Transcendant Man

Source: Transcendent Man

Transcendent Man is the new movie (coming soon) inspired by the book The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. Whatever you think about Kurzweil's ideas, it is clear that he is a genius in several fields and very inspiring. If you didn't know, Kurzweil is a big name in transhumanism; the belief that humans can and should transcend traditional limitations with the use of technology and other advances. In other words, transhumanism is about finding out what the limitations of humans really are; seeing what we're really capable of doing. Following on from my previous post, transhumanism seems like a philosophy that Philip K. Dick would really be into, and he could probably be described as an early transhumanist.

Well I watched the trailer of Transcendent Man and it looks like a very good movie; I'll be hanging out for a viewing of the full product.

Any thoughts/comments about the general topic of transhumanism will be welcomed; I would be interested in a discussion on the subject.

Transcendent Man Film Trailer

Interview with PKD's widow

Source: Interview: Tessa Dick, author of The Owl in Daylight, and widow of Philip K. Dick

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge fan of Philip K. Dick. In case you don't know, he was a pioneering genius of speculative science fiction. He was more of a philosopher than a science-fiction writer, but his stories are science fiction. He's the mastermind behind the stories of Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Paycheck, Next, Minority Report, and I think Total Recall. His ideas were also discussed in the movie Waking Life.

I came across an interview with his last wife, Tessa Dick. It was interesting to find out that she had quite a bit of input in Philip's ideas and creative process. They don't talk much about his ideas, but my favourite bit is when she talks about when he had his famous visionary experience (outlined in his book VALIS), and she says: "he was closely involved in raising our young son and handling all the
little cares of daily life. It was as if he were two or three
different people."

Tessa has a blog called It's a Philip K. Dick World!