Protagonists
There’s this desire to make stories huge epics, covering vast expanses of space and huge worlds of consequence. There’s also a desire to make the same stories be personal, relatable, grounded in the lives of a few people and their…
Problem Machine
Subsystems
Last week I wrote about how no two people walk away from a piece of art with the same conception of what they just saw. I mostly couched that in terms of older media like visual art and film, but…
Refractions
When we experience art, we never experience it completely, just the parts of it we notice and that we engage with – merely a slice, and often a narrow one, of the whole. This is why we have so many…
Three Short Reviews
Here are some thoughts on the last three movies I’ve seen. I suppose they’re brief reviews. I’ll try to avoid spoilers in any specific terms, but you could probably deduce some things about where the films are going if you…
Static
If we are alone, and we are dissatisfied, we can change the scene – either by traveling or adapting the world to suit ourselves. If we are with a few other people, it is usually still possible to convince them…
Virtually Real
Virtual reality will never be what you want it to be. What do we want virtual reality to be? We want the complete experience of being someone or something else. We want to be able to do what they can…
Machine Problem
Diagnosing problems with a machine can be difficult when you live inside that machine. Whenever something goes wrong with our bodies, we have to address the issue as best as we can while also contending with its consequences, and all…
Examined Life
One cannot observe without affecting that which is observed – this is true in physics, where even the bouncing of photons necessary for observation affects the outcome, but also more generally true of human beings than we often care to…
Random
What is randomness? We tend to imbue the term with more authority than it ought to have, to invoke an ideal of completely unknowable numbers and events that come from nowhere, from nothing, beyond nature, supernatural. However, all of the…
Meaning
When we search for meaning in an uncaring universe, what is it we search for? Meaning isn’t an object that can be found, isn’t an inherent trait of anything, isn’t even a truth that can be discovered – meaning is…