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!

Cliff Pickover

I'm intrigued by Dr. Cliff Pickover's books. His books explore topics ranging from computers and creativity to art, mathematics, parallel universes, Einstein, time travel, alien life, religion, dimethyltryptamine elves, and the nature of human genius. His main web page is here. (Call me a little crazy, but one reason I've placed this text on my web page is that I hope he will discover it and give me one of his books as a gift. In fact, like a mindless zombie, I copied these very words from Cliff.)

The Reality Delusion

Source: Canada.com


Ever ponder the nature of reality and your place in it? Did you see The Truman Show and think 'Oh yeah, that's so true'? Well according to Joel and Ian Gold, you could be a deluded lunatic.

Laugh if you want, but the "Truman Show Delusion" is a very real condition. That's the name they have assigned to what they call the signature mental illness of the YouTube era. The whole thing is that you think you're in The Truman Show, but now they say it's got something to do with YouTube aswell. It's a really interesting article, and they talk about the inclusion of new technologies into schizophrenic delusion. They contrast this delusion with the Capgras (family replaced by doubles) or Fregoli, (someone is persecuting me) delusions, but the difference is that those delusions centre around one or a few individuals but The Truman Show delusion involves the entire world.

It's similar to The Matrix Delusion which has also cropped up lately, and it seems that the delusions are heavily cultural. In other words, they are influenced by culture. On the other hand, films like The Matrix and The Truman Show are really archetypal and universal. The messages are things that resonate with people and seem to tell us something we all know about the human experience. Otherwise, people should have the Finding Nemo Delusion and we should see delusions based on anything and everything.

This makes me think of parallels with the extra-terrestrial phenomenon. The form that aliens take is somehow influenced by culture. To us they appear as little green men, but to American Indians they are something else, and to Egyptians they look like something else again. No doubt that psychiatrists chalk it up as just another delusion, but culture seems to dictate to a large extent how we see things, metaphorically and literally.

The problem with calling all these things delusions is: what if it's true? The Truman Show and The Matrix are great metaphors for our predicament in life, but could it be possible that they're actually true? I don't know, but I'm not ruling it out. According to a friend, an illusion is something that isn't true right now, but a delusion is something that can never be true. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine that there could be a set of circumstances in which The Matrix and The Truman Show are real. Experts define delusion as a fixed false belief.

A Dr Stompe talks about someone who thinks they are part of the Matrix. Apparently, this person said "that the world had changed, that there was an unreal quality in the world." Well I would echo those sentiments; the world has changed and there is an unreal quality in the world, but I don't think that's such a radical statement. I don't know who's deluded or what, but these 'doctors' certainly sound a bit nutty.