part I) http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/80marks.htm Hard Atheism or What Shall I Name This Column?

Hold onto your hats, folks. Although it is perhaps fitting that the actual day on which I sit here at my computer writing this column is April 1st, let me assure you that I do not intend this as a joke. For the last couple of years I have been reflecting on and experimenting with a new ethics, and as a result I have thrown over my previous commitment to Kantianism. In fact, I have given up morality altogether! This has certainly come as a shock to me… ]]> Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:12:00 -0700 http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/80marks.htm 'The Thing Itself' : A Sci-Fi Archaeology http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/08/the-thing-itself-a-sc-fi-archaeology.html

by Daniel Rourke

Mid-way through H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine, the protagonist stumbles into a sprawling abandoned museum. Sweeping the dust off ancient relics he ponders how his machine would allow him to watch them crumble further in decay. It is at this point that The Time Traveller has an astounding revelation. The museum is filled with artefacts not from his past, but from his own future: The Time Traveller is surrounded by relics whose potential to speak slipped away with the civilisation that created them.

Having bypassed the normal laws of causality The Time Traveller is doomed…

]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:05:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/08/the-thing-itself-a-sc-fi-archaeology.html Giorgio Agamben - What is a Paradigm - Lecture, 2002 http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/articles/what-is-a-paradigm/ ...we all make use of paradigms in our work, but do we really know what a paradigm is, and what does it mean to use a paradigm in philosophy, in the human sciences, or even in art? These are the questions I will try to answer today. Feuerbach once wrote that the philosophical element in each work is its Entvicklungsfahigkeit, literally, its capability to be developed. If a work, be it a work of science or art or scholarship has some value, it will contain this philosophical element. It is something which remains unsaid within the work but which demands… ]]> Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:39:00 -0700 http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/articles/what-is-a-paradigm/ Separate Truths http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?page=full It is misleading — and dangerous — to think that religions are different paths to the same wisdom.

At least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful and all are true. This claim, which reaches back to “All Religions Are One” (1795) by the English poet, printmaker, and prophet William Blake, is as odd as it is intriguing. No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism… ]]> Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:55:00 -0700 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?page=full Your Reality is out of Date http://mobile.boston.com/art/21//bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/28/warning_your_reality_is_out_of_date/?single=1 These slow-changing facts are what I term “mesofacts.” Mesofacts are the facts that change neither too quickly nor too slowly, that lie in this difficult-to-comprehend middle, or meso-, scale. Often, we learn these in school when young and hold onto them, even after they change. For example, if, as a baby boomer, you learned high school chemistry in 1970, and then, as we all are apt to do, did not take care to brush up on your chemistry periodically, you would not realize that there are 12 new elements in the Periodic Table. Over a tenth of the elements have… ]]> Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:14:00 -0700 http://mobile.boston.com/art/21//bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/28/warning_your_reality_is_out_of_date/?single=1 Avatar: We're Not in Kansas Anymore! http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/02/avatar-were-not-in-kansas-anymore.html

by Daniel Rourke

3D! According to the film industry, to director James 'billions at the box-office' Cameron, Avatar is the first 'true' 3D movie. It takes the experience of cinema to the next (natural?) level, and it does it in a way that makes the movie industry gasp. According to the industry, Avatar is the 3D film that other film makers will be watching for years to come; Avatar is the Citizen Kane of 3D cinema.

It is at this point that I could repudiate this position,…

]]> Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:25:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/02/avatar-were-not-in-kansas-anymore.html Theology for atheists http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/04/religion-atheism Theology lets us talk about deep and irrational urges. This is seen by some atheists as weakness. But maybe it's a strength as well James Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the tugs of belief and unbelief, made an eloquent call in the New Yorker last August for "a theologically engaged atheism". Concluding a review of Terry Eagleton's recent attack on Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he imagines something "only a semitone from faith [which] could give a brother's account of belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted impoverished relative." At the American Academy of Religion meeting… ]]> Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:29:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/04/religion-atheism