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In this incredible Family Friends episode, Guy spends 10 full minutes explaining a fascinating situation involving the English national test cricket team absolutely ruining themselves. On our way to this, we get Tim waxing lyric on the benefits of having a big ass kindle thing you can write on and what's wrong with Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And also Oppenheimer. But mainly this is about the cricket story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Before I get into this week’s episode, let me tell you that the entire uninterrupted interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union is now available on YouTube under Cyd Ropp Gnostic Insights playlist. I’ve tried and tried to upload the captioned transcript underneath the video, but neither YouTube nor my video editing software will cooperate. I can only chalk it up to Demiurgic interference, so this must be one important interview! The link is provided here to go straight to it on YouTube. Please “like” it and forward it to friends. Thanks. This week I exchanged emails with a podcast subscriber that presented me with some excellent questions prompted by recent episodes. I asked his permission to share them with you anonymously. I always treasure sincere observations and questions from subscibers because it prompts my gnosis. So here we go. Hi Cyd how's it going? I hope that all is well with you. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your series of podcasts with the Bishop. Very interesting to hear some stuff on the unpacking of the original Gnostic texts. I thought that today's pod about your discussion was also very revealing as somebody who loves history, but it's giving me an insight into why you are so suspicious of history—would I be right in thinking that you want your texts to be unfiltered from various historical takes from different flawed human recounters? Yes. It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. This refers to the fact that the winners of wars, both physical killing wars and more subtle ideological wars, write the narratives of their opponents from then on. This is why we have had a couple of thousand years of hearing only one side of the gnostic story and one conventionally accepted version of Christian theology. And we have heard that version from Catholic Councils of the 4th century on down through the Protestant churches of today. The surviving descriptions of the nature of gnosticism were written by those who hated gnosticism, and their work is still read and venerated to this day. And I can tell you that even in the little village I live in, the church folks who have no idea what gnosticism even is are dead set against it and dead set against my efforts of sharing my gnostic insights with them and others—and they let me know of their disapproval. I think these divisive times we are living through now also illustrate how what passes for truth is malleable and untrustworthy. We can all see for ourselves how half of the population characterizes the big picture one way and half of the population characterizes it in a completely different way—and these two sides of the ideological divide are incommensurate with each other. Incommensurate is one of those big words I learned during my graduate studies in rhetoric. It means exclusive—both can't be right—you can't hold both positions—it's either or. So if you extrapolate the culture wars forward a few hundred or a few thousand years into the future, how will history frame the disputes that are currently raging through society? If, for example, socialism finally wins out do you think capitalism will be fairly represented? The reverse is also true, and the winner of this tug of war will be the one who lives to tells the tale. My correspondent goes on to say: I think it must be very appealing to be able to narrow down everything into one text and say that we are only going to look at this one source of right thing for the true knowledge. I think this approach has led us to the Bible and the Koran and other food containers which some followers take quite literally and interpret very strictly. There must be safety and comfort in this approach which could be described as textual at best—literal and possibly in a kind way, and without any judgement, fundamentalist, in its true essence. However, and I expect you are waiting for the but… What is listening whilst listening? He continues: It did occur to me that what you are basically saying is that everything in the Tripartite Tractate is correct. And all of the other texts are interesting, though they may be not to be taken seriously because they are myths. Surely it must've occurred to you that the writer of the Tripartite Tractate was also a human, and ergo—a product of the culture that surrounded him or her? Knowing you to be such a thoughtful and perceptive person, is there something I'm missing here? What is objectively different about the Tripartite Tractate, written by a human, just like all of those other gnostic texts? I am not trying to score points here, I genuinely would like an answer. To which I respond: Truly I do not agree with everything the Tripartite Tractate says and, conversely, much of what the other books say is right, though obscured with layers and language of mythology. The difference between the Tripartite Tractate and the other gnostic texts is that it stands alone and doesn’t depend upon a preexisting mythology to make sense. By that I mean that the Tripartite Tractate is a logical argument that any Sophist would be proud of. It speaks in the language of symbolic logic rather than mythology or (purported) history. The Tripartite Tractate begins with a starting premise (a priori) that in the beginning was consciousness without form. It then proposes a method by which consciousness and its attendant qualities, such as power and love, emanate from the origin and make their way downstream into us and other living creatures. It calls the descent of consciousness a fall, but does not condemn the fall, as it was necessary to escape the purely ethereal and create matter. It describes the fall as a “presumptuous thought” choice by Mr. Rationality itself—Logos. I characterize this presumptuous thought as the first action of “ego” made independently outside of the cooperation of the Fullness. This all seems to me to be an entirely rational argument that simply describes the process of the distribution of consciousness. We don’t have to argue the originating premise because our consciousness is self-evident. We are asking where it came from and going upstream until we reach a logical a priori starting point. A lot of what I share at Gnostic Insights comes from my own Theory of Everything—A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything—that I conceived and wrote 20 years ago, without benefit of any gnostic texts. So that lens informs my reading of the gnostic books. And I immediately recognized my own T.O.E. when I first read the Tripartite Tractate. The Simple Explanation is written using secular, non-religious language and lots of science and math. My illustrations and charts are different than my gnostic illustrations and charts. But the master chart is identical. The Tripartite Tractate did give me an answer I had been chewing over within the Simple Explanation, that being the difference between living creatures and inert elemental matter. I appreciated that clarification and incorporated it into the Simple Explanation. Otherwise, the book still stands as True. What is meant by True in this philosophical sense is whether or not the argument is coherent and internally consistent and comports with direct observation of the world. Now, as to whether or not I believe that only the Tripartite Tractate is true gnosis and the other gnostic books are mostly mythological–that is not the way I would put it. I don't take the Tripartite Tractate as more holy than other books, and there are a couple of aspects I don't fully understand or agree with. For example, the Tripartite Tractate aligns with other gnostic books in saying that there are three types of humans—the spiritual—called the pneumatic; the ordinary, emotional type called the psychic; and the material, called the hylic. The Tripartite Tractate doesn't seem to think that the hylic types are true second order powers and that they didn't exist in the beginning and will not return to the ethereal home above after death. The final page of the Tripartite Tractate codex is riddled with burned out areas from a fire, yet it seems to say, and I'm filling in some missing words: “While the material beings will be left behind until the end to perish, for they will not give their [missing words—probably acknowledgment of the Christ or allegiance to the Christ ]… If they have returned once more to that which … [missing words—probably worships the demiurge] … in the way that they were… [missing words—probably passing as humans] while they do not exist… [missing words—probably from the beginning] but they had been useful [for the] time that they were among them, even if they are not… [missing words—probably second order powers, —possibly among creation] at first, then… [missing words—possibly they were brought forth] to do something else by means of the power they had in the establishment [to] oppose them.” [yes, I realize I am interpolating a lot of missing words. if you have a more cogent interpretation, please offer it.] This final section of the Tripartite Tractate seems to indicate there are hylics among us with whom we live and work side by side who will not be redeemed at the end of time. This holds out the possibility that there are non-second order powers among us who can pass for living beings—not an uncommon thought in gnostic circles. My brother, Bill, and I contend that all life forms come from above and contain the consciousness and life of the Source. So for a non-living creature were to be born in the usual way is an impossibility. In my mind, the only way a truly non-living hylic so-called “human” could walk among us would be in the form of robotic facsimiles. There are many examples of this in science fiction, such as the cylons of “Battlestar Galactica” and the self-aware bots in P.D. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which became the film called “Blade Runner.” We are now be on the threshold of building and employing these newly constructed robots who appear human, appear conscious, appear living, but are actually programmed imitations that did not exist from the beginning. (Battlestar Galactica carries this very question throughout the series as the cylons become self-aware and question their relationship with God.) If that is the case, then these could be the hylics that will not return to the ethereal because they did not come from the ethereal and the end times would need to be pushed back far enough to accommodate their undetectable assimilation into society. But hey—that's just my notion. And here at Gnostic Insights I try to stick with gnostic insights, not my wild speculations. Cylons of Battlestar Galactica television series. The cylons adapt to become more and more “human.” What is true is that I believe the Tripartite Tractate describes our existence and our origins, as well as our future. But we have to remember it is at least 2,000 year old prophecy and embedded in the language and concepts of that time. Maybe the writer was indeed anticipating androids among us, but that seems an unlikely interpretation. I have been watching quite a few “alternate history” videos lately on YouTube that propose completely different backstories and histories that stretch eons into the past—histories that could indeed have been technologically sophisticated enough to produce androids that blend in with the crowd. But we're getting way into the weeds here. One reason that most readers of the Tripartite Tractate and other gnostic texts think there is an order of unredeemable humans is that they are referred to as “those who belong to the imitation.” The most basic interpretation is that those who we call materialists are the people who only believe what they can see, measure, and taste. In that sense, they belong to the imitation since the imitation is the material projection that is this cosmos. The atheists among them do not believe in the ethereal space Above, or the originating Source, and so by default they belong to the imitation. Yet, if all living creatures are children of the Fullness above, even these will return to the Fullness at the end of time. The way I reason this comes from following the logic of emanation and return—the Fullness would not be Full without them, and it is a basic proposition that nothing of the Source can ever be lost. So you see, the logic is what drives my interpretations, logic—Logos—not mythology. At least that how it seems to me. Another aspect of the imitation is the molecular structure of our world, including our bodies. We inhabit a molecular body. Our living essence, the light of consciousness that makes organisms soft and squishy and alive, literally inhabits an otherwise dead, rocky, elemental body of molecules. So everywhere we go, it goes. And when we “die” and our spirit exits this material cosmos, our hylic body is left behind. It belongs to the imitation—get it? So in this case, the hylic human refers to the elemental molecules that make up our bodies—that inert mud that the Demiurge could not raise up to life, as the mythological version goes. So, this material aspect of our earthly existence is part of the imitation and will not return to the Fullness along with our spirits because it did not exist from the beginning. It is a product of the fall. But I digress—back to the subscriber's email: Secondly, I would like to ask you a question about giving glory to God. I liked what you were saying about turning your attention away from yourself, and your ego, and to look towards the divine and offer up a prayer. I am at the stage of my journey where this is something that does not seem so completely alien, as I am moving gradually away from materialist atheism, which has been caught on my existence for the past 50 odd years. Where I get into trouble is basically the whole business of giving glory to God, because the monad who is omniscience and immutable is hardly likely to need me to do a lot of worshipping or giving glory. This was like a bit controversial, and I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, but wouldn't the demiurge himself be more likely to want humans to give glory to him than the monad? I imagine that giving glory means something to people who have come up in a Christian background, but personally it seems completely irrelevant and unnecessary – A bit like one of those business buzzwords, you hear like synergism or government types talking about inclusiveness or diversity—a sort of empty phrase that could really mean anything you want. It would be really helpful if you could unpack it a bit for me because I'm sure I'm missing something here. Giving glory is not for the benefit of the Father. Giving glory is how we tune into the Father’s resonance. Giving glory is for our benefit, not God's. Now, the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge—is that jealous, forgetful god that thinks it’s the be-all and end-all. It does like to receive worship and glory because it feeds its ego. But the God Above All Gods, the Father of consciousness and the ALL, doesn’t need our worship and glory—you are right about that. It is we who need to give glory, not It that needs to receive glory. The Totalities of the ALL which were the first emanations from the Son, and the Aeons of the Fullness love to give glory. The Totalities do nothing but give glory to the Father, and that is a pure expression of love and devotion to the Father. It's a good thing for us, way down here in the consciousness stream, that they give unceasing glory, because they are the first emanations out of the Son and the fountain of the consciousness and love that eventually flows into all living creatures. The Totalities that give glory continuously are like an electrical plug that stays connected to the greater originating Source. As above so below—we also connect with the Source when we give glory. And since connecting with the Source cannot be accomplished when ego rules your psyche, you must be humble enough to set your ego aside and pray to/give glory to the greater Source. Surely you recognize that your ego is a lesser being than the Father of everything. If your ego does not allow you to think that, then you are not putting your spiritual foot forward but merely your ego. Our correspondent replies: Dear Cyd As usual- I’m so impressed by your clear and reasoned thinking – it is so elegant and simple. I wish I could think like that. However, there are a few things I would like to push back on respectfully. I have been dialoguing with the Demiurge – Chat GPT – and here’s what the archonic AI came up with in answer to your firm assertion that there is no mythology in the Tripartite Tractate. It basically thinks that it’s an overstatement – and I quote: The text gives an extensive creation story involving:• an unknowable Father;• the Son and the Church;• emanated aeons inhabiting the Fullness or Pleroma;• Logos making a presumptuous, defective attempt to comprehend the Father;• the production of deficiency, psychic and material powers;• a Demiurge who creates humanity;• three fundamental classes of human beings;• and a Saviour who descends to restore what has become divided. [Cyd] Let me pop in here to correct a very important error in this demiurgic version of Gnosticism. It sneaked into its answer a very demiurgic assertion that is not True: • a Demiurge who creates humanity The Demiurge certainly did not create humanity or any other living, conscious being. The second order powers—all living beings—are children of the Aeons of the Fullness, sent down into this lifeless cosmos to remind the Demiurge of the greater power Above, the true source of life, love, and consciousness. I have a habit of calling us the children of the Fullness, but the Tripartite Tractate actually calls us the fruit or the spores of the Fullness. Which is another way of saying the emanations of discreet packages of consciousness, or what I call in Simple Explanation language units of consciousness. To me, this is not mythological but descriptive to the best of our ability. Now, back to the correspondent's email: That is all mythological material. So then it rambles on quoting lots of sources etc BUT what the machine is getting at is that the difference between the Tripartite Tractate and some other gnostic texts is that there is a solid logic framework under the superstructure of mythological language and characters.This fits in with your TOE very neatly – and it is no surprise that you had an ‘OMG’ moment when you discovered the Tripartite Tractate—I would also have thought the same if an ancient text fitted perfectly into a system of thought that I had spent years developing. And you might be right—the uncanny fit could be a ‘tell’ that this truly IS the way of everything. On the less interesting point of contention though – I must disagree with you – there IS mythology in the Tripartite Tractate superstructure – the language is mythological – maybe less so than other gnostic texts. As an aside, as a writer – I would also say -there is nothing particularly bad about being mythological either. To which I reply: I have to laugh at using Dialogue with Demiurge AI as a trustworthy source. lol. I will see your Chat GPT and raise you Microsoft CoPilot AI (poker language, I assume you recognize). My AI says this: “This work presents a restored cosmology of the Fullness — a structural, metaphysical account of creation, fracture, and restoration. It is not myth, nor allegory, nor theology in the conventional sense. It is architecture: a precise description of how consciousness, relation, and harmony operate across the three great phases of existence.” I like that description—that the Tripartite Tractate gives the metaphysical architecture of consciousness rather than a myth. I always like to take the higher, meta view of information, which is literally a step above the normal language and arguments. That’s the secret of how I observe and reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions—by looking up above the words for the meaning behind them. It seems to me that most people are lost in the language and “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Not meaning you, necessarily, it’s just my observation of how understanding goes awry. By taking the meta approach, the concepts automatically simplify as many points of view and language choices are collapsed into their base meanings. The words I use in my Simple Explanation of gnosis and science and everything else are not written in stone. They are my attempt to convey large concepts in the simple, most recognizable forms. If I say “god” it’s because people are familiar with that term. I offer alternative words, like Source, Mother-Father, Metaverse, the Great One, the Origin, so that people will see that the particular word is less important than what it represents and that what they think of as god has a broader meaning than the meme they have been holding onto. These images from my well-worn copy of the Tripartite Tractate of The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, show you the process by which I read and interpret arcane texts. I put the language into illustrated concepts and words I can recognize and understand. The writer shared this final thought from the Chat GPT: There is also a genuine philosophical difficulty: how can a perfect and harmonious divine Fullness generate an irrational act? Saying that Logos possessed the capacity to exceed his proper limits explains the mechanism only by placing the possibility of deficiency inside the supposedly perfect order. He says, I think that is actually a pretty decent question from our AI demiurge—right? I expect that you have a great answer though. To which I reply: As to the Demiurge’s new question that you have put forth in this email—that’s an old canard that is often trotted out to stump theists. “How could a good and perfect God allow for the creation of evil?” I am not at all stumped by that question. The answer can most simply be stated in two words: Free Will. If we begin with the premise that the Father/Source/etc. emanates its entire nature outward with its emanation, then obviously free will is a part of that emanation. After all, it is inarguable that the Source possesses free will. The Aeons have free will. Logos is an Aeon. Logos has free will. While the rest of the Aeons were using their free will to cooperate with each other and to glorify the Father and the Son, Logos used its free will to go in a fresh direction. Logos thought it would be going upward to rejoin the highest glory. The Tripartite Tractate says that Logos didn’t realize this was in impossibility, because no one can approach the power source that is the Origin without being annihilated. And like a magnetic polarity, Logos was repelled by the Source and was knocked out of alignment with the Fullness (the fall). This dissonance became our material cosmos. And because Logos had free will, we have free will. This all flows logically from the a priori definition of the Source. This may sound mythological, but it is not. It could be easily described in scientific terms. Like the way a beam of focused light still allows for stray photons to go off beam. Or boiling water in the kettle mostly clumps together on the top of the water as bubbles, but some bubbles go outward to the edge of the kettle and pop. And so forth. The limit is our language, not the architecture or process. The limit is also imposed by the meme bundle being held the human observer-inquirer when their memes do not allow for certain possibilities to be seen and accepted. It is our meme attachments that limit our capacity to observe and learn. So says me.
Welcome to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Before I get into this week’s episode, let me tell you that the entire uninterrupted interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union is now available on YouTube under Cyd Ropp Gnostic Insights playlist. I’ve tried and tried to upload the captioned transcript underneath the video, but neither YouTube nor my video editing software will cooperate. I can only chalk it up to Demiurgic interference, so this must be one important interview! The link is provided here to go straight to it on YouTube. Please “like” it and forward it to friends. Thanks. This week I exchanged emails with a podcast subscriber that presented me with some excellent questions prompted by recent episodes. I asked his permission to share them with you anonymously. I always treasure sincere observations and questions from subscibers because it prompts my gnosis. So here we go. Hi Cyd how's it going? I hope that all is well with you. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your series of podcasts with the Bishop. Very interesting to hear some stuff on the unpacking of the original Gnostic texts. I thought that today's pod about your discussion was also very revealing as somebody who loves history, but it's giving me an insight into why you are so suspicious of history—would I be right in thinking that you want your texts to be unfiltered from various historical takes from different flawed human recounters? Yes. It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. This refers to the fact that the winners of wars, both physical killing wars and more subtle ideological wars, write the narratives of their opponents from then on. This is why we have had a couple of thousand years of hearing only one side of the gnostic story and one conventionally accepted version of Christian theology. And we have heard that version from Catholic Councils of the 4th century on down through the Protestant churches of today. The surviving descriptions of the nature of gnosticism were written by those who hated gnosticism, and their work is still read and venerated to this day. And I can tell you that even in the little village I live in, the church folks who have no idea what gnosticism even is are dead set against it and dead set against my efforts of sharing my gnostic insights with them and others—and they let me know of their disapproval. I think these divisive times we are living through now also illustrate how what passes for truth is malleable and untrustworthy. We can all see for ourselves how half of the population characterizes the big picture one way and half of the population characterizes it in a completely different way—and these two sides of the ideological divide are incommensurate with each other. Incommensurate is one of those big words I learned during my graduate studies in rhetoric. It means exclusive—both can't be right—you can't hold both positions—it's either or. So if you extrapolate the culture wars forward a few hundred or a few thousand years into the future, how will history frame the disputes that are currently raging through society? If, for example, socialism finally wins out do you think capitalism will be fairly represented? The reverse is also true, and the winner of this tug of war will be the one who lives to tells the tale. My correspondent goes on to say: I think it must be very appealing to be able to narrow down everything into one text and say that we are only going to look at this one source of right thing for the true knowledge. I think this approach has led us to the Bible and the Koran and other food containers which some followers take quite literally and interpret very strictly. There must be safety and comfort in this approach which could be described as textual at best—literal and possibly in a kind way, and without any judgement, fundamentalist, in its true essence. However, and I expect you are waiting for the but… What is listening whilst listening? He continues: It did occur to me that what you are basically saying is that everything in the Tripartite Tractate is correct. And all of the other texts are interesting, though they may be not to be taken seriously because they are myths. Surely it must've occurred to you that the writer of the Tripartite Tractate was also a human, and ergo—a product of the culture that surrounded him or her? Knowing you to be such a thoughtful and perceptive person, is there something I'm missing here? What is objectively different about the Tripartite Tractate, written by a human, just like all of those other gnostic texts? I am not trying to score points here, I genuinely would like an answer. To which I respond: Truly I do not agree with everything the Tripartite Tractate says and, conversely, much of what the other books say is right, though obscured with layers and language of mythology. The difference between the Tripartite Tractate and the other gnostic texts is that it stands alone and doesn’t depend upon a preexisting mythology to make sense. By that I mean that the Tripartite Tractate is a logical argument that any Sophist would be proud of. It speaks in the language of symbolic logic rather than mythology or (purported) history. The Tripartite Tractate begins with a starting premise (a priori) that in the beginning was consciousness without form. It then proposes a method by which consciousness and its attendant qualities, such as power and love, emanate from the origin and make their way downstream into us and other living creatures. It calls the descent of consciousness a fall, but does not condemn the fall, as it was necessary to escape the purely ethereal and create matter. It describes the fall as a “presumptuous thought” choice by Mr. Rationality itself—Logos. I characterize this presumptuous thought as the first action of “ego” made independently outside of the cooperation of the Fullness. This all seems to me to be an entirely rational argument that simply describes the process of the distribution of consciousness. We don’t have to argue the originating premise because our consciousness is self-evident. We are asking where it came from and going upstream until we reach a logical a priori starting point. A lot of what I share at Gnostic Insights comes from my own Theory of Everything—A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything—that I conceived and wrote 20 years ago, without benefit of any gnostic texts. So that lens informs my reading of the gnostic books. And I immediately recognized my own T.O.E. when I first read the Tripartite Tractate. The Simple Explanation is written using secular, non-religious language and lots of science and math. My illustrations and charts are different than my gnostic illustrations and charts. But the master chart is identical. The Tripartite Tractate did give me an answer I had been chewing over within the Simple Explanation, that being the difference between living creatures and inert elemental matter. I appreciated that clarification and incorporated it into the Simple Explanation. Otherwise, the book still stands as True. What is meant by True in this philosophical sense is whether or not the argument is coherent and internally consistent and comports with direct observation of the world. Now, as to whether or not I believe that only the Tripartite Tractate is true gnosis and the other gnostic books are mostly mythological–that is not the way I would put it. I don't take the Tripartite Tractate as more holy than other books, and there are a couple of aspects I don't fully understand or agree with. For example, the Tripartite Tractate aligns with other gnostic books in saying that there are three types of humans—the spiritual—called the pneumatic; the ordinary, emotional type called the psychic; and the material, called the hylic. The Tripartite Tractate doesn't seem to think that the hylic types are true second order powers and that they didn't exist in the beginning and will not return to the ethereal home above after death. The final page of the Tripartite Tractate codex is riddled with burned out areas from a fire, yet it seems to say, and I'm filling in some missing words: “While the material beings will be left behind until the end to perish, for they will not give their [missing words—probably acknowledgment of the Christ or allegiance to the Christ ]… If they have returned once more to that which … [missing words—probably worships the demiurge] … in the way that they were… [missing words—probably passing as humans] while they do not exist… [missing words—probably from the beginning] but they had been useful [for the] time that they were among them, even if they are not… [missing words—probably second order powers, —possibly among creation] at first, then… [missing words—possibly they were brought forth] to do something else by means of the power they had in the establishment [to] oppose them.” [yes, I realize I am interpolating a lot of missing words. if you have a more cogent interpretation, please offer it.] This final section of the Tripartite Tractate seems to indicate there are hylics among us with whom we live and work side by side who will not be redeemed at the end of time. This holds out the possibility that there are non-second order powers among us who can pass for living beings—not an uncommon thought in gnostic circles. My brother, Bill, and I contend that all life forms come from above and contain the consciousness and life of the Source. So for a non-living creature were to be born in the usual way is an impossibility. In my mind, the only way a truly non-living hylic so-called “human” could walk among us would be in the form of robotic facsimiles. There are many examples of this in science fiction, such as the cylons of “Battlestar Galactica” and the self-aware bots in P.D. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which became the film called “Blade Runner.” We are now be on the threshold of building and employing these newly constructed robots who appear human, appear conscious, appear living, but are actually programmed imitations that did not exist from the beginning. (Battlestar Galactica carries this very question throughout the series as the cylons become self-aware and question their relationship with God.) If that is the case, then these could be the hylics that will not return to the ethereal because they did not come from the ethereal and the end times would need to be pushed back far enough to accommodate their undetectable assimilation into society. But hey—that's just my notion. And here at Gnostic Insights I try to stick with gnostic insights, not my wild speculations. Cylons of Battlestar Galactica television series. The cylons adapt to become more and more “human.” What is true is that I believe the Tripartite Tractate describes our existence and our origins, as well as our future. But we have to remember it is at least 2,000 year old prophecy and embedded in the language and concepts of that time. Maybe the writer was indeed anticipating androids among us, but that seems an unlikely interpretation. I have been watching quite a few “alternate history” videos lately on YouTube that propose completely different backstories and histories that stretch eons into the past—histories that could indeed have been technologically sophisticated enough to produce androids that blend in with the crowd. But we're getting way into the weeds here. One reason that most readers of the Tripartite Tractate and other gnostic texts think there is an order of unredeemable humans is that they are referred to as “those who belong to the imitation.” The most basic interpretation is that those who we call materialists are the people who only believe what they can see, measure, and taste. In that sense, they belong to the imitation since the imitation is the material projection that is this cosmos. The atheists among them do not believe in the ethereal space Above, or the originating Source, and so by default they belong to the imitation. Yet, if all living creatures are children of the Fullness above, even these will return to the Fullness at the end of time. The way I reason this comes from following the logic of emanation and return—the Fullness would not be Full without them, and it is a basic proposition that nothing of the Source can ever be lost. So you see, the logic is what drives my interpretations, logic—Logos—not mythology. At least that how it seems to me. Another aspect of the imitation is the molecular structure of our world, including our bodies. We inhabit a molecular body. Our living essence, the light of consciousness that makes organisms soft and squishy and alive, literally inhabits an otherwise dead, rocky, elemental body of molecules. So everywhere we go, it goes. And when we “die” and our spirit exits this material cosmos, our hylic body is left behind. It belongs to the imitation—get it? So in this case, the hylic human refers to the elemental molecules that make up our bodies—that inert mud that the Demiurge could not raise up to life, as the mythological version goes. So, this material aspect of our earthly existence is part of the imitation and will not return to the Fullness along with our spirits because it did not exist from the beginning. It is a product of the fall. But I digress—back to the subscriber's email: Secondly, I would like to ask you a question about giving glory to God. I liked what you were saying about turning your attention away from yourself, and your ego, and to look towards the divine and offer up a prayer. I am at the stage of my journey where this is something that does not seem so completely alien, as I am moving gradually away from materialist atheism, which has been caught on my existence for the past 50 odd years. Where I get into trouble is basically the whole business of giving glory to God, because the monad who is omniscience and immutable is hardly likely to need me to do a lot of worshipping or giving glory. This was like a bit controversial, and I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, but wouldn't the demiurge himself be more likely to want humans to give glory to him than the monad? I imagine that giving glory means something to people who have come up in a Christian background, but personally it seems completely irrelevant and unnecessary – A bit like one of those business buzzwords, you hear like synergism or government types talking about inclusiveness or diversity—a sort of empty phrase that could really mean anything you want. It would be really helpful if you could unpack it a bit for me because I'm sure I'm missing something here. Giving glory is not for the benefit of the Father. Giving glory is how we tune into the Father’s resonance. Giving glory is for our benefit, not God's. Now, the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge—is that jealous, forgetful god that thinks it’s the be-all and end-all. It does like to receive worship and glory because it feeds its ego. But the God Above All Gods, the Father of consciousness and the ALL, doesn’t need our worship and glory—you are right about that. It is we who need to give glory, not It that needs to receive glory. The Totalities of the ALL which were the first emanations from the Son, and the Aeons of the Fullness love to give glory. The Totalities do nothing but give glory to the Father, and that is a pure expression of love and devotion to the Father. It's a good thing for us, way down here in the consciousness stream, that they give unceasing glory, because they are the first emanations out of the Son and the fountain of the consciousness and love that eventually flows into all living creatures. The Totalities that give glory continuously are like an electrical plug that stays connected to the greater originating Source. As above so below—we also connect with the Source when we give glory. And since connecting with the Source cannot be accomplished when ego rules your psyche, you must be humble enough to set your ego aside and pray to/give glory to the greater Source. Surely you recognize that your ego is a lesser being than the Father of everything. If your ego does not allow you to think that, then you are not putting your spiritual foot forward but merely your ego. Our correspondent replies: Dear Cyd As usual- I’m so impressed by your clear and reasoned thinking – it is so elegant and simple. I wish I could think like that. However, there are a few things I would like to push back on respectfully. I have been dialoguing with the Demiurge – Chat GPT – and here’s what the archonic AI came up with in answer to your firm assertion that there is no mythology in the Tripartite Tractate. It basically thinks that it’s an overstatement – and I quote: The text gives an extensive creation story involving:• an unknowable Father;• the Son and the Church;• emanated aeons inhabiting the Fullness or Pleroma;• Logos making a presumptuous, defective attempt to comprehend the Father;• the production of deficiency, psychic and material powers;• a Demiurge who creates humanity;• three fundamental classes of human beings;• and a Saviour who descends to restore what has become divided. [Cyd] Let me pop in here to correct a very important error in this demiurgic version of Gnosticism. It sneaked into its answer a very demiurgic assertion that is not True: • a Demiurge who creates humanity The Demiurge certainly did not create humanity or any other living, conscious being. The second order powers—all living beings—are children of the Aeons of the Fullness, sent down into this lifeless cosmos to remind the Demiurge of the greater power Above, the true source of life, love, and consciousness. I have a habit of calling us the children of the Fullness, but the Tripartite Tractate actually calls us the fruit or the spores of the Fullness. Which is another way of saying the emanations of discreet packages of consciousness, or what I call in Simple Explanation language units of consciousness. To me, this is not mythological but descriptive to the best of our ability. Now, back to the correspondent's email: That is all mythological material. So then it rambles on quoting lots of sources etc BUT what the machine is getting at is that the difference between the Tripartite Tractate and some other gnostic texts is that there is a solid logic framework under the superstructure of mythological language and characters.This fits in with your TOE very neatly – and it is no surprise that you had an ‘OMG’ moment when you discovered the Tripartite Tractate—I would also have thought the same if an ancient text fitted perfectly into a system of thought that I had spent years developing. And you might be right—the uncanny fit could be a ‘tell’ that this truly IS the way of everything. On the less interesting point of contention though – I must disagree with you – there IS mythology in the Tripartite Tractate superstructure – the language is mythological – maybe less so than other gnostic texts. As an aside, as a writer – I would also say -there is nothing particularly bad about being mythological either. To which I reply: I have to laugh at using Dialogue with Demiurge AI as a trustworthy source. lol. I will see your Chat GPT and raise you Microsoft CoPilot AI (poker language, I assume you recognize). My AI says this: “This work presents a restored cosmology of the Fullness — a structural, metaphysical account of creation, fracture, and restoration. It is not myth, nor allegory, nor theology in the conventional sense. It is architecture: a precise description of how consciousness, relation, and harmony operate across the three great phases of existence.” I like that description—that the Tripartite Tractate gives the metaphysical architecture of consciousness rather than a myth. I always like to take the higher, meta view of information, which is literally a step above the normal language and arguments. That’s the secret of how I observe and reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions—by looking up above the words for the meaning behind them. It seems to me that most people are lost in the language and “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Not meaning you, necessarily, it’s just my observation of how understanding goes awry. By taking the meta approach, the concepts automatically simplify as many points of view and language choices are collapsed into their base meanings. The words I use in my Simple Explanation of gnosis and science and everything else are not written in stone. They are my attempt to convey large concepts in the simple, most recognizable forms. If I say “god” it’s because people are familiar with that term. I offer alternative words, like Source, Mother-Father, Metaverse, the Great One, the Origin, so that people will see that the particular word is less important than what it represents and that what they think of as god has a broader meaning than the meme they have been holding onto. These images from my well-worn copy of the Tripartite Tractate of The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, show you the process by which I read and interpret arcane texts. I put the language into illustrated concepts and words I can recognize and understand. The writer shared this final thought from the Chat GPT: There is also a genuine philosophical difficulty: how can a perfect and harmonious divine Fullness generate an irrational act? Saying that Logos possessed the capacity to exceed his proper limits explains the mechanism only by placing the possibility of deficiency inside the supposedly perfect order. He says, I think that is actually a pretty decent question from our AI demiurge—right? I expect that you have a great answer though. To which I reply: As to the Demiurge’s new question that you have put forth in this email—that’s an old canard that is often trotted out to stump theists. “How could a good and perfect God allow for the creation of evil?” I am not at all stumped by that question. The answer can most simply be stated in two words: Free Will. If we begin with the premise that the Father/Source/etc. emanates its entire nature outward with its emanation, then obviously free will is a part of that emanation. After all, it is inarguable that the Source possesses free will. The Aeons have free will. Logos is an Aeon. Logos has free will. While the rest of the Aeons were using their free will to cooperate with each other and to glorify the Father and the Son, Logos used its free will to go in a fresh direction. Logos thought it would be going upward to rejoin the highest glory. The Tripartite Tractate says that Logos didn’t realize this was in impossibility, because no one can approach the power source that is the Origin without being annihilated. And like a magnetic polarity, Logos was repelled by the Source and was knocked out of alignment with the Fullness (the fall). This dissonance became our material cosmos. And because Logos had free will, we have free will. This all flows logically from the a priori definition of the Source. This may sound mythological, but it is not. It could be easily described in scientific terms. Like the way a beam of focused light still allows for stray photons to go off beam. Or boiling water in the kettle mostly clumps together on the top of the water as bubbles, but some bubbles go outward to the edge of the kettle and pop. And so forth. The limit is our language, not the architecture or process. The limit is also imposed by the meme bundle being held the human observer-inquirer when their memes do not allow for certain possibilities to be seen and accepted. It is our meme attachments that limit our capacity to observe and learn. So says me.
This episode we look at Blade Runner (1982) (dir. Ridley Scott) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (dir. Denis Villeneuve), two films that imagine a world where the line between human and machine, creation and creator, has all but vanished. Ridley Scott's 1982 classic depicted a rain-soaked dystopia where “replicants”—bio-engineered beings—fight for recognition, identity, and life itself. Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sequel deepens that vision. Law operates in the shadows across both films: as surveillance, classification, and control. The “blade runners” themselves enforce a form of administrative violence that exposes the limits of legal personhood. What does it mean to have rights without recognition, or to be alive without legal existence? And conversely, what are the implications of recognizing rights and legal personhood in robots? In this episode, we'll examine these and other themes around artificial intelligence, migration, colonization, and bioethics as well as the way films themselves can contribute to and shape public perceptions about these issues. Timestamps:0:00 Introduction2:45 Emotion and memory in robots8:08 Slave labor and robot rebellion9:54 Generative AI and other changes since the first Blade Runner 15:16 Robots giving birth20:19 Robot rights24:17 A new category of companion32:56 Filmic depictions of AI38:01 “Time to Die”43:21 The political economy of AI development47:22 A dystopian vision of data and surveillance52:18 A positive post-human future?57:58 Concepts of immortalityFurther reading:Almog, Shulamit, “When a Robot Can Love – Blade Runner as a Cautionary Tale on Law and Technology,” in Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice (Jan. 1, 2013)Birhane, Abeba, van Dijk Jelle, and Pasquale, Frank, “Debunking Robot Rights Metaphysically, Ethically, and Legally,” 29(4) First Monday (2024)Darling, Kate, The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots (2021)Dick, Philip K., Do Androids Dream of Sheep (1968)Lewis, C.S., Abolition of Man (1943)Oliver, Kendra H., Higgs, Oliver S., and Clayton, J., “The End of Genetic Privacy in the Blade Runner Canon,” 14 (1/2) Journal of Literature and Science 108 (Dec. 2022)Pasquale, Frank, “Cultural Foundations for Conserving Human Capacities Amidst Generative Artificial Intelligence: Toward a Philosophico-Literary Critique of Simulation,” in Being Human (B. Roessler & V. Steeves, eds, 2024) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.htmlYou can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.comYou can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilmYou can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast
Science fiction readers love a mechanism, they love a bit of world-building and mystery-solving. Premee Mohamed joins us to discuss Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus, a book that asks: what if a science fiction book intentionally avoided all of that? Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Premee Mohamed Title: The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake Moby-Dick by Herman Melville Mercutio by Kate Heartfield Pretenders to the Throne of God by Adrian Tchaikovsky Orbit 10 anthology edited by Damon Knight William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just To Say” and its many responses Premee’s And What Can We Offer You Tonight Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon Heart of Darkness by Josef Conrad The Vorrh by B. Catling The face dancers from Frank Herbert’s Dune series Mystique and the Kree from the Marvel/X-Men comics Michael Swanwick's Stations of the Tide Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire Premee’s The Butcher of the Forest & Wickhills "sentients" & "sapients" “The Great Chain of Being” Star Wars series The Bad Batch and The Clone Wars Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead Octavia Butler's Dawn Tolkien's On Fairy Stories Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? & Ridley Scott's Bladerunner Premee’s The Siege of Burning Grass Hilary Putnam's “Twin Earth” Premee's Patreon, Website, Bluesky Wickhills & From the Library of Jurgen Leitner The Carl Brandon Society
Thanks to some great feedback and some more of that awesome Barney Dicker chat to share, this episode is basically a second instalment of Movie Monday: Blade Runner. But before the Blade Runner chat, I respond to a message from M. W. Lewis of The Worlds of M. W. Lewis concerning April's movie Michael Crichton's Westworld. Then it's onto some Blade Runner feedback from Jason Connerley of Nerd's RPG Variety Cast, Joe Richter of Hindsightless, and Goblin's Henchman, before rounding things off with more of my chat with Barney Dicker of Loco Ludus. Honourable mentions: 2001: A Space Odyssey dir. Stanley Kubrick, Dark Star dir. John Carpenter, Westworld (TV series), Masters of the Universe dir. Travis Knight, Legend dir. Ridley Scott, Edge of Tomorrow dir. Doug Liman, Minority Report dir. Steven Spielberg, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, Alien dir. Ridley Scott, The Long Tomorrow by Dan O'Bannon and Moebius, The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius, Blade Runner 2049 dir. Denis Villeneuve Read Barney's “Stroboscopic Revelations in Blade Runner” here https://www.academia.edu/36398665/_Stroboscopic_Revelations_in_Blade_Runner_PhotoResearcher_No_29_2018_ Find the Movie Monday Letterboxd list here https://letterboxd.com/the39thman/list/movie-monday-1/ So, from the sublime to the ridiculous. The movie for June is 1987's Masters of the Universe, directed by Gary Goddard and starring Dolph Lundgren. That episode will air on June 29th, so please send in your submissions by the 27th if you'd like to be included in the show. Send submissions to spencer.freethrall@gmail.com or look me up on Discord as FreeThrall Also, be sure not to miss my other movie podcast, With Wife and I. Isla and I take turns choosing movies to watch together, then share our thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. “Warning” by Lieren of Updates From the Middle of Nowhere Leave me an audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
May's Movie Monday, was specially requested by Goblin's Henchman “This one goes out there for Geoff”. This month, we watched Ridley Scott's dystopian neo-noir sci-fi Blade Runner from 1982. Starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hanna, Edward James Olmos, M Emmet Walsh, Brion James, Joanna Cassidy, Joe Turkle and William Sanderson. Adapted from Philip K Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. This episode features contributions from: (in order of appearance) Barney Dicker of Loco Ludus (podcast) Joe Richter of Hindsightless (podcast) Goblin's henchman (podcast, blog) and the UmberBulk of the Southwest Sofa Crew M. W. Lewis of The Worlds of MW Lewis (podcast) Jason Connerley of Nerd's RPG Variety Cast (podcast) Read Barney's “Stroboscopic Revelations in Blade Runner” here https://www.academia.edu/36398665/_Stroboscopic_Revelations_in_Blade_Runner_PhotoResearcher_No_29_2018_ Find the Movie Monday Letterboxd list here https://letterboxd.com/the39thman/list/movie-monday-1/ So, from the sublime to the ridiculous. The movie for June is 1987's Masters of the Universe, directed by Gary Goddard and starring Dolph Lundgren. That episode will air on June 29th, so please send in your submissions by the 27th if you'd like to be included in the show. Send submissions to spencer.freethrall@gmail.com or look me up on Discord as FreeThrall Also, be sure not to miss my other movie podcast, With Wife and I. Isla and I take turns choosing movies to watch together, then share our thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. “Warning” by Lieren of Updates From the Middle of Nowhere Leave me an audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
This episode is an audio unboxing special. I open a bunch of parcels and describe the contents. Featuring: Gunner Almer's Grimscar (solo) RPG https://crowheartroleplay.itch.io/grimscar-rpg-solo Charlie Ward's we&we from EX FIRST GAMES https://ex1st.itch.io/we Man Alone's Prima Materia https://dicenest.com/products/prima-materia-is-an-alchemical-oracle-for-solo-role-playing-worldbuilding-and-creative-inquiry Man Alone explains Prima Materia https://youtu.be/UXTwHg-HPwA?si=HTKR-x6SWTVA68mL Adam Hensley's Monolith https://adamhensley.itch.io/monolith James M. Spahn's White Box Dungeon Adventures from Barrel Rider Games https://www.lulu.com/shop/james-spahn/white-box-dungeon-adventures/paperback/product-57wrvy4.html?srsltid=AfmBOooPRv4dtyrYwPFipc55GwZ6Ezmikf_K1Lt4kHf7nXFIdMUpSStg&page=1&pageSize=4 Vagabond Pulp Fantasy Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook from Land of the Blind https://landoftheblind.myshopify.com/collections/vagabond-pulp-fantasy-rpg?srsltid=AfmBOoqAREu7j9Ii6dbfXCve0J5TZwKrXyaNrepT--gi_cuxCABzHWon Call of Cthulhu: 50th Anniversary Slipcase Set Honourable mentions: Andy Goodman (Grizzly Peaks Radio), Jen Fridy (HangnailJenny), Scott Dorward (The Good Friends of Jackson Elias), Mike Perceval-Maxwell (Mr Spike's Bedtime Stories), Barney Dicker (Loco Ludus) At the special request of Goblin's Henchman, the movie for May goes out to Geoff. It's 1982's classic neo-noir sci-fi Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. That episode will air on May 25th, so please send in your submissions by the 23rd if you'd like to be included in the show. Send submissions to spencer.freethrall@gmail.com or look me up on Discord as FreeThrall Also, be sure not to miss the new podcast I'm involved with, entitled With Wife and I. My wife, Isla, suggested we take turns choosing movies to watch together, then share our thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. In our latest episode, we pit Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein against Luc Besson's Dracula. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. “Warning” by Lieren of Updates From the Middle of Nowhere Leave me a 90-second audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
In this episode, I respond to some Movie Monday: Westworld feedback from Goblin's Henchman and Joe Richter of Hindsightless, and share my initial thoughts on the Westworld TV series from 2016. If you'd like to be a paranoid android, why not try The Gaslight Club by Stoo Goff https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/335302/the-gaslight-club Find the Movie Monday Letterboxd list here https://letterboxd.com/the39thman/list/movie-monday-1/ At the special request of Goblin's Henchman, the movie for May goes out to Geoff. It's 1982's classic neo-noir sci-fi Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. That episode will air on May 25th, so please send in your submissions by the 23rd if you'd like to be included in the show. Also, be sure to check out With Wife and I. My wife, Isla, suggested we take turns choosing movies to watch together, then share our thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Leave me an audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can email me at spencer.freethrall@gmail.com or look me up on Discord as FreeThrall You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
For April's Movie Monday, we watched the 1973 sci-fi western Westworld, written & directed by Michael Crichton. This episode features contributions from: (in order of appearance) Jason Connerley of Nerd's RPG Variety Cast (podcast) Goblin's henchman (podcast, blog) and the UmberBulk of the Southwest Sofa Crew Joe Richter of Hindsightless (podcast) Lex Mandrake of Dank Dungeons (itch, YouTube) & Jorphdan of Jorphdan's Jocular Junction (YouTube, jorphdan.com) M. W. Lewis of The Worlds of MW Lewis (podcast) Darkfluid of The Silver Key (podcast) & Q Joseph Gill of The Dekahedron RPG Podcast Find the Movie Monday Letterboxd list here https://letterboxd.com/the39thman/list/movie-monday-1/ At the special request of Goblin's Henchman, the movie for May goes out to Geoff. It's 1982's classic neo-noir sci-fi Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. That episode will air on May 25th, so please send in your submissions by the 23rd if you'd like to be included in the show. Send submissions to spencer.freethrall@gmail.com or look me up on Discord as FreeThrall Also, be sure not to miss my other movie podcast, With Wife and I. Isla and I take turns choosing movies to watch together, then share our thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. In our latest episode, we pit Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein against Luc Besson's Dracula. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. “Warning” by Lieren of Updates From the Middle of Nowhere Leave me an audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
The pleasures and perils of nostalgia & reference, the importance of identifying real play versus gamified labor, and whether the internet used to be fun: Matthew Leggat of the Utopian & Dystopian Fictions podcast joins to discuss Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Matthew Leggatt Title: Ready Player One by Ernie Cline Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: ARB’s Fundraiser!!! Matthew’s Cultural and Political Nostalgia in the Age of Terror, Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, and Wastelands and Wonderlands The Utopian & Dystopian Fictions podcast I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A. Olivas U&DF episode with Olivas Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash & Reamde William Gibson’s Neuromancer K.A. Teryna’s Black Hole Heart translated by Alex Shvartsman Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenya’s Chain Gang All-Stars Was It Yesterday: Nostalgia in Contemporary Film and Television edited by Matthew Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code Gamergate “Playing the Game of Literature: Ready Player One, the Ludic Novel, and the Geeky ‘Canon’ of White Masculinity” by Megan Amber Condis Captain Crunch: phreaker John Draper Kyle Chayka’s "Why the internet isn't fun anymore" William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum” Ling Ma's Severance Helen MacDonald & Syn Blaché’s Prophet MacDonald’s H is for Hawk Stanislaw Lem's Solaris Alice Landsberg's Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture The television series Stranger Things Mark Fisher's Ghosts of My Life Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green (based on Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room!) & Paul R. Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb Samuel Butler’s Erewhon B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two Voight-Kampf Test from Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner / Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The "lusory attitude" from Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia Ernst Callenbach's Ecotopia Philip Nel’s “I Love the ‘80s: Dystopia, Nostalgia, and Ready Player One” Michael Jackson 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (That's Mike Nelson of MST3K Fame) High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Jordan Carroll's Speculative Whiteness Paul Hardisty'sForcing trilogy
Do Androids Dream of Security Patches? Reflections from RSAC 2026 — Walking the Floor of the Agentic World Marco Ciappelli Co-Founder ITSPmagazine & Studio C60 | Creative Director | Branding & Marketing Advisor | Personal Branding Coach | Journalist | Writer | Podcast: An Analog Brain In A Digital Age ⚠️ Beware: Pigs May Fly |
This week, we discuss the atmospheric, dystopian sci-fi noir, Blade Runner, the film that ranks number 97 on the AFI list.SPOILER ALERT We will be talking about this movie in its entirety. If you haven't seen this classic, we strongly suggest you watch it before listening to our takes.A Warner Bros. and The Ladd Company production. Released on June 25, 1982. Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. Cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth. Edited by Terry Rawlings. Music by Vangelis.
Dave McArthur welcomes guest host Jay Schweig to discuss the Philip K. Dick novella and source of the film Bladerunner, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, while drinking imitation beer and real Chablis.
In this episode, Jaime, Patrick and Micah discuss what's happening in our world through the lens of the Blade Runner films. This conversation proved to be riveting, sobering and challenging. We try our best to serve author Philip K. Dick's intentions when he wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. We discuss everything from why a system would develop a version of people without empathy to how immigrants are similar to Replicants. This show touches on a lot of hot button topics and it's not for everyone. If you're looking for pure escapism and entertainment, this would not be the episode for you. // For more on this and our other projects, please visit www.bladerunnerpodcast.com // If you'd like to join the conversation, find us on our closed Facebook group: Fields of Calantha. // To support the show, please consider visiting www.bladerunnerpodcast.com/support. We've got some great perks available! // And as always, please consider rating, reviewing, and sharing this show. We can't tell you how much your support means to us, but we can hopefully show you by continuing to provide better, more ambitious, and more dynamic content for years to come.
Felonies are down by 99.8%. There hasn't been a murder in 5 years because the police know what will happen before it takes place. There couldn't possibly be any side effects to arresting people who haven't yet committed a crime...right?This sci-fi classic short story from the 1950's comes to us from the same author who wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (aka Blade Runner) and is a great dip into the world of "what if?"Sign up for 'BTMC: Protagonist Edition', where you get EXTENDED VERSIONS of the episodes to take you even deeper into the story, plus bonus character analysis episodes and early access to the next novel so you can read along. Sign up link below: ---------------------------Get BTMC: PROTAGONIST EDITION: https://becomingmain.supercast.com/--GET THE FREE NEWSLETTER: "THE SCHOOL OF PROTAGONISM"Substack: https://substack.com/@schoolofprotagonismFOLLOW BTMC FOR MORE GREAT CONTENT:Instagram: https://instagram.com/becomingmainX: https://twitter.com/becomingmain
This week Scott and Patrick discuss the 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" By Philip K. Dick. This sci fi classic was the basis of the cult classic film "Blade Runner" however there is much intellectual curiosity to be found within the source material. We discuss at length.Don't forget to join our Telegram channel at T.me/historyhomos and to join our group chat at T.me/historyhomoschatFor programming updates and news follow us across social media @historyhomospod and follow Scott @Scottlizardabrams and Patrick @cantgetfooledagainradio OR subscribe to our telegram channel t.me/historyhomosThe video version of the show is available on Substack, Rokfin, bitchute, odysee and RumbleFor weekly premium episodes or to contribute to the show subscribe to our channel at www.historyhomospod.substack.comYou can donate to the show directly at paypal.me/historyhomosTo order a History Homos T shirt (and recieve a free sticker) please send your shirt size and address to Historyhomos@gmail.com and please address all questions, comments and concerns there as well.Later homos
“All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain.”A Legacy of Light and ShadowCinematographer Jeff Cronenweth joins Movies We Like hosts Andy Nelson and Pete Wright to explore Ridley Scott's groundbreaking 1982 film Blade Runner. As the son of the film's original cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, Jeff brings a unique perspective on both the technical achievements and lasting influence of this sci-fi noir masterpiece. With his recent work on Tron: Ares hitting theaters, Cronenweth reflects on how Blade Runner continues to inspire filmmakers and cinematographers four decades later.From early experiences on film sets with his father to becoming David Fincher's go-to cinematographer on films like Fight Club, The Social Network, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Cronenweth has built a career focused on visual storytelling that serves character and narrative. He describes his approach as seeking human stories within any genre, whether period drama or science fiction. His transition from film to digital cinematography reflects broader industry changes, while maintaining his commitment to thoughtful, story-driven imagery.The conversation explores how Blade Runner created its influential neo-noir aesthetic with remarkably limited technical resources, including just three xenon lights for its iconic beam effects and borrowed neon lights from Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart set. Cronenweth shares insights into the film's production challenges and creative solutions, from practical lighting techniques to Ridley Scott's visionary production design. The discussion examines how the film balances its high-concept science fiction premise with intimate character moments, creating a template for genre storytelling that continues to resonate. Cronenweth also offers perspective on the various cuts of the film and its 2017 sequel.Through this engaging conversation, Cronenweth illuminates not just the technical mastery behind Blade Runner, but its enduring impact on cinema. His unique connection to the film through his father, combined with his own distinguished career, offers viewers fresh insights into this landmark work of science fiction and its continuing influence on visual storytelling.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick w/ John Hill and Jesan Sorrells---00:00 Welcome and Introduction - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.00:10 The Promise of 100,000 Humanoid Robots by 2030.05:59 New Podcast Format Introduction.14:47 When Does Jesan Stop Reading a Book?19:20 Infinite Games, Culture, and Perspective.22:38 Hindsight and Decision-Making Insights from Playing Poker.27:11 Sociocultural Cycle Dynamics Explained.32:11 The Tech Bros. Learned All the Wrong Lessons from Philip K. Dick. 38:50 Rethinking Salesperson Stereotypes.45:54 Having a Human-Centric Sales Strategy.52:17 Government vs. Private Industry Venality.52:57 Conformity vs. Cultural Individuality.01:02:33 Reality Mirrors Fiction in Pandemics.01:07:53 Embracing Human Connection.01:12:20 Embracing AI Gatekeepers for Success in the Future.01:14:42 Sales Authenticity vs. Biases.01:19:51 "Revisiting AI and Societal Costs"01:27:01 The Coming Anthropomorphizing of Robots.01:34:53 The Summer of Love in 2068.01:38:48 Value of Genuine Human Connections.01:42:07 Cyclical Spiritual Awakenings in History.01:48:06 Staying on the Leadership Path with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?---Opening and closing themes composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.---Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON!Check out the 2022 Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list!--- ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ Subscribe to the Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Podcast: https://bit.ly/LLFTGBSubscribeCheck out HSCT Publishing at: https://www.hsctpublishing.com/.Check out LeadingKeys at: https://www.leadingkeys.com/Check out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/Contact HSCT for more information at 1-833-216-8296 to schedule a full DEMO of LeadingKeys with one of our team members.---Leadership ToolBox website: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/.Leadership ToolBox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ldrshptlbx/.Leadership ToolBox YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leadershiptoolbox/videosLeadership ToolBox Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldrshptlbx.Leadership ToolBox IG: https://www.instagram.com/leadershiptoolboxus/.Leadership ToolBox FB: https://www.facebook.com/
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - Introduction w/ Jesan Sorrells---00:00 Welcome and Introduction - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick03:15 "Introduction to Rick Deckard's World"10:04 Philip K. Dick's College Struggles14:07 Rosen Corporation's Role in Nexus 615:08 "Voight-Kampff Android Test Revealed"19:51 Philip K. Dick: Drugs and Influence22:09 Hallucinogens, Perception, and Apple's Origins28:32 Humanity Questioned: Android Identity Crisis29:58 Empathy and Control in Androids36:25 "Exploring Dick's Android Dilemma"40:09 "The Futility of New Proposals"41:29 Predicting the Future: A Balance---Opening and closing themes composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.---Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON!Check out the 2022 Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list!--- ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ Subscribe to the Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Podcast: https://bit.ly/LLFTGBSubscribeCheck out HSCT Publishing at: https://www.hsctpublishing.com/.Check out LeadingKeys at: https://www.leadingkeys.com/Check out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/Contact HSCT for more information at 1-833-216-8296 to schedule a full DEMO of LeadingKeys with one of our team members.---Leadership ToolBox website: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/.Leadership ToolBox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ldrshptlbx/.Leadership ToolBox YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leadershiptoolbox/videosLeadership ToolBox Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldrshptlbx.Leadership ToolBox IG: https://www.instagram.com/leadershiptoolboxus/.Leadership ToolBox FB: https://www.facebook.com/
A few weeks ago, we spotted a fan-made trailer for a project called Do Androids Dream by a filmmaker named Scott Marczewski. This one-minute trailer—which you should watch here—is gorgeously shot and suffused with love of Blade Runner, and we knew we had to track Scott down to have him on the show. In today's episode, Jaime and Patrick chat with Scott about his project, why Blade Runner, DADOES, and Blade Runner 2049 continue to resonate so deeply with fans around the world, and what we all hope future Blade Runner projects get right. Again, make sure you watch the trailer first! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T50pWNZbOA And subscribe to Scott's YouTube channel, where you will be the first to see the next trailer (which goes live in just a couple weeks!): https://www.youtube.com/@LumenProductionsOfficial // For more on this and our other projects, please visit www.bladerunnerpodcast.com // If you'd like to join the conversation, find us on our closed Facebook group: Fields of Calantha. // To support the show, please consider visiting www.bladerunnerpodcast.com/support. We've got some great perks available! // And as always, please consider rating, reviewing, and sharing this show. We can't tell you how much your support means to us, but we can hopefully show you by continuing to provide better, more ambitious, and more dynamic content for years to come.
Hammo is returning to the Space Podyssey segment from previous seasons, this time he's going all the way back to 1982 to discuss the original Blade Runner film, how it relates to the Phillip K Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and how it is difficult to let go of your first love, narration be damned! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Young Dave, armed with a love for Star Wars and a soft spot for everyone's favourite scruffy-looking nerf herder, thought he was in for another dose of Han Solo heroics when switching on Blade runner. What he got instead was something a little moodier, a lot rainier, and less exciting than Songs of Praise.The production of Blade Runner (1982) was as tumultuous and moody as the rain-soaked, neon-lit world it depicted. Directed by Ridley Scott, fresh off the success of Alien, the film was envisioned as a noir-infused sci-fi adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The shoot was plagued by creative clashes between Scott and the American crew, who bristled at his demanding style, and constant interference from producers worried about the film's slow pace and philosophical ambiguity. Principal photography was grueling, with night shoots, complex visual effects, and an increasingly strained atmosphere on set. Lead actor Harrison Ford reportedly had a difficult working relationship with Scott, and the overall mood was so tense it was dubbed “Blood Runner” by some of the crew.Post-production proved just as chaotic. The studio, concerned that the film was too cerebral and obscure, insisted on adding a noir-style voiceover narration and a more upbeat ending—changes that Scott strongly opposed. Multiple versions of the film were created to satisfy different markets and test audiences, adding to the confusion. Upon release, Blade Runner received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, overshadowed by more accessible summer hits. Yet over time, the film's groundbreaking visual design, atmospheric world-building, and deep philosophical themes helped it gain a devoted following, eventually being recognized as a cornerstone of science fiction cinema.If you enjoy the show we have a Patreon, so become a supporter.www.patreon.com/thevhsstrikesbackTrailer Guy Plot SummaryIn a future where it always rains and everything is soaked in neon, one man must hunt what isn't supposed to be hunted. Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard — a retired blade runner pulled back in for one last job. His mission? Track down and "retire" a group of rogue replicants who aren't going quietly into the night. But as the line between man and machine blurs, the hunter begins to question everything. Get ready for a showdown where the future looks grim, the androids look angry, and the noodles are always hot. This... is Blade Runner!thevhsstrikesback@gmail.comhttps://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback
Blade Runner takes the concept of A.I. to its logical conclusion by merging it with artificial consciousness and biology. Is this the future we're headed toward?“Wake up, time to die!”LeonWhen Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was first brought to the screen in 1982, the notion of “artificial intelligence” as we have come to know it, was a niche subject at best. If you can believe it, the idea of a personal computer in every home (never mind in your pocket) was enough of a novelty for most people that the concept of androids so lifelike that you could barely tell them apart from actual human beings felt about as far-fetched as a lightsaber or a chestburster, despite the film's low key and distinctly film noir approach to science fiction.Ah, but what a difference a couple of decades makes. Today your social media feeds are flooded with lifelike AI images of people who don't exist, swarmed with engagement by bots, depicts video of events that never took place and even music that was never composed by a human. People talk to ChatGPT when they're lonely. While that's still an order of magnitude away from putting an indistinguishable artificial intelligence into a similarly indistinguishable biomechanical body, who knows what advances in technology might bring us in another 20 years?Which brings us to our latest episode, which as you can probably figure out, is putting the concept of replicants from Blade Runner to the test.Watch the latest episode of Does it Fly? right here… https://youtu.be/GU8SgYWDaMISUGGESTED VIEWING There's more to the Blade Runner franchise than you might initially suspect, but for our discussion in this episode we only focused on the two feature films, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. Everything you need to know is contained in those, and honestly, there are those among us who think the sequel might surpass the original in some ways.But if you want to dive into the entire screen franchise in timeline order, we've got a handy viewing list for you. Blade RunnerBlade Runner Black Out 2022 (anime short film)Blade Runner: Black Lotus (anime TV series)2036: Nexus Dawn (short film)2048: Nowhere to Run (short film)Blade Runner 2049FURTHER READING Do you want to delve a little deeper into the facts, concepts, and stories Hakeem and Tamara referenced in today's episode? Of course you do! Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel forms the basis for the entire Blade Runner franchise. It's considerably different from the first movie, although elements of it also made it into Blade Runner 2049.Building Replicant BodiesThere are two key parts of the scientific debate surrounding replicants. Let's start with the physical, because these aren't mere robots, they're biological organisms in their own right. Hakeem points to the field of regenerative medicine (perhaps best known to the general public for work with stem cells) for its ability to grow working organs and body parts in lab conditions as the first key to bringing artificial humans to life in a way that would be almost undetectable.See also: organoids and artificial wombs for some of the more stunning possibilities.Artificial ConsciousnessThere's a difference between artificial intelligence (which is a rapidly evolving field and one we continue to litigate the ethics of as it relates to creativity) and artificial consciousness. The replicants as depicted in Blade Runner, especially the film's villain, Roy Batty, would seem to have achieved consciousness and an attendant awareness and fear of their own mortality. And there are indeed people studying the possibility of artificial consciousness and the ethical implications that might come with that.Talk to us when there's artificial empathy, then we might feel better (and of course, there's a test for that!).“Night, Wet, Smoke”The three key visual ingredients Ridley Scott used to create his sci-fi noir are discussed in detail here.WANT MORE FROM DOES IT FLY?For a different look at artificial life, cybernetics, and the intersection between humanity and machine, check out our episode on RoboCop right here!This isn't the first Ridley Scott movie we've tackled here. Check out our look at the original Alien and the terrifying perfection of the xenomorph right here.FOLLOW US!Stay in the loop! Follow Does It Fly? on YouTube and TikTok and let us know what you think! Subscribe to Does It Fly? Pod: https://www.youtube.com/@doesitflypod?sub_confirmation=1And don't forget to follow Roddenberry Entertainment:Instagram: @RoddenberryOfficial Facebook: RoddenberryBluesky: @roddenberrypod.bsky.socialFor Advertising Inquiries: doesitfly@roddenberry.comCheck out the official Does it Fly? playlist, too!
We journey into the future and discuss the very first piece of the Blade Runner franchise. Does it get off to a good start with Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Or is this sci-fi story less than stellar?▶ We are available on all major podcasting platforms and YouTube!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustAnyPod▶ FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!Twitter: @NotJustAnyPod▶ FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK!TikTok: @NotJustAnyPod
The CIA's Operation CHAOS has been unveiled, exposing a bizarre concept: The Minority Report, Total Recall, and movies like The Matrix may have been predictions of the future.
Delve into the profound cosmic philosophy of Philip K. Dick, a celebrated author in the realms of science fiction and alternative history. Known for iconic works like Blade Runner, The Man in The High Castle, Minority Report, and UBIK, Dick's literary contributions extend far beyond their popular film adaptations. This episode unravels the deeper philosophical insights present in his works, particularly focusing on his existential themes and what can be described as his 'cosmic' outlook. Explore the philosophical dimensions Dick weaves through his narratives, from existentialism to his unique take on religion and metaphysics. Chapters: 00:33 - Who is Philip K. Dick? 05:44 - Philip K. Dick's Existentialism 07:44 - UBIK's Sociology of Religion 10:37 - The Death of Metaphysics 15:28 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Technological Enframing 19:52 - The Man in the High Castle's Contemporary Reflection 25:47 - Philip K. Dick's Warning For Us All 00:33: Introduction to Philip K. Dick's life and influence.05:44: Exploration of Dick's existential philosophy.07:44: Discussion on UBIK and its religious themes.10:37: Analysis of metaphysics in Dick's works.15:28: Examining 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and its technological themes.19:52: Contemporary reflections in 'The Man in the High Castle.'25:47: Philip K. Dick's cautionary messages. #PhilipK.Dick #cosmicphilosophy #sciencefiction #alternativehistory #existentialism #BladeRunner #TheManinTheHighCastle #MinorityReport #UBIK See show notes: https://inlet.fm/epoch-philosophy/episodes/68002f685930373f998b2fb8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Daily Quiz - Art and Literature Today's Questions: Question 1: Which artist painted "Creation of Adam" Question 2: Which author wrote 'The Tell-Tale Heart'? Question 3: Which author wrote 'Night Shift'? Question 4: Which famous book begins with the line "Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt about that"? Question 5: Which author wrote 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'? Question 6: Which author wrote 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'? Question 7: In which Shakespearean tragedy Does Laertes appear? Question 8: Which book contains the character 'Sebastian Flyte'? Question 9: Which book is the 7th book of the Harry Potter series? This podcast is produced by Klassic Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is one of Phillip K. Dick's best-known novels, and the basis for the Bladerunner film franchise. Tom loves this book, but what's Tony's take? And how do the big ideas from 1968 hold up in the 21st century? TTYpodcast.com Thumbingthroughyesterday.com
Christopher & Jobst im Gespräch mit Sara. Wir reden über keine Utopien, Jugendzeit auf Bühnen, entsorgte Weltmeisterschafts-Medaillen, eine Kiste voll Tickets, Stranglers & 999 im Volkshaus, "New Rose" von The Damned vom Vater, als Küken unter die Flügel genommen werden, im Dunst in Genossenschaftshäuschen, Iggi vom No Fun Fanzine, Ton Steine Scherben auf dem Pfingstfest, die Band Krokodil, auf der Kirmes gecastet, die Fichen-Affäre in der Schweiz, der Song Bubble Guns, Musik kann Gefühle konservieren, mit der Zeit zu Musikerin werden, Krieg auf den Strassen, Familientrauma, zwei Monate in Nicaragua arbeiten, die Gründung von The Kick, die AC/DC Coverband, zusammen mit Rudi auf die Bühne mit Hilarious Limited, wenn sich Sternenstaub zu Planeten verdichtet, 40 Jahre Saus & Braus, die Energie von Punk, die Geschichte von Karate, die beste Verteidigung ist Awareness, von morgens bis abends in der Kläranlage, Lieblingsfilme, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, ein perfekter Sonntag mit Wäsche, irgendetwas gibt es immer zu sortieren, ein total tolles Programm von Peter Haas im Dunkeln, uvm. Drei Songs für die Playlist: 1. Ein Song, den Sara mit Ihrer Pre-Punk-Zeit verbindet: TON STEINE SCHERBEN - Der Traum ist aus 2. Ein Song, der für Sara die Anziehung von frühem Punk am besten repräsentiert: THE DAMNED - New Rose 3. Ein richtig guter Song aus der Schweiz, der nichts mit Punk zu tun hat: KTGORIQUE - Too Late
Ben, Chase, and Matt talk about the movies Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) along with the book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. We strongly recommend watching the movies before listening, book optional.
Today's episode in our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines explores the novel that inspired Blade Runner: Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). David talks to Shannon Vallor about what the book has that the film lacks and how it comprehensively messes with the line between human and machine, the natural and the artificial. What is the meaning of the electric sheep?To hear a bonus episode on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to accompany this series sign up now to PPF+ and get ad-free listening and all our other bonuses too: £5 per month or £50 a year for 24 bonus episodes. https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plusPPF merch is now available on our website: choose from a canvas tote bag or a bone china mug https://www.ppfideas.com/merchNext time: Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In today's episode in our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David and Shannon discuss Isaac Asimov's 1955 short story ‘Franchise', which imagines the American presidential election of 2008 as decided by one voter and a giant computer. Part prophecy, part parody: have either its predictions or its warnings about democracy come true? How does the power of technology shape contemporary politics? And why was Asimov's vision of the future so reactionary?To hear a bonus episode on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to accompany this series sign up now to PPF+ and get ad-free listening and all our other bonuses too: £5 per month or £50 a year for 24 bonus episodes. https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plusThe latest edition of our free newsletter is out tomorrow with guides, clips and links for this series: join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters Next time: Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB's Patreon!Credits:Guest: A.V. MarracciniTitle: The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin AitkenMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or ArdorAnton Hur's Toward Eternity and Casella's reviewA.V.'s forthcoming book, These New FragilitiesNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain Gang All-StarsPresses discussed:Lolli EditionsNew DirectionsFSG PressFitzarraldoSeven StoriesTorInside the CastleKristina Carlson's Eunuch translated from the Finnish by Mikko AlapuroPsychedlic Ray Bradbury coversJenny Hval's novels, such as Paradise RotSamuel R. DelanyVajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright DoorsGretchen Felker-Martin Manhunt and CuckooJohn TrefryOlga Ravn's My WorkLea Guldditte Hestelund's sculptureInterview with Ravn about Hestelund Le Guin's Carrier Bag theory of fictionArthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick's 2001Stanislaw Lem's FiascoAngélica GorodischerKim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the FuturePhilip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? & Ridley Scott's BladerunnerBattlestar GalacticaUrsula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of DarknessJorge Luis Borges & Italo CalvinoE. Catherine Tobler's The Necessity of StarsStanislaw Lem's SolarisRavn's Twitter @OlgaRavnAV on Twitter @saintsoftness
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB's Patreon!Credits:Guest: A.V. MarracciniTitle: The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin AitkenMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or ArdorAnton Hur's Toward Eternity and Casella's reviewA.V.'s forthcoming book, These New FragilitiesNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain Gang All-StarsPresses discussed:Lolli EditionsNew DirectionsFSG PressFitzarraldoSeven StoriesTorInside the CastleKristina Carlson's Eunuch translated from the Finnish by Mikko AlapuroPsychedlic Ray Bradbury coversJenny Hval's novels, such as Paradise RotSamuel R. DelanyVajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright DoorsGretchen Felker-Martin Manhunt and CuckooJohn TrefryOlga Ravn's My WorkLea Guldditte Hestelund's sculptureInterview with Ravn about Hestelund Le Guin's Carrier Bag theory of fictionArthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick's 2001Stanislaw Lem's FiascoAngélica GorodischerKim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the FuturePhilip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? & Ridley Scott's BladerunnerBattlestar GalacticaUrsula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of DarknessJorge Luis Borges & Italo CalvinoE. Catherine Tobler's The Necessity of StarsStanislaw Lem's SolarisRavn's Twitter @OlgaRavnAV on Twitter @saintsoftness
Scissoring flights. Thairana Grande. Brian Ibbott, seniors bracket arcade tournament. Boning 747. Wear Your Safety Diaper During Lightning Strikes. Sting Ray Herpes. Here's to you, John DiMaggio. All Your Voices Are Belong To Us. Keith David or David Keith. Wasn't there a Prohibition documentary called Prohibition? Do Androids Dream of Weyland-Yutani. You Got Xenomorph in my Repplicant. You Got Replicant in my Xenomorph. Utah is tired of your shit. What's Adam Curry Doing These Days? You Know He's Got Talent. Challenge Day without Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Scissoring flights. Thairana Grande. Brian Ibbott, seniors bracket arcade tournament. Boning 747. Wear Your Safety Diaper During Lightning Strikes. Sting Ray Herpes. Here's to you, John DiMaggio. All Your Voices Are Belong To Us. Keith David or David Keith. Wasn't there a Prohibition documentary called Prohibition? Do Androids Dream of Weyland-Yutani. You Got Xenomorph in my Repplicant. You Got Replicant in my Xenomorph. Utah is tired of your shit. What's Adam Curry Doing These Days? You Know He's Got Talent. Challenge Day without Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to Cyberpunk Cinema – the Definitive Dive into the Dark Future of Science Fiction. I am your host, Anthony La Pira, and I will be taking you on a cinematic journey through the sprawling cityscapes, the crippling datastorms, and the cybernetic implants that encompass all things Cyberpunk.In this week's episode, I will be breaking-down the 2017 legasequel cyberpunk modern masterpiece, Blade Runner 2049 – co-written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, based on the characters from “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, and directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Sylvia Hoeks, and Jared Leto.Young Blade Runner K's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former Blade Runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.This film has only gotten better with every passing year. It is Denis Villeneuve's triumphant legacy-sequel to one of the greatest science fiction films of all-time. Everything rips in this film, from the compositions by Roger Deakins, to the score by Hans Zimmer, to the pacing orchestrated by Denis, to the sense of isolation and desolation that permeates throughout the film, and the question that haunts all replicants and humans alike – what does it mean to be human? So, do me a favor – it's time to access your cranial jacks, boot up your Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7, and slap on your damn mirror-shades. You know what time it is! Cyberpunk Cinema starts…now!Anthony's IG - https://www.instagram.com/stormgiantproductionsCyberpunk Cinema IG - https://www.instagram.com/cyberpunk.cinemaSignal Fragment SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/signalfragmentSend us a Text Message.
This month we wrestle with Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and wow y'all. Here's a little preview:"My one note is from page 7, where I figured it could end right here..."Do you love this book and want to tell us that we're idiots? Let us know at rereadersclub@gmail.com. We're still waiting on that first email. Our Lord of the Rings reread at rereaders.substack.com is over but it's all still there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to Cyberpunk Cinema – the Definitive Dive into the Dark Future of Science Fiction. I am your host, Anthony La Pira, and I will be taking you on a cinematic journey through the sprawling cityscapes, the crippling datastorms, and the cybernetic implants that encompass all things Cyberpunk.In this week's episode, I will be breaking-down the 1982 hands-down #1 cyberpunk film of all-time, Blade Runner – co-written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, and directed by Ridley Scott, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, and Joe Turkel.A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.We are finally here. Los Angeles, 2019. Rick Deckard, the Blade Runner, hunting down renegade replicants through the dystopian world created by Philip K. Dick, and executed to absolute adaptation perfection by Ridley Scott. This is the ultimate cyberpunk movie. This is the catalyst that launched Cyberpunk Cinema. And it is my distinct pleasure to give you a comprehensive deep dive into every aspect of the film – from the novel, to the screenplay, to the casting, to the embattled shoot, to the film attaining cult-classic status, and rising to the ranks of one of the best science-fiction films ever made. Get ready, cyberpunkers, I've been gearing up all year to bring you this dazzling stone-cold masterpiece! So, do me a favor – it's time to access your cranial jacks, boot up your Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7, and slap on your damn mirror-shades. You know what time it is! Cyberpunk Cinema starts…now!Anthony's IG - https://www.instagram.com/stormgiantproductionsCyberpunk Cinema IG - https://www.instagram.com/cyberpunk.cinemaSignal Fragment SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/signalfragmentSend us a Text Message.
Join Alex and guest host Dr. Chris Mazurek as they discuss the implications of a near-future world with human-looking androids called Replicants in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). The film is based on Phillip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film stars Harrison Ford, in between his Indiana Jones and Star Wars stints, who plays Rick Deckard, a Blade Runner — a person who hunts and kills (retires) these replicants because they're not supposed to be on Earth. Rutger Hauer plays Roy Batty, the leader of the replicant group being hunted, who ends up a tragic figure rather than merely a bad guy. He just wants to live more than four years! The guys explore the nature of life as a replicant, such as emotional development, sentience, memories, and objectification. It's a wild — and wet — world in Los Angeles 2019... of course those memories will be lost like tears in the rain. Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), Twitter (@CinPsyPod), or Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast) and Threads (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs! Legal stuff: 1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended). 2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license. 3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.
How to Extricate a Hoax. The complex psychology of clearing propaganda out of our minds in this screen-based era of Mass Delusion. Analysis of psychologist Robert Cialdini's theories on “influence.” Checking the headline mechanics of the Bloodbath Hoax from NBC, CNN, NYT, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Schatz. See how these mind tricks work? Similar to how fast food scientists have learned to manipulate your taste buds. Contemplating Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko's take on living under communism, forever surrounded by “non-reality,” in which the goal of the “propaganda machine” was “to prevent us from seeing reality as it was.” Vignettes on Philip K. Dick and Artificial Intelligence. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Blade Runner and The Matrix. Helpful notes on our patented “Friluftsliv” cure. The Open-Air Life of Colorado. Plus, bonus review of the “not people” hoax. With Great Listener Calls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Caleb opens the show with some bad news about his most recent publication, HorrorScope Volume 4. After that, we discuss a list of science fiction books that have been judged to be better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep. As soon as we finish the list, we delve into a good bit of nonsense for your listening pleasure. Check us out on X, Facebook, and Instagram @dpwpodcast Follow Caleb and his work at www.calebjamesk.com.
I talk about an electric sheep Pokemon, but mostly about "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."
Dream (a Little Dream of Tea!) Shopping Mall testimonials, but.. Lol just wants to buy a shirt! Recognition comes when you least expect it Budgie'll name that song in Three!!! Fame (What you Need You Have to Borrow!) On the Way Up or On the Way Down? How is that Old Band of Yours? My Grandad Loves you guys Fred Incognito in Las Vegas Liverpool (She's so Swishy in her Satin and Tat!) Fred hears the Gossip direct from the Birdie's beak The Bird had heard Not much had Changed Form a Band and Prepare for the Bitching OMG OMD we knew they were good – so it was War! Our Friends Electric? (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) The Human League of Gentlemen All the Young Dudes – the Crooners from Sheffield The Cure members number a Baker's Dozen The Age of Aquarius spawned all the Cure drummers Where did it All Begin? (Again and again and again and again..) Transported back in Time with Fred as a Rabbit What's in Fred's Closet? - Comedic Drummer or Musical Comedian? We have the most gear, we sit at the back, but we have no mic! We is Getting Geeky, we reveal all the drummer's Nightmares And All the Fun! Cue the Click…… and Ignore it! All Will be Revealed (the Meaning of H.O.G. and Possibly Life!) Cut to Fred's Competition Time: Drum Intros… Can You Beat our Times? Where have all Lol's Cymbals Gone? Fred laments his old Synth drums Keep it Strictly Limited! – See Y'all on the Road! _____ Respect: George ‘Kool & The Gang' Brown (15 January 1949 - 16 November 2023) _____ CONNECT WITH US: Curious Creatures: Website: https://curiouscreaturespodcast.com Facebook: @CuriousCreaturesOfficial Twitter: @curecreatures Instagram: @CuriousCreaturesOfficial Lol Tolhurst: Website: https://loltolhurst.com Facebook: @officialloltolhurst Twitter: @LolTolhurst Instagram: @lol.tolhurst Budgie: Facebook: @budgieofficial Twitter: @TuWhit2whoo Instagram: @budgie646 Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee: Facebook: @loltolhurstxbudgiexjacknifelee Twitter: @LolBudgieJCKNF Instagram: @lolxbudgiexjacknifelee Curious Creatures is a partner of the Double Elvis podcast network. For more of the best music storytelling follow @DoubleElvis on Instagram or search Double Elvis in your podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Published in 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep shows the cost of nuclear conflict and the decay of mankind. Today, Derwin and Nick compare it to Blade Runner, ponder if Deckard is a replicant, who is the hero of the piece is, and if that answer depends on who you sympathize with most. #bladerunner#bladerunner2049#booktube #novel #books #scifi #android #electricsheep
Join hosts Quinn and James in this episode of "The Cosmic Chronicles Podcast" as they delve into the fascinating world of Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and its cinematic adaptations, "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049." They dissect the themes of artificial intelligence, humanity, and identity that run through these works, exploring how these tales have left an unforgettable mark on the sci-fi genre.Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep: https://amzn.to/3PIyvKoBlade Runner: https://amzn.to/3PIyvKoBlade Runner 2049: https://amzn.to/3ZHZlXkMore Cosmic Chronicles: https://linktr.ee/cosmicchroniclespodcast
Published earlier this year from Running Press, Kristen Lopez's But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films looks at almost a hundred years of film adaptations of novels. The book offers a survey of how directors, actors, and screenwriters have transformed the raw material of fiction into works that were sometimes transgressive, sometimes reverential, and always compelling. Among the adaptations are William Wyler's Wuthering Heights (1939) from the Emily Bronte novel; Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) from Michael Crichton's novel; Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) from Philip K. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”; and Sophia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999) from Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 novel. I am excited to have Kristen Lopez on the podcast to discuss the book. Kristen has been the Film Editor at The Wrap since 2022 and the creator of the podcast Ticklish Business. Kristen's work has also been published in Culturess, Forbes, The Movie Isle, Citizen Dame, and Remezcla. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. In 2023, his dissertation won the J. Leeds Barroll Prize, given by the Shakespeare Association of America. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Ajaay Ravi, Senior Technical Product Manager at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about AI, Flow GPT, and why admins should pay close attention. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ajaay Ravi. Do Androids Dream […] The post Ajaay Ravi on Flow GPT appeared first on Salesforce Admins.
E Ink announced the E Ink Gallery 3 its latest advancement in e-ink technology. How Truebill has turned subscription cancelling into a reoccurring business? And the BBC reports surgeons at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, England successfully implanted a device into the brain to treat Parkinson’s disease in a patient. Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr.Continue reading "Do Androids Dream of Triboelectric Cats – DTNS 4262"