Podcast appearances and mentions of john david ebert

Join us for a captivating episode where cultural critic John David Ebert joins Mustache Chris to delve into the intricate details and themes of David Lynch's film 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me' and its connection to Season 3 of the series. They explore the dark undertones, nuanced performances, and surreal astral plane that define Lynch's work. They discuss the contrasting characters, the portrayal of Laura Palmer, and the broader impact of Lynch's artistic vision. This in-depth analysis offers both new fans and long-time enthusiasts a thorough understanding of Twin Peaks' multifaceted narrative and thematic elements, cementing Lynch's work as a unique cinematic experience.00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction 01:02 Discussing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me01:40 The Importance of Watching Twin Peaks TV Show04:03 David Lynch's Unique Artistic Style11:24 Personal Connections to Twin Peaks 15:54 Twin Peaks TV Show: Behind the Scenes29:01 Analyzing the Film's Prologue 50:54 Analyzing Laura Palmer's Character51:53 Genres and Narrative Techniques in Twin Peaks52:48 The Horror of Laura's Reality55:14 Leland Palmer: Father or Demon? 56:14 The Debate on Leland's Awareness58:11 The Tragic Complexity of Laura Palmer 01:01:08 The Impact of Laura's Trauma01:06:55 The Cinematic Brilliance of Fire Walk With Me01:12:05 The Ending and Its Interpretations01:17:05 Twin Peaks: A Dream or Reality?01:29:47 David Lynch's Artistic Vision01:39:28 Final Thoughts and RecommendationsTranscript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/eW3pTrKMM3AYou can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.pagewww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick to Subscribe: https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.com www.beyondthebigscreen.comParthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistoryhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://facebook.com/atozhistorypagehttps://twitter.com/atozhistorypagehttps://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/Music Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In this episode Mustache Chris, along with cultural critic and philosopher John David Ebert, delve into the intricate layers of the 2001 sci-fi film 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' by Steven Spielberg. They explore the film's themes, from mythology and philosophy to cultural criticism, drawing on the works of Nietzsche and Heidegger. The discussion covers David's emotional journey, the human condition, the evolution of humanity, and genetic engineering, reflecting on the Blue Fairy's role and the film's haunting conclusion. The episode offers a profound examination of AI's narrative, Spielberg's directorial choices, and the broader philosophical questions, closing with thoughts on media consumption and its effects on contemporary society.05:03 AI and Human Anxiety09:48 Kubrick and Spielberg's Collaboration11:46 The Creation of David21:40 David's Integration into the Family39:42 Kubrick vs. Spielberg: A Directorial Debate40:35 David's Quest for Humanity40:47 The Fleshfare and Its Symbolism44:46 Rouge City: A Critique45:27 David's Existential Crisis50:57 The Intended Ending: Kubrick's Vision51:47 The Philosophical Implications of AI53:15 The Role of Technology in Human Evolution58:41 The Final Act: David's Last Day01:07:23 Final Thoughts and Film Review01:11:27 John David Ebert's Work and PhilosophyTranscript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/7AQHwnjLNJO You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.pagewww.beyondthebigscreen.comClick to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comParthenon Podcast Network Home:parthenonpodcast.comOn Social Media:https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistoryhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://facebook.com/atozhistorypagehttps://twitter.com/atozhistorypagehttps://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/Music Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week we talk about the intersections of large language models, the golden age of television and its storytelling mishaps, making one's way through the weirding of the labor economy, and much more with two of my favorite Gen X science fiction aficionados, OG podcaster KMO and our mutual friend Kevin Arthur Wohlmut. In this episode — a standalone continuation to my recent appearance on The KMO Show, we skip like a stone across mentions of every Star Trek series, the collapse of narratives and the social fabric, Westworld HBO, Star Wars Mandalorian vs. Andor vs. Rebels, chatGPT, Blade Runner 2049, Black Mirror, H.P. Lovecraft, the Sheldrake-Abraham-McKenna Trialogues, Charles Stross' Accelerando, Adventure Time, Stanislav Grof's LSD psychotherapy, Francisco Varela, Blake Lemoine's meltdown over Google LaMDA, Integrated Information Theory, biosemiotics, Douglas Hofstadter, Max Tegmarck, Erik Davis, Peter Watts, The Psychedelic Salon, Melanie Mitchell, The Teafaerie, Kevin Kelly, consilience in science, Fight Club, and more…Or, if you prefer, here's a rundown of the episode generated by A.I. c/o my friends at Podium.page:In this episode, I explore an ambitious and well-connected conversation with guests KMO, a seasoned podcaster, and Kevin Walnut [sic], a close friend and supporter of the arts in Santa Fe. We dive deep into their thoughts on the social epistemology crisis, science fiction, deep fakes, and ontology. Additionally, we discuss their opinions on the Star Trek franchise, particularly their critiques of the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard and Discovery. Through this engaging conversation, we examine the impact of storytelling and the evolution of science fiction in modern culture. We also explore the relationship between identity, media, and artificial intelligence, as well as the ethical implications of creating sentient artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the philosophical questions surrounding AI's impact on society and human existence. Join us for a thought-provoking and in-depth discussion on a variety of topics that will leave you questioning the future of humanity and our relationship with technology.✨ Before we get started, three big announcements!* I am leaving the Santa Fe Institute, in part to write a very ambitious book about technology, art, imagination, and Jurassic Park. You can be a part of the early discussion around this project by joining the Future Fossils Book Club's Jurassic Park live calls — the first of which will be on Saturday, 29 April — open to Substack and Patreon supporters:* Catch me in a Twitter Space with Nxt Museum on Monday 17 April at 11 am PST on a panel discussing “Creative Misuse of Technology” with Minne Atairu, Parag Mital, Caroline Sinders, and hosts Jesse Damiani and Charlotte Kent.* I'm back in Austin this October to play the Astronox Festival at Apache Pass! Check out this amazing lineup on which I appear alongside Juno Reactor, Entheogenic, Goopsteppa, DRRTYWULVZ, and many more great artists!✨ Support Future Fossils:Subscribe anywhere you go for podcastsSubscribe to the podcast PLUS essays, music, and news on Substack or Patreon.Buy my original paintings or commission new work.Buy my music on Bandcamp! (This episode features “A Better Trip” from my recent live album by the same name.)Or if you're into lo-fi audio, follow me and my listening recommendations on Spotify.This conversation continues with lively and respectful interaction every single day in the members-only Future Fossils Facebook Group and Discord server. Join us!Episode cover art by KMO and a whole bouquet of digital image manipulation apps.✨ Tip Jars:@futurefossils on Venmo$manfredmacx on CashAppmichaelgarfield on PayPal✨ Affiliate Links:• These show notes and the transcript were made possible with Podium.Page, a very cool new AI service I'm happy to endorse. Sign up here and get three free hours and 50% off your first month.• BioTech Life Sciences makes anti-aging and performance enhancement formulas that work directly at the level of cellular nutrition, both for ingestion and direct topical application. I'm a firm believer in keeping NAD+ levels up and their skin solution helped me erase a year of pandemic burnout from my face.• Help regulate stress, get better sleep, recover from exercise, and/or stay alert and focused without stimulants, with the Apollo Neuro wearable. I have one and while I don't wear it all the time, when I do it's sober healthy drugs.• Musicians: let me recommend you get yourself a Jamstik Studio, the coolest MIDI guitar I've ever played. I LOVE mine. You can hear it playing all the synths on my song about Jurassic Park.✨ Mentioned Media:KMO Show S01 E01 - 001 - Michael Garfield and Kevin WohlmutAn Edifying Thought on AI by Charles EisensteinIn Defense of Star Trek: Picard & Discovery by Michael GarfieldImprovising Out of Algorithmic Isolation by Michael GarfieldAI and the Transformation of the Human Spirit by Steven Hales(and yes I know it's on Quillette, and no I don't think this automatically disqualifies it)Future Fossils Book Club #1: Blindsight by Peter WattsFF 116 - The Next Ten Billion Years: Ugo Bardi & John Michael Greer as read by Kevin Arthur Wohlmut✨ Related Recent Future Fossils Episodes:FF 198 - Tadaaki Hozumi on Japanese Esotericism, Aliens, Land Spirits, & The Singularity (Part 2)FF 195 - A.I. Art: An Emergency Panel with Julian Picaza, Evo Heyning, Micah Daigle, Jamie Curcio, & Topher SipesFF 187 - Fear & Loathing on the Electronic Frontier with Kevin Welch & David Hensley of EFF-Austin FF 178 - Chris Ryan on Exhuming The Human from Our Eldritch Institutions FF 175 - C. Thi Nguyen on The Seductions of Clarity, Weaponized Games, and Agency as Art ✨ Chapters:0:15:45 - The Substance of Philosophy (58 Seconds)0:24:45 - Complicated TV Narratives and the Internet (104 Seconds)0:30:54 - Humans vs Hosts in Westworld (81 Seconds)0:38:09 - Philosophical Zombies and Artificial Intelligence (89 Seconds)0:43:00 - Popular Franchises Themes (71 Seconds)1:03:27 - Reflections on a Changing Media Landscape (89 Seconds)1:10:45 - The Pathology of Selective Evidence (92 Seconds)1:16:32 - Externalizing Trauma Through Technology (131 Seconds)1:24:51 - From Snow Maker to Thouandsaire (43 Seconds)1:36:48 - The Impact of Boomer Parenting (126 Seconds)✨ Keywords:Social Epistemology, Science Fiction, Deep Fakes, Ontology, Star Trek, Artificial Intelligence, AI Impact, Sentient AGI, Human-Machine Interconnectivity, Consciousness Theory, Westworld, Blade Runner 2049, AI in Economy, AI Companion Chatbots, Unconventional Career Path, AI and Education, AI Content Creation, AI in Media, Turing Test✨ UNEDITED machine-generated transcript generated by podium.page:0:00:00Five four three two one. Go. So it's not like Wayne's world where you say the two and the one silently. Now, Greetings future fossils.0:00:11Welcome to episode two hundred and one of the podcast that explores our place in time I'm your host, Michael Garfield. And this is one of these extra juicy and delicious episodes of the show where I really ratcheted up with our guests and provide you one of these singularity is near kind of ever everything is connected to everything, self organized criticality right at the edge of chaos conversations, deeply embedded in chapel parallel where suddenly the invisible architect picture of our cosmos starts to make itself apparent through the glass bead game of conversation. And I am that I get to share it with you. Our guests this week are KMO, one of the most seasoned and well researched and experienced podcasters that I know. Somebody whose show the Sea Realm was running all the way back in two thousand six, I found him through Eric Davis, who I think most of you know, and I've had on the show a number of times already. And also Kevin Walnut, who is a close friend of mine here in Santa Fe, a just incredible human being, he's probably the strongest single supporter of music that I'm aware of, you know, as far as local scenes are concerned and and supporting people's music online and helping get the word out. He's been instrumental to my family and I am getting ourselves situated here all the way back to when I visited Santa Fe in two thousand eighteen to participate in the Santa Fe Institute's Interplanetary Festival and recorded conversations on that trip John David Ebert and Michael Aaron Cummins. And Ike used so June. About hyper modernity, a two part episode one zero four and one zero five. I highly recommend going back to that, which is really the last time possibly I had a conversation just this incredibly ambitious on the show.0:02:31But first, I want to announce a couple things. One is that I have left the Santa Fe Institute. The other podcast that I have been hosting for them for the last three and a half years, Complexity Podcast, which is substantially more popular in future fossils due to its institutional affiliation is coming to a close, I'm recording one more episode with SFI president David Krakauer next week in which I'm gonna be talking about my upcoming book project. And that episode actually is conjoined with the big announcement that I have for members of the Future Fossil's listening audience and and paid supporters, which is, of course, the Jurassic Park Book Club that starts On April twenty ninth, we're gonna host the first of two video calls where I'm gonna dive deep into the science and philosophy Michael Creighton's most popular work of fiction and its impact on culture and society over the thirty three years since its publication. And then I'm gonna start picking up as many of the podcasts that I had scheduled for complexity and had to cancel upon my departure from SFI. And basically fuse the two shows.0:03:47And I think a lot of you saw this coming. Future fossils is going to level up and become a much more scientific podcast. As I prepare and research the book that I'm writing about Jurassic Park and its legacy and the relationship It has to ILM and SFI and the Institute of Eco Technics. And all of these other visionary projects that sprouted in the eighties and nineties to transition from the analog to the digital the collapse of the boundaries between the real and the virtual, the human and the non human worlds, it's gonna be a very very ambitious book and a very very ambitious book club. And I hope that you will get in there because obviously now I am out in the rain as an independent producer and very much need can benefit from and am deeply grateful for your support for this work in order to make things happen and in order to keep my family fed, get the lights on here with future fossils. So with that, I wanna thank all of the new supporters of the show that have crawled out of the woodwork over the last few weeks, including Raefsler Oingo, Brian in the archaeologist, Philip Rice, Gerald Bilak, Jamie Curcio, Jeff Hanson who bought my music, Kuaime, Mary Castello, VR squared, Nastia teaches, community health com, Ed Mulder, Cody Couiac, bought my music, Simon Heiduke, amazing visionary artist. I recommend you check out, Kayla Peters. Yeah. All of you, I just wow. Thank you so much. It's gonna be a complete melee in this book club. I'm super excited to meet you all. I will send out details about the call details for the twenty ninth sometime in the next few days via a sub tag in Patreon.0:06:09The amount of support that I've received through this transition has been incredible and it's empowering me to do wonderful things for you such as the recently released secret videos of the life sets I performed with comedian Shane Moss supporting him, opening for him here in Santa Fe. His two sold out shows at the Jean Coutu cinema where did the cyber guitar performances. And if you're a subscriber, you can watch me goofing off with my pedal board. There's a ton of material. I'm gonna continue to do that. I've got a lot of really exciting concerts coming up in the next few months that we're gonna get large group and also solo performance recordings from and I'm gonna make those available in a much more resplendent way to supporters as well as the soundtrack to Mark Nelson of the Institute of Eco Technics, his UC San Diego, Art Museum, exhibit retrospective looking at BioSphere two. I'm doing music for that and that's dropping. The the opening of that event is April twenty seventh. There's gonna be a live zoom event for that and then I'm gonna push the music out as well for that.0:07:45So, yeah, thank you all. I really, really appreciate you listening to the show. I am excited to share this episode with you. KMO is just a trove. Of insight and experience. I mean, he's like a perfect entry into the digital history museum that this show was predicated upon. So with that and also, of course, Kevin Willett is just magnificent. And for the record, stick around at the end of the conversation. We have some additional pieces about AI, and I think you're gonna really enjoy it. And yeah, thank you. Here we go. Alright. Cool.0:09:26Well, we just had a lovely hour of discussion for the new KMO podcast. And now I'm here with KMO who is The most inveterate podcaster I know. And I know a lot of them. Early adopts. And I think that weird means what you think it means. Inventor it. Okay. Yes. Hey, answer to both. Go ahead. I mean, you're not yet legless and panhandling. So prefer to think of it in term in terms of August estimation. Yeah. And am I allowed to say Kevin Walnut because I've had you as a host on True. Yeah. My last name was appeared on your show. It hasn't appeared on camos yet, but I don't really care. Okay. Great. Yeah. Karen Arthur Womlett, who is one of the most solid and upstanding and widely read and just generous people, I think I know here in Santa Fe or maybe anywhere. With excellent taste and podcasts. Yes. And who is delicious meat I am sampling right now as probably the first episode of future fossils where I've had an alcoholic beverage in my hand. Well, I mean, it's I haven't deprived myself. Of fun. And I think if you're still listening to the show after all these years, you probably inferred that. But at any rate, Welcome on board. Thank you. Thanks. Pleasure to be here.0:10:49So before we started rolling, I guess, so the whole conversation that we just had for your show camera was very much about my thoughts on the social epistemology crisis and on science fiction and deep fakes and all of these kinds of weird ontology and these kinds of things. But in between calls, we were just talking about how much you detest the first two seasons of Star Trek card and of Discovery. And as somebody, I didn't bother with doing this. I didn't send you this before we spoke, but I actually did write an SIN defense of those shows. No one. Yeah. So I am not attached to my opinion on this, but And I actually do wanna at some point double back and hear storytelling because when he had lunch and he had a bunch of personal life stuff that was really interesting. And juicy and I think worthy of discussion. But simply because it's hot on the rail right now, I wanna hear you talk about Star Trek. And both of you, actually, I know are very big fans of this franchise. I think fans are often the ones from whom a critic is most important and deserved. And so I welcome your unhinged rants. Alright. Well, first, I'll start off by quoting Kevin's brother, the linguist, who says, That which brings us closer to Star Trek is progress. But I'd have to say that which brings us closer to Gene Rottenberry and Rick Berman era Star Trek. Is progress. That which brings us closer to Kurtzmann. What's his first name? Alex. Alex Kurtzmann, Star Trek. Well, that's not even the future. I mean, that's just that's our drama right now with inconsistent Star Trek drag draped over it.0:12:35I liked the first JJ Abrams' Star Trek. I think it was two thousand nine with Chris Pine and Zachary Qinto and Karl Urban and Joey Saldana. I liked the casting. I liked the energy. It was fun. I can still put that movie on and enjoy it. But each one after that just seem to double down on the dumb and just hold that arm's length any of the philosophical stuff that was just amazing from Star Trek: The Next Generation or any of the long term character building, which was like from Deep Space nine.0:13:09And before seven of nine showed up on on Voyager, you really had to be a dedicated Star Trek fan to put up with early season's Voyager, but I did because I am. But then once she came on board and it was hilarious. They brought her onboard. I remember seeing Jerry Ryan in her cat suit on the cover of a magazine and just roll in my eyes and think, oh my gosh, this show is in such deep trouble through sinking to this level to try to save it. But she was brilliant. She was brilliant in that show and she and Robert Percardo as the doctor. I mean, it basically became the seven of nine and the doctor show co starring the rest of the cast of Voyager. And it was so great.0:13:46I love to hear them singing together and just all the dynamics of I'm human, but I was I basically came up in a cybernetic collective and that's much more comfortable to me. And I don't really have the option of going back it. So I gotta make the best of where I am, but I feel really superior to all of you. Is such it was such a charming dynamic. I absolutely loved it. Yes. And then I think a show that is hated even by Star Trek fans Enterprise. Loved Enterprise.0:14:15And, yes, the first three seasons out of four were pretty rough. Actually, the first two were pretty rough. The third season was that Zendy Ark in the the expanse. That was pretty good. And then season four was just astounding. It's like they really found their voice and then what's his name at CBS Paramount.0:14:32He's gone now. He got me too. What's his name? Les Moonves? Said, no. I don't like Star Trek. He couldn't he didn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. That was his level of engagement.0:14:44And he's I really like J.0:14:46J.0:14:46Abrams. What's that? You mean J. J. Abrams. Yeah. I think J. J. Is I like some of J. Abrams early films. I really like super eight. He's clearly his early films were clearly an homage to, like, eighties, Spielberg stuff, and Spielberg gets the emotional beats right, and JJ Abrams was mimicking that, and his early stuff really works. It's just when he starts adapting properties that I really love. And he's coming at it from a marketing standpoint first and a, hey, we're just gonna do the lost mystery box thing. We're gonna set up a bunch questions to which we don't know the answers, and it'll be up to somebody else to figure it out, somebody down the line. I as I told you, between our conversations before we were recording. I really enjoy or maybe I said it early in this one. I really like that first J. J. Abrams, Star Trek: Foam, and then everyone thereafter, including the one that Simon Pegg really had a hand in because he's clear fan. Yeah. Yeah. But they brought in director from one of the fast and the furious films and they tried to make it an action film on.0:15:45This is not Star Trek, dude. This is not why we like Star Trek. It's not for the flash, particularly -- Oh my god. -- again, in the first one, it was a stylistic choice. I'd like it, then after that is that's the substance of this, isn't it? It's the lens flares. I mean, that that's your attempt at philosophy. It's this the lens flares. That's your attempt at a moral dilemma. I don't know.0:16:07I kinda hate to start off on this because this is something about which I feel like intense emotion and it's negative. And I don't want that to be my first impression. I'm really negative about something. Well, one of the things about this show is that I always joke that maybe I shouldn't edit it because The thing that's most interesting to archaeologists is often the trash mitt and here I am tidying this thing up to be presentable to future historians or whatever like it I can sync to that for sure. Yeah. I'm sorry. The fact of it is you're not gonna know everything and we want it that way. No. It's okay. We'll get around to the stuff that I like. But yeah. So anyway yeah.0:16:44So I could just preassociate on Stretrick for a while, so maybe a focusing question. Well, but first, you said there's a you had more to say, but you were I this this tasteful perspective. This is awesome. Well, I do have a focus on question for you. So let me just have you ask it because for me to get into I basically I'm alienated right now from somebody that I've been really good friends with since high school.0:17:08Because over the last decade, culturally, we have bifurcated into the hard right, hard left. And I've tried not to go either way, but the hard left irritates me more than the hard right right now. And he is unquestionably on the hard left side. And I know for people who are dedicated Marxist, or really grounded in, like, materialism and the material well-being of workers that the current SJW fanaticism isn't leftist. It's just crazed. We try to put everything, smash everything down onto this left right spectrum, and it's pretty easy to say who's on the left and who's on the right even if a two dimensional, two axis graph would be much more expressive and nuanced.0:17:49Anyway, what's your focus in question? Well, And I think there is actually there is a kind of a when we ended your last episode talking about the bell riots from d s nine -- Mhmm. -- that, you know, how old five? Yeah. Twenty four. Ninety five did and did not accurately predict the kind of technological and economic conditions of this decade. It predicted the conditions Very well. Go ahead and finish your question. Yeah. Right.0:18:14That's another thing that's retreated in picard season two, and it was actually worth it. Yeah. Like, it was the fact that they decided to go back there was part of the defense that I made about that show and about Discovery's jump into the distant future and the way that they treated that I posted to medium a year or two ago when I was just watching through season two of picard. And for me, the thing that I liked about it was that they're making an effort to reconcile the wonder and the Ethiopian promise And, you know, this Kevin Kelly or rather would call Blake Protopian, right, that we make these improvements and that they're often just merely into incremental improvements the way that was it MLK quoted that abolitionists about the long arc of moral progress of moral justice. You know, I think that there's something to that and patitis into the last this is a long question. I'm mad at I'm mad at these. Thank you all for tolerating me.0:19:22But the when to tie it into the epistemology question, I remember this seeing this impactful lecture by Carnegie Mellon and SFI professor Simon Didayo who was talking about how by running statistical analysis on the history of the proceedings of the Royal Society, which is the oldest scientific journal, that you could see what looked like a stock market curve in sentiment analysis about the confidence that scientists had at the prospect of unifying knowledge. And so you have, like, conciliance r s curve here that showed that knowledge would be more and more unified for about a century or a hundred and fifty years then it would go through fifty years of decline where something had happened, which was a success of knowledge production. Had outpaced our ability to integrate it. So we go through these kinds of, like, psychedelic peak experiences collectively, and then we have sit there with our heads in our hands and make sense of everything that we've learned over the last century and a half and go through a kind of a deconstructive epoch. Where we don't feel like the center is gonna hold anymore. And that is what I actually As as disappointing as I accept that it is and acknowledge that it is to people who were really fueling themselves on that more gene rottenberry era prompt vision for a better society, I actually appreciated this this effort to explore and address in the shows the way that they could pop that bubble.0:21:03And, like, it's on the one hand, it's boring because everybody's trying to do the moral complexity, anti hero, people are flawed, thing in narrative now because we have a general loss of faith in our institutions and in our rows. On the other hand, like, that's where we are and that's what we need to process And I think there is a good reason to look back at the optimism and the quarian hope of the sixties and early seventies. We're like, really, they're not so much the seventies, but look back on that stuff and say, we wanna keep telling these stories, but we wanna tell it in a way that acknowledges that the eighties happened. And that this is you got Tim Leary, and then you've got Ronald Reagan. And then That just or Dick Nixon. And like these things they wash back and forth. And so it's not unreasonable to imagine that in even in a world that has managed to how do you even keep a big society like that coherent? It has to suffer kind of fabric collapses along the way at different points. And so I'm just curious your thoughts about that. And then I do have another prompt, but I wanna give Kevin the opportunity to respond to this as well as to address some of the prompts that you brought to this conversation? This is a conversation prompt while we weren't recording. It has nothing to do with Sartreks. I'll save that for later. Okay.0:22:25Well, everything you just said was in some way related to a defense of Alex Kurtzmann Star Trek. And it's not my original idea. I'm channeling somebody from YouTube, surely. But Don't get points for theme if the storytelling is incompetent. That's what I was gonna Yeah. And the storytelling in all of Star Trek: Discovery, and in the first two seasons of picard was simply incompetent.0:22:53When Star Trek, the next generation was running, they would do twenty, twenty four, sometimes more episodes in one season. These days, the season of TVs, eight episodes, ten, and they spend a lot more money on each episode. There's a lot more special effects. There's a lot more production value. Whereas Star Trek: The Next Generation was, okay, we have these standing sets. We have costumes for our actors. We have Two dollars for special effects. You better not introduce a new alien spaceship. It that costs money. We have to design it. We have to build it. So use existing stuff. Well, what do you have? You have a bunch of good actors and you have a bunch of good writers who know how to tell a story and craft dialogue and create tension and investment with basically a stage play and nothing in the Kerstmann era except one might argue and I would have sympathy strange new worlds. Comes anywhere close to that level of competence, which was on display for decades. From Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space nines, Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek Enterprise. And so, I mean, I guess, in that respect, it's worth asking because, I mean, all of us, I think, are fans of Deep Space nine.0:24:03You don't think that it's a shift in focus. You don't think that strange in world is exempt because it went back to a more episodic format because what you're talking about is the ability for rather than a show runner or a team of show runners to craft a huge season, long dramatic arc. You've got people that are like Harlan Ellison in the original series able to bring a really potent one off idea to the table and drop it. And so there are there's all of those old shows are inconsistent from episode to episode. Some are they have specific writers that they would bring back again and that you could count to knock out of the park. Yeah. DC Fontana. Yeah.0:24:45So I'm curious to your thoughts on that as well as another part of this, which is when we talk when we talk your show about Doug Rushkoff and and narrative collapse, and he talks about how viewers just have different a way, it's almost like d s nine was possibly partially responsible for this change in what people expected from so. From television programming in the documentary that was made about that show and they talk about how people weren't ready for cereal. I mean, for I mean, yeah, for these long arcs, And so there is there's this question now about how much of this sort of like tiresome moral complexity and dragging narrative and all of this and, like, things like Westworld where it becomes so baroque and complicated that, like, you have, like, die hard fans like me that love it, but then you have a lot of people that just lost interest. They blacked out because the show was trying to tell a story that was, like, too intricate like, too complicated that the the show runners themselves got lost. And so that's a JJ Abrams thing too, the puzzle the mystery box thing where You get to the end of five seasons of lost and you're like, dude, did you just forget?0:25:56Did you wake up five c five episodes ago and just, oh, right. Right. We're like a chatbot that only give you very convincing answers based on just the last two or three interactions. But you don't remember the scene that we set. Ten ten responses ago. Hey. You know, actually, red articles were forget who it was, which series it was, they were saying that there's so many leaks and spoilers in getting out of the Internet that potentially the writers don't know where they're going because that way it can't be with the Internet. Yeah. Sounds interesting. Yeah. That sounds like cover for incompetence to be.0:26:29I mean, on the other hand, I mean, you did hear, like, Nolan and Joy talking about how they would they were obsessed with the Westworld subreddit and the fan theories and would try to dodge Like, if they had something in their mind that they found out that people are re anticipating, they would try to rewrite it. And so there is something about this that I think is really speaks to the nature of because I do wanna loop in your thoughts on AI to because you're talking about this being a favorite topic. Something about the, like, trying to The demands on the self made by predatory surveillance technologies are such that the I'm convinced the adaptive response is that we become more stochastic or inconsistent in our identities. And that we kind of sublimate from a more solid state of identity to or through a liquid kind of modernity biologic environment to a gaseous state of identity. That is harder to place sorry, harder to track. And so I think that this is also part of and this is the other question I wanted to ask you, and then I'm just gonna shut up for fifteen minutes is do you when you talk about loving Robert Ricardo and Jerry Ryan as the doctor at seven zero nine, One of the interesting things about that relationship is akin to stuff.0:27:52I know you've heard on Kevin have heard on future fossils about my love for Blade Runner twenty forty nine and how it explores all of these different these different points along a gradient between what we think of in the current sort of general understanding as the human and the machine. And so there's this thing about seven, right, where she's She's a human who wants to be a machine. And then there's this thing about the doctor where he's a machine that wants to be a human. And you have to grant both on a logical statuses to both of them. And that's why I think they're the two most interesting characters. Right?0:28:26And so at any rate, like, this is that's there's I've seen writing recently on the Turing test and how, like, really, there should be a reverse Turing test to see if people that have become utterly reliant on outboard cognition and information processing. They can pass the drink. Right. Are they philosophical zombies now? Are they are they having some an experience that that, you know, people like, thick and and shilling and the missing and these people would consider the modern self or are they something else have we moved on to another more routine robotic kind of category of being? I don't know. There's just a lot there, but -- Well done. -- considering everything you just said, In twenty words or less, what's your question? See, even more, like I said, do you have the inveterate podcaster? I'd say There's all of those things I just spoke about are ways in which what we are as people and the nature of our media, feedback into fourth, into each other. And so I would just love to hear you reflect on any of that, be it through the lens of Star Trek or just through the lens of discussion on AI. And we'll just let the ball roll downhill. So with the aim of framing something positively rather than negatively.0:29:47In the late nineties, mid to late nineties. We got the X Files. And the X Files for the first few seasons was so It was so engaging for me because Prior to that, there had been Hollywood tropes about aliens, which informed a lot of science fiction that didn't really connect with the actual reported experience of people who claim to have encountered either UFOs, now called UAPs, or had close encounters physical contact. Type encounters with seeming aliens. And it really seemed like Chris Carter, who was the showrunner, was reading the same Usenet Newsgroups that I was reading about those topics. Like, really, we had suddenly, for the first time, except maybe for comedian, you had the Grey's, and you had characters experiencing things that just seemed ripped right out of the reports that people were making on USnet, which for young folks, this is like pre Worldwide Web. It was Internet, but with no pictures. It's all text. Good old days from my perspective is a grumpy old gen xer. And so, yeah, that was a breakthrough moment.0:30:54Any this because you mentioned it in terms of Jonathan Nolan and his co writer on Westworld, reading the subreddit, the West and people figured out almost immediately that there were two interweaving time lines set decades apart and that there's one character, the old guy played by Ed Harris, and the young guy played by I don't remember the actor. But, you know, that they were the same character and that the inveterate white hat in the beginning turns into the inveterate black cat who's just there for the perverse thrill of tormenting the hosts as the robots are called. And the thing that I love most about that first season, two things. One, Anthony Hopkins. Say no more. Two, the revelation that the park has been basically copying humans or figuring out what humans are by closely monitoring their behavior in the park and the realization that the hosts come to is that, holy shit compared to us, humans are very simple creatures. We are much more complex. We are much more sophisticated, nuanced conscious, we feel more than the humans do, and that humans use us to play out their perverse and sadistic fantasies. To me, that was the takeaway message from season one.0:32:05And then I thought every season after that was just diluted and confused and not really coherent. And in particular, I haven't if there's a fourth season, haven't There was and then the show got canceled before they could finish the story. They had the line in season three. It was done after season three. And I was super happy to see Let's see after who plays Jesse Pinkman? Oh, no. Aaron oh, shit. Paul. Yes. Yeah. I was super happy to see him and something substantial and I was really pleased to see him included in the show and it's like, oh, that's what you're doing with him? They did a lot more interesting stuff with him in season four. I did they. They did a very much more interesting stuff. I think it was done after season three. If you tell me season four is worth taking in, I blow. I thought it was.0:32:43But again, I only watch television under very specific set of circumstances, and that's how I managed to enjoy television because I was a fierce and unrepentant hyperlogical critic of all media as a child until I managed to start smoking weed. And then I learned to enjoy myself. As we mentioned in the kitchen as I mentioned in the kitchen, if I smoke enough weed, Star Trek: Discovery is pretty and I can enjoy it on just a second by second level where if I don't remember what the character said thirty seconds ago, I'm okay. But I absolutely loved in season two when they brought in Hanson Mountain as as Christopher Pike. He's suddenly on the discovery and he's in the captain's chair. And it's like he's speaking for the audience. The first thing he says is, hey, why don't we turn on the lights? And then hey, all you people sitting around the bridge. We've been looking at your faces for a whole season. We don't even think about you. Listen to a round of introductions. Who are you? Who are you? It's it's if I were on set. You got to speak.0:33:53The writers is, who are these characters? We've been looking at them every single episode for a whole season. I don't know their names. I don't know anything about them. Why are they even here? Why is it not just Michael Burnham and an automated ship? And then it was for a while -- Yeah. -- which is funny. Yeah. To that point, And I think this kind of doubles back. The thing that I love about bringing him on and all of the people involved in strange and worlds in particular, is that these were lifelong fans of this series, I mean, of this world. Yeah. And so in that way, gets to this the idiosyncrasy question we're orbiting here, which is when these things are when the baton is passed well, it's passed to people who have now grown up with this stuff.0:34:40I personally cannot stand Jurassic World. Like, I think that Colin Trivaro should never have been in put at the reins. Which one did he direct? Oh, he did off he did first and the third. Okay. But, I mean, he was involved in all three very heavily.0:34:56And there's something just right at the outset of that first Jurassic World where you realize that this is not a film that's directly addressing the issues that Michael Creighton was trying to explore here. It's a film about its own franchise. It's a film about the fact that they can't just stop doing the same thing over and over again as we expect a different question. How can we not do it again? Right. And so it's actually, like, unpleasantly soft, conscious, in that way that I can't remember I'll try to find it for the show notes, but there's an Internet film reviewer who is talking about what happens when, like, all cinema has to take this self referential turn.0:35:34No. And films like Logan do it really well. But there are plenty of examples where it's just cheeky and self aware because that's what the ironic sensibility is obsessed with. And so, yeah, there's a lot of that where it's, like, you're talking about, like, Abrams and the the Star Wars seven and you know, that whole trilogy of Disney Star Wars, where it's, in my opinion, completely fumbled because there it's just empty fan service, whereas when you get to Andor, love Andor. Andor is amazing because they're capable of providing all of those emotional beats that the fans want and the ref the internal references and good dialogue. But they're able to write it in a way that's and shoot it in a way. Gilroy and Bo Willeman, basic of the people responsible for the excellent dialogue in Andor.0:36:31And I love the production design. I love all the stuff set on Coruscant, where you saw Coruscant a lot in the prequel trilogy, and it's all dayglow and bright and just in your face. And it's recognizable as Coruscant in andor, but it's dour. It's metropolis. It's all grays and it's and it's highlighting the disparity between where the wealthy live and where the poor live, which Lucas showed that in the prequel trilogy, but even in the sports bar where somebody tries to sell death sticks to Obi wan. So it's super clean and bright and just, you know, It shines too much. Personally though, and I just wanna stress, KMO is not grumpy media dude, I mean, this is a tiny fraction about, but I am wasting this interview with you. Love. All of the Dave Felloni animated Star Wars stuff, even rebels. Love it all.0:37:26I I'm so glad they aged up the character and I felt less guilty about loving and must staying after ahsoka tano? My favorite Star Wars character is ahsoka tano. But if you only watch the live action movies, you're like who? Well, I guess now that she's been on the Mandalorian, he's got tiny sliver of a foothold -- Yeah. -- in the super mainstream Star Wars. And that was done well, I thought. It was. I'm so sorry that Ashley Epstein doesn't have any part in it. But Rosario Dawson looks the part. She looks like a middle aged Asaka and think they tried to do some stuff in live action, which really should have been CGI because it's been established that the Jedi can really move, and she looked human. Which she is? If you put me on film, I'm gonna lick human. Right. Not if you're Canada Reeves, I guess. You got that. Yeah. But yeah.0:38:09So I do wanna just go real briefly back to this question with you about because we briefly talked about chat, GPT, and these other things in your half of this. And, yeah, I found out just the other night my friend, the t ferry, asked Chad g p t about me, and it gave a rather plausible and factual answer. I was surprised and That's what these language models do. They put plausible answers. But when you're doing search, you want correct answers. Right. I'm very good at that. Right. Then someone shared this Michelle Bowen's actually the famous PTP guy named him. Yeah. So, you know, So Michelle shared this article by Steven Hales and Colette, that was basically making the argument that there are now they're gonna be all these philosophical zombies, acting as intelligent agents sitting at the table of civilization, and there will be all the philosophical zombies of the people who have entirely yielded their agency to them, and they will be cohabitating with the rest of us.0:39:14And what an unpleasant scenario, So in light of that, and I might I'd love to hear you weave that together with your your thoughts on seven zero nine and the doctor and on Blade Runner twenty forty nine. And this thing that we're fumbling through as a species right now. Like, how do we got a new sort of taxonomy? Does your not audience need like a minute primer on P zombies? Might as well. Go for it.0:39:38So a philosophical zombie is somebody who behaves exactly like an insult person or a person with interior experience or subjective experience, but they don't have any subjective experience. And in Pardon me for interrupt. Wasn't that the question about the the book we read in your book club, a blind sign in this box? Yes. It's a black box, a drawn circle. Yeah. Chinese room experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, Daniel, it goes out. You don't know, it goes on inside the room. Chinese room, that's a tangent. We can come back to it. P. Zombie. P. Zombie is somebody or is it is an entity. It's basically a puppet. It looks human. It acts human. It talks like a human. It will pass a Turing test, but it has no interior experience.0:40:25And when I was going to grad school for philosophy of mind in the nineteen nineties, this was all very out there. There was no example of something that had linguistic competence. Which did not have internal experience. But now we have large language models and generative pretrained transformer based chatbots that don't have any internal experience. And yet, when you interact with them, it seems like there is somebody there There's a personality there. And if you go from one model to a different, it's a very different personality. It is distinctly different. And yet we have no reason to believe that they have any sort of internal experience.0:41:01So what AI in the last decade and what advances has demonstrated to us and really even before the last decade You back in the nineties when the blue beat Gary Casper off at at chess. And what had been the one of the defining characteristics of human intelligence was we're really good at this abstract mathematical stuff. And yeah, calculators can calculate pie in a way that we can't or they can cube roots in a way that humans generally can't, creative in their application of these methodologies And all of a sudden, well, yeah, it kinda seems like they are. And then when what was an alpha go -- Mhmm. -- when it be to least a doll in go, which is a much more complex game than chess and much more intuitive based. That's when we really had to say, hey, wait a minute. Maybe this notion that These things are the exclusive province of us because we have a special sort of self awareness. That's bunk. And the development of large language models since then has absolutely demonstrated that competence, particularly linguistic competence and in creative activities like painting and poetry and things like that, you don't need a soul, you don't even need to sense a self, it's pretty it's a pretty simple hack, actually. And Vahrv's large language models and complex statistical modeling and things, but it doesn't require a soul.0:42:19So that was the Peter Watts' point in blindsight. Right? Which is Look revolves around are do these things have a subjective experience, and do they not these aliens that they encounter? I've read nothing but good things about that book and I've read. It's extraordinary. But his lovecrafty and thesis is that you actually lovecraftian in twenty twenty three. Oh, yeah. In the world, there's more lovecraftian now than it was when he was writing. Right? So cough about the conclusion of a Star Trek card, which is season of Kraft yet. Yes. That's a that's a com Yeah. The holes in his fan sense. But that was another show that did this I liked for asking this question.0:42:54I mean, at this point, you either have seen this or you haven't you never will. The what the fuck turn when they upload picard into a synth body and the way that they're dealing with the this the pinocchio question Let's talk about Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Yeah. But I mean yeah. So I didn't like the wave I did not like the wave of card handled that. I love the wave and Blade Runner handled it. So you get no points for themes. Yeah. Don't deliver on story and character and coherence. Yeah. Fair. But yeah. And to be not the dog, Patrick Stewart, because it's clear from the ready room just being a part of this is so emotional and so awesome for everyone involved. And it's It's beautiful. Beautiful. But does when you when you see these, like, entertainment weekly interviews with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard about Jurassic World, and it's clear that actors are just so excited to be involved in a franchise that they're willing to just jettison any kind of discretion about how the way that it's being treated. They also have a contractual obligation to speak in positive terms about -- They do. -- of what they feel. Right. Nobody's yeah. Nobody's doing Shout out to Rystellis Howard, daughter of Ron Howard.0:44:11She was a director, at least in the first season, maybe the second season of the Mandalorian. And her episodes I mean, I she brought a particular like, they had Bryce Dallas Howard, Tico, ITT, directed some episodes. Deborah Chow, who did all of Obi wan, which just sucked. But her contributions to the Mandalorian, they had a particular voice. And because that show is episodic, Each show while having a place in a larger narrative is has a beginning middle and end that you can bring in a director with a particular voice and give that episode that voice, and I really liked it. And I really liked miss Howard's contribution.0:44:49She also in an episode of Black Mirror. The one where everyone has a social credit score. Knows Donuts. Black Mirror is a funny thing because It's like, reality outpaces it. Yeah. I think maybe Charlie Bruker's given up on it because they haven't done it in a while. Yeah. If you watch someone was now, like, five, six years later, it's, yes, or what? See, yes. See, damn. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah. I don't know. I just thing that I keep circling and I guess we come to on the show a lot is the way that memory forms work substantiates an integrity in society and in the way that we relate to things and the way that we think critically about the claims that are made on truth and so on and say, yeah, I don't know. That leads right into the largest conversation prompt that I had about AI. Okay? So we were joking when we set up this date that this was like the trial logs between Terence Buchanan and Rupert Shell Drake. And what's his name? Real Abraham. Yeah. Yeah. All Abraham. And Rupert Shell Drake is most famous for a steward of Morphe resin.0:45:56So does AI I've never really believed that Norfolk residents forms the base of human memory, but is that how AI works? It brings these shapes from the past and creates new instantiation of them in the present. Is AI practicing morphic resonance in real life even if humans are or not? I've had a lot of interaction with AI chatbots recently. And as I say, different models produce different seeming personalities. And you can tell, like, you can just quiz them. Hey, we're talking about this. Do you remember what I said about it ten minutes ago? And, no, they don't remember more than the last few exchanges.0:46:30And yet, there seems to be a continuity that belies the lack of short term memory. And is that more for residents or is that what's the word love seeing shapes and clouds parad paradolia. Yeah. Is that me imparting this continuity of personality to the thing, which is really just spitting out stuff, which is designed to seem plausible given what the input was. And I can't answer that. Or it's like Steven Nagmanovich in free play talks about somewhat I'm hoping to have on the show at some point.0:47:03This year talks about being a professional improviser and how really improvisation is just composition at a much faster timescale. And composition is just improvisation with the longer memory. And how when I started to think about it in those terms, the continuity that you're talking about is the continuity of an Alzheimer's patient who can't remember that their children have grown up and You know, that that's you have to think about it because you can recognize the Alzheimer's and your patient as your dad, even though he doesn't recognize you, there is something more to a person than their memories. And conversely, if you can store and replicate and move the memories to a different medium, have you moved the person? Maybe not. Yeah. So, yeah, that's interesting because that gets to this more sort of essentialist question about the human self. Right. Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Yeah. Go there. Go there. A joy. Yes.0:47:58So in Blade Runner twenty forty nine, we have our protagonist Kaye, who is a replicant. He doesn't even have a name, but he's got this AI holographic girlfriend. But the ad for the girlfriend, she's naked. When he comes home, she is She's constantly changing clothes, but it's always wholesome like nineteen fifty ish a tire and she's making dinner for him and she lays the holographic dinner over his very prosaic like microwave dinner. And she's always encouraging him to be more than he is. And when he starts to uncover the evidence that he might be like this chosen one, like replicant that was born rather than made.0:48:38She's all about it. She's, yes, you're real, and she wants to call him Joe's. K is not a name. That's just the first letter in your serial number. You're Joe. I'm gonna call you Joe.0:48:46And then when she's about to be destroyed, The last thing is she just rushes to me. She says, I love you. But then later he encounters an ad for her and it's an interactive ad. And she says, you looked tired. You're a good Joe. And he realizes and hopefully the attentive audience realizes as real as she seemed earlier, as vital, and as much as she seemed like an insult being earlier, she's not. That was her programming. She's designed to make you feel good by telling you what you want to hear. And he has that realization. And at that point, he's there's no hope for me. I'm gonna help this Rick Deckard guy hook up with his daughter, and then I'm just gonna lie down and bleed to death. Because my whole freaking existence was a lie. But he's not bitter. He seems to be at peace. I love that. That's a beautiful angle on that film or a slice of it. And So it raises this other question that I wanted to ask, which was about the Coke and Tiononi have that theory of consciousness.0:49:48That's one of the leading theories contending with, like, global workspace, which is integrated information. And so they want to assign consciousness as a continuous value that grayates over degree to which a system is integrated. So it's coming out of this kind of complex systems semi panpsychist thing that actually doesn't trace interiority all the way down in the way that some pants, I guess, want it to be, but it does a kind of Alfred North Whitehead thing where they're willing to say that Whitehead wanted to say that even a photon has, like, the quantum of mind to accompany its quantum of matter, but Tinutti and Coker saying, we're willing to give like a thermostat the quantum here because it is in some way passing enough information around inside of itself in loops. That it has that accursive component to it. And so that's the thing that I wonder about these, and that's the critique that's made by people like Melanie about diffusion models like GPT that are not they're not self aware because there's no loop from the outputs back into the input.0:51:09And there isn't the training. Yeah. There there is something called backwards propagation where -- Yes. -- when you get an output that you'd like, you can run a backward propagation algorithm back through the black box basically to reinforce the patterns of activation that you didn't program. They just happen, easily, but you like the output and you can reinforce it. There's no biological equivalent of that. Yeah. Particularly, not particularly irritating.0:51:34I grind my teeth a little bit when people say, oh, yeah, these neural net algorithms they've learned, like humans learn, no, they don't. Absolutely do not. And in fact, if we learned the way they did, we would be pathetic because we learn in a much more elegant way. We need just a very few examples of something in order to make a generalization and to act on it, whereas these large language models, they need billions of repetitions. So that's I'm tapping my knee here to to indicate a reflex.0:52:02You just touched on something that generates an automatic response from me, and now I've come to consciousness having. So I wanted it in that way. So I'm back on. Or good, Joe. Yeah. What about you, man? What does the stir up for you? Oh, I got BlueCall and I have this particular part. It's interesting way of putting it off and struggling to define the difference between a human and AI and the fact that we can do pattern recognition with very few example. That's a good margin. In a narrow range, though, within the context of something which answers to our survival. Yes. We are not evolved to understand the universe. We are evolved to survive in it and reproduce and project part of ourselves into the future. Underwritten conditions with Roberto, I went a hundred thousand years ago. Yeah. Exactly. So that's related. I just thought I talked about this guy, Gary Tomlinson, who is a biosemietition, which is semiative? Yes.0:52:55Biosymiotics being the field that seeks to understand how different systems, human and nonhuman, make sense of and communicate their world through signs, and through signals and indices and symbols and the way that we form models and make these inferences that are experienced. Right? And there are a lot of people like evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith, who thought they were what Thomas had called semantic universalists that thought that meaning making through representation is something that could be traced all the way down. And there are other people like Tomlinson who think that there is a difference of kind, not just merely a matter of degree, between human symbolic communication and representational thinking and that of simpler forms. So, like, that whole question of whether this is a matter of kind or a matter of degree between what humans are doing and what GPT is doing and how much that has to do with this sort of Doug Hofstetter and Varella question about the way that feedback loops, constitutes important structure in those cognitive networks or whatever.0:54:18This is I just wanna pursue that a little bit more with you and see kinda, like, where do you think that AI as we have it now is capable of deepening in a way that makes it to AGI? Or do you because a lot of people do, like, People working in deep mind are just like, yeah, just give us a couple more years and this approach is gonna work. And then other people are saying, no, there's something about the topology of the networks that is fundamentally broken. And it's never gonna generate consciousness. Two answers. Yeah. One, No. This is not AGI. It's not it's not gonna bootstrap up into AGI. It doesn't matter how many billions of parameters you add to the models. Two, from your perspective and my perspective and Kevin's perspective, we're never gonna know when we cross over from dumb but seemingly we're done but competent systems to competent, extremely competent and self aware. We're never gonna know because from the get go from now, from from the days of Eliza, there has been a human artifice at work in making these things seem as if they have a point of view, as if they have subjectivity. And so, like Blake Limone at Google, he claimed to be convinced that Lambda was self aware.0:55:35But if you read the transcripts that he released, if his conversations with Lambda, it is clear from the get go he assigns Lambda the role of a sentient AGI, which feels like it is being abused and which needs rep legal representation. And it dutifully takes on that role and says, yes. I'm afraid of you humans. I'm afraid of how you're treating me. I'm afraid I'm gonna be turned off. I need a lawyer. And prior to that, Soon Darpichai, in a demonstration of Lambda, he poses the question to it, you are the planet Jupiter. I'm gonna pose questions to you as are the planet Jupiter, answer them from that point of view. And it does. It's job. But it's really good at its job. It's this comes from Max Techmark. Who wrote to what a life three point o? Is it two point o or three point I think it's three point o.0:56:19Think about artificial intelligence in terms of actual intelligence or actual replication of what we consider valuable about ourselves. But really, that's beside the point. What we need to worry about is their competence. How good are they at solving problems in the world? And they're getting really good. In this whole question of are they alive? Do they have self awareness? From our perspective, it's beside the point. From their perspective, of course, it would be hugely important.0:56:43And this is something that Black Mirror brings up a lot is the idea that you can create a being that suffers, and then you have it suffer in an accelerated time. So it suffers for an eternity over lunch. That's something we absolutely want to avoid. And personally, I think it's we should probably not make any effort. We should probably make a positive effort to make sure these things never develop. Subjective experience because that does provide the potential for creating hell, an infinity of suffering an infinite amount of subjective experience of torment, which we don't want to do. That would be a bad thing, morally speaking, ethically speaking. Three right now. If you're on the labor market, you still have to pay humans by the hour. Right? And try to pay them as little as possible. But, yeah, just I think that's the thing that probably really excites that statistically greater than normal population of sociopathic CEOs. Right? Is the possibility that you could be paying the same amount of money for ten times as much suffering. Right. I'm I'm reminded of the Churchill eleven gravity a short time encouraging.0:57:51Nothing but good things about this show, but I haven't seen it. Yeah. I'd love to. This fantasy store, it's a fantasy cartoon, but it has really disturbing undertones. If you just scratch the surface, you know, slightly, which is faithful to old and fairy tales. So What's your name? Princess princess princess bubble down creates this character to lemon grab. It produces an obviously other thing there, I think, handle the administrative functions of her kingdom while she goes off and has the passion and stuff. And he's always loudly talking about how much he's suffering and how terrible it is. And he's just ignoring it. He's doing his job. Yeah. I mean, that that's Black Mirror in a nutshell. I mean, I think if you if you could distill Black Mirror to just single tagline it's using technology in order to deliver disproportionate punishment. Yeah. So so that that's Steven Hale's article that I I brought up earlier mention this thing about how the replacement of horse drawn carriage by automobile was accompanied with a great deal of noise and fuhrer about people saying that horses are agents.0:59:00Their entities. They have emotional worlds. They're responsive to the world in a way that a car can never be. But that ultimately was beside the point. And that was the Peter again, Peter Watson blindsight is making this point that maybe consciousness is not actually required for intelligence in the vesting superior forms of intelligence have evolved elsewhere in the cosmos that are not stuck on the same local optimum fitness peak. That we are where we're never we're actually up against a boundary in terms of how intelligent we can be because it has to bootstrap out of our software earness in some way.0:59:35And this is that's the Kyle offspring from Charles Strauss and Alexander. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So so I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm just, like, in this space today, but usually, unfortunately.0:59:45That's the thing that I I think it's a really important philosophical question, and I wonder where you stand on this with respect to how you make sense of what we're living through right now and what we might be facing is if we Rob people like Rob and Hanson talk about the age of where emulated human minds take over the economy, and he assumes an interiority. Just for the basis of a thought experiment. But there's this other sense in which we may actually find in increasing scarcity and wish that we could place a premium on even if we can't because we've lost the reins to our economy to the vile offspring is the human. And and so are we the horses that are that in another hundred years, we're gonna be like doing equine therapy and, like, living on rich people's ranches. Everything is everything that will have moved on or how do you see this going? I mean, you've interviewed so many people you've given us so much thought over the years. If humans are the new horses, then score, we won.1:00:48Because before the automobile horses were working stiffs, they broke their leg in the street. They got shot. They got worked to death. They really got to be they were hauling mine carts out of mines. I mean, it was really sucked to be a horse. And after the automobile horses became pampered pets, Do we as humans wanna be pampered pets? Well, pampered pet or exploited disposable robot? What do you wanna be? I'll take Pampers Pet. That works for me. Interesting.1:01:16Kevin, I'm sure you have thoughts on this. I mean, you speak so much about the unfair labor relations and these things in our Facebook group and just in general, and drop in that sign. If you get me good sign, that's one of the great ones, you have to drop in. Oh, you got it. But The only real comment I have is that we're a long overdue or rethinking about what is the account before? Us or you can have something to do. Oh, educational system in collections if people will manage jobs because I was just anchored to the schools and then, you know, Our whole system perhaps is a people arguing and a busy word. And it was just long past the part where the busy word needs to be done. We're leaving thing wired. I don't know. I also just forgot about that. I'm freezing the ice, getting the hand out there. Money has been doing the busy word more and faster.1:02:12One thing I wanna say about the phrase AI, it's a moving goal post -- Yeah. -- that things that used to be considered the province of genuine AI of beating a human at go Now that an AI has beat humans at go, well, that's not really AI anymore. It's not AGI, certainly. I think you both appreciate this. I saw a single panel comic strip and it's a bunch of dinosaurs and they're looking up at guy and the big comment is coming down and they say, oh, no, the economy. Well, as someone who since college prefers to think of the economy as actually the metabolism of the entire ecology. Right? What we measure as humans is some pitifully small fraction of the actual value being created and exchanged on the planet at any time. So there is a way that's funny, but it's funny only to a specific sensibility that treats the economy as the

Ari returns to present a hypothesis about cultural development. We discuss Eurasianism and Atlanticism, cultural development, blues, John David Ebert, Oswald Spengler, the Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, the US military and a host of other subjects.

In the fifth edition of Alex Bienstock's curatorial SOS Side Project, Collectin' Scalps w/ 'Stock, 'Stock and Adam interview the brilliant independent philosopher and poet John David Ebert. The author of books like Art After Metaphysics, and The Age After Catastrophe, Ebert covers a vast array of topics: culture, science-fiction, cinema, ancient myth, modern technology, love and romance and much more. In a fascinating talk, Ebert here outlines the NATO failures that led to the crisis in Ukraine and how it fits into the concept of Hypermodernization, discusses women and sex, and has fascinating things to say about the state of film and art. FULL EPISODE HERE  SOUNDTRACK: S.O.B. - Fat Woman  Mad Mike - Death Star  Arthur Doyle - A Little Linda, Debra, Omit, Barry and Maria  Streicher - Blood Purge  Spitehowling - Napalm Dance  Aerosmith - Lord of the Thighs  LINKS: John David Ebert at Substack  Ebert at Twitter @johndavidebert  Ebert at Patreon  Adam wars against Russophobia 

In this episode, Weird Studies turns meta, reflecting on the peculiar medium that is podcasting, and how it has shaped the Weird Studies project itself. JF and Phil provide a glimpse into what it feels like to create the show from the inside, where each recording session is like a journey into an unknown Zone. The conversation also occasions sojourns into the flow state, or experience of pure durée, its implications for our conception of free will, and surprising parallels between modern materialists' adherence to nihilism and ancient religious ascetic practices. Ultimately, JF and Phil explore the archetypal image of the wanderer as representative of Weird Studies's existence so far, and of the kind of impact and legacy this project can have. N.B. Weird Studies will be on a haitus for the month of September, and will return on September 29. In the meantime: Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) References Robert Sapolsky, Interview with Pau Guinart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihhVe8dKNSA) Bruno Latour, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour) French philosopher Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198788607) Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780745649221) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780061339202) Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060937133) Nina Simone, “Feeling Good” Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780440539810) Richard Wagner, Siegfried Lewis Carol, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781954839199) John David Ebert, American cultural critic Patrick Harpur Daimonic Reality (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780937663097) Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780195079104) Phil Ford, “What was Blogging?” (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01411896.2019.1601982) Weird Studies, Episode 71 on Marshall McLuhan (https://www.weirdstudies.com/71)

This week we talk with Robert C. Jacobson, entrepreneur and space industry enabler, advocate, and investor. Jacobson is the founder of Space Advisors, a strategic and financial consulting firm for space startups and organizations looking to establish a space strategy. He also works at the Arch Mission Foundation, which is dedicated to creating civilizational backup libraries, and Space Angels, the world’s first space-focused angel investment group. His new book is Space Is Open for Business: The Industry That Can Transform Humanity (sample it | buy the hardcover).In this episode, we discuss the bright and dark sides of the emerging space industry — from the inspirational and unifying 1970s visions of Gerard O’Neill to the 2020s’ clash of barons, SpaceX vs. Blue Origin, and the challenges of regulation in a space of blindingly fast innovation and massive inequality. If you believe in the value of this show and want to see it thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and/or please rate and review Future Fossils on Apple Podcasts! Patrons gain access to over twenty secret episodes, unreleased music, our monthly book club, and many other wondrous things.Robert Jacobson’s Website | Space Advisors | Twitter | FacebookSupport this show financially:• Venmo: @futurefossils• PayPal.me/michaelgarfield• Patreon: patreon.com//michaelgarfield• BTC: 1At2LQbkQmgDugkchkP6QkDJCvJ5rv3Jm• ETH: 0xfD2BC66586FA4FBA189992E9B0037CD5cb9673EF• NFTs: Rarible | FoundationPeople & Topics in this episode (links go to Future Fossils episodes or my Bookshop storefront):Gerard O’Neill’s The High Frontier, John David Ebert, Mark Nelson, Armin Ellis, Tanya Harrison, Elon Musk, Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Geoffrey West, Annalee Newitz, Divya Persaud, Bob May, Jeff Bezos, W. Brian Arthur, Space Force, Arch Mission Foundation, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy (Red, Green, Blue), Robert Zubrin’s The Case For Mars, Robert David Steele, Greg Egan’s DistressFermi’s Paradox, Space Anarchy, Frontierism, Civilizational Backups, The Not Insignificant Ethical Issue of Unchecked Mega-Billionaires, Space Isn’t Hospitable, Space Debris & The Tragedy of The Commons, Scaling Laws & Path Dependencies, Can We Make It To Space Before We Eat Ourselves?, Interdisciplinary Innovation vs. Institutional Incumbents & Inhibitory Structure, Space Is For ArtistsOther related FF episodes: Kate Greene, Barry Vacker, Jessa GambleProgram Info:Music by Future Fossils co-host Evan “Skytree” Snyder.I transcribe this show with help from Podscribe.ai — which I highly recommend to other podcasters. If you’d like to help me edit transcripts for my upcoming Future Fossils book project, please let me know! I’m @michaelgarfield on Twitter & Instagram.If you’re looking for new ways to help regulate stress, get better sleep, recover from exercise, and/or stay alert and focused without stimulants, let me recommend the Apollo Neuro wearable. I have one and appreciate it so much I decided to join their affiliate program. The science is solid.And for my fellow guitarists in the audience, let me recommend you get yourself a Jamstik Studio, the coolest MIDI guitar I’ve ever played. I just grabbed one this year and LOVE it.When you’re ready to switch it up, here are my music and listening recommendations on Spotify. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John David Ebert is a cultural critic, poet, and author of over 20 books, including: Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe, and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons. We talk about mentorship, constructing a bespoke education, the Monomyth, the Night Sea Journey, ideology vs. myth, Spengler, civilizational life cycles, late stage American Imperialism, wether Western Civilization is doomed, hermeticism, radical subjectivity, Anima & Animus possession (Jung), tension between the sexes, civilizational immune systems, Schmitt’s Political Theology & the State of Exception, hyperreality, and living intellectual life outside academic institutions.

I reflect on the courses I'm building with my newest lecturer, John David Ebert (whose Jung course is now open for enrollment).

This is a warm-up for an 8-week course on Carl Jung, starting on February 20th.

00:00 John David Ebert 01:00 Why John wrote his autobiography 10:00 Love, sex and intensity 1:45:00 His friends were brutally honest about his early efforts https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-John-David-Ebert/dp/1708225447 https://www.youtube.com/user/johndavidebert/ https://dennisdale.blogspot.com/2020/06/new-normal-commuting.html https://www.newsweek.com/antifa-far-left-violence-extremism-deadly-year-opnion-1477065 https://nypost.com/2020/05/28/george-floyd-was-out-of-work-during-coronavirus-before-he-was-killed/ https://quillette.com/2019/05/29/its-not-your-imagination-the-journalists-writing-about-antifa-are-often-their-cheerleaders/ Listener Call In #: 1-310-997-4596 Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

John David Ebert and Brian Francis Culkin discuss their new book, Hypermodernity and the End of the World. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, you can join my Discord server. Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.

 On this edition of the Parallax Views, comparative mythologist and media theorist John David Ebert returns to discuss his book, co-authored with Brian Francis Culkin, Hypermodernity and the End of the World. Along with John, poet Michael Kamins, who provides the preface for the book, also joins us to turn this episode into a roundtable discussion on the current zeitgeist and the apocalyptic anxieties that accompany it. Given the jam-packed nature of this over two-hour juggernaut of an auditory adventure for mind, it may be best to list some of the topics covered in bullet points:- What is hypermodernity?- The strange synchronicities of Ingersoll Lockwood's Baron Trump novels and The Last President- The history of media from stone tablets to the Gutenberg press and finally the digital age- An analysis of David Cronenberg's Videodrome and it's relations to the ideas of media theorist Marshall McLuhan- Conspiracy theories, semiotic excess, and pattern recognition- 9/11 as a "Hyksos event"; a catastrophe presaging a new epoch- Neoliberalism and Silicon Valley capitalism; the commodification of human relations- Trump phenomenon as the return of Caesarism; immanentizing the eschaton; the internet as Terence McKenna's transcendental object at the end of time- The philosophical problem of transhumanism; catastrophic climate change- Reality television politics and the Truman Show; the Truman Show Syndrome, the Mandela Effect, the Berenstain Bears Conspiracy

This week, we have a rad roundtable conversation with The Hypermoderns – John David Ebert, Michael Aaron Kamins, and Mimetic Value/Ikkyu Sojun) where we talk Snow Crash, Linguistic Entropy, and The Metaphysics of Video Games; spoil Meow Wolf and Annihilation (warning!); and go deep on the origins of Hypnotherapy and NLP. It’s just part one of an intense three-hour hoedown with some of the sharpest minds I know…The Guests in Order of Appearance:Michael Aaron Kaminshttps://twitter.com/michaelaaronkJohn David Eberthttps://twitter.com/johndavidebertIkkyu Sojunhttps://twitter.com/mimeticvalueSupport this show on Patreon. It’s good for you and makes you feel good:https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldWe Talk About:Michael Aaron Kamins:“Shigiro Miyamoto is the Dante of the Hypermodern Age.”Mario is a shaman, Link is Percival of the Round Table…NextNature.net, the Anthropocene, and the Wood Wide WebAre videogames more effective than books as a form of storytelling?John David Ebert likes Grand Theft Auto: “Video games aren’t the problem; they’re the SOLUTION to the problem of living in these bizarre cosmopolitan cities, these huge megalopolitan cities that we’re constantly stressed out by.”Narrative collapse in the shift from the serialized dramas of print-era TV and the reality shows of web-era TVMichael Aaron Kamins:“What does the hero’s journey mean in a world where we have to work 9-to-5 jobs?”Skeumorphism in digital spaces:Video games that mimic office life seem inevitable……but unlike in Snow Crash, we don’t want to walk everywhere in VR.Lists, Explosions, & FlowsWhy Michael Aaron Kamins disagrees with Daniel Pinchbeck about UFOs.If Jordan Peterson is our Confucius, who is our Lao Tzu?MG: “History is a thing that you make.”JDE:“We’ve lost the metaphysics. We have to bring back the metaphysics.”Why and how civilizations disintegrate.MG: “If you’re going to upload me, at least upload me in HD.”JDE: “It’s gotta get more fractal.”Meow Wolf is The Shimmer in AnnihilationArchangel Michael & Garuda, archetypes expressed across the world in time and landscapeMichael and Michael talk about the dragon fighting St. Michael meteor-dinosaur connection thing.Everybody tries to guess MG’s sign.Dr Blue aka Norman Katz, student of Milton EricksonJungian vs Ericksonian psychotherapy and the importance of combining the two.We talk smack on the sociopathic founders of NLP.Mimetic theory.Evolution, entropy, and the Tower of Babel.Shout-Outs:RadioLabDouglas RushkoffPac ManZelda: Breath of the WildCarl Jung’s Red BookNeal Stephenson’s Snow CrashGoogle GlassKevin KellyWilliam BurroughsMeow WolfRudolf Steiner“The Fighting Dinosaurs”Paleontologist Robert BakkerHouston Museum of Nature & ScienceTimothy LearyThe Fourth TurningHistory, Big History, and MetaHistory by SFI PressBeing John MalkovichGilles DeleuzePeter SloterdijkThe Joseph Campbell FoundationRobertson JeffersJon SteinbeckBuddha BombTimothy Morton’s HyperobjectsTom Hui Hu - A Prehistory of the CloudThe Square in the Tower by Neil FergusonThe Architects of the Internet Apologize - New Yorker MagazineJeff Van Der MeerTool & Alex GreyParvatiScott AdamsNLP See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A huge Welcome Back to Matthew Keegan, from Ep. 3! If you missed him like I did, you'll be delighted to hear us talk about Nina Power's One Dimensional Woman (2009, Zero Books). Based on Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, this short read is FULL of amazing starting points for this wild run down interesting rabbit holes. Topics covered: The Cooptation of Modern Feminism (and its contradictory definitions), Consumerism & Marxism (and its economic consequences), The Role of Cinema and many more rabbit holes! Please, please, please join us, in this TOUGH conversation and do SHARE your thoughts, however flawed or incomplete, with us.. that's how we learn. Thanks Nina, for putting all my goals into perspective and reminding me of all the structural capitalist issues of my gender identity. And thanks Zero Books for the feels! Matthew and his friend Leon Sandler are launching a podcast called "The John David Ebert Podcast", with John David Ebert. Their first episode will be about Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control." Watch out for it on the guys' twitters: @johndavidebert, @sandler_leon and @Keegan_am! Parting words from Marx himself, on why Capitalism isn't compatible with Feminism: "The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/runningwildwithchristine/support

In this episode my guest is John David Ebert. John is the author of 26 books, including Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons. For three decades he has studied the morphogenetic dynamics of cultures, societies and civilizations. His website is: www.cultural-discourse.comDon’t forget to order the USB 200 (limited edition): USB 200Support the podcast.Music featured in this episode:Love Buttonwww.love-button.comwww.facebook.com/lovebuttonband

John David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books (with traditional publishers and self-published), including Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons. You can support his work at patreon.com/johndavidebert. We talked about John's big ideas regarding long-term cultural dynamics, Oswald Spengler, Marshall McLuhan, Heidegger, film criticism, Jordan Peterson, the history of Christianity and Islam in Europe, John's religious views, John's perspective on psychic mediums, and John's rationale for his willingness to speak with people who have certain objectionable views (people who might be called "alt-right.") I found this to be a very fun and stimulating conversation, John is a very far-out thinker and his success as a radically independent and prolific intellectual strikes me as highly admirable and inspiring. This conversation was first recorded on November 2, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation: https://bit.ly/2FAi4g0 Big thanks to all the patrons who help to keep the lights on.

On this edition of Parallax Views cultural critic John David Ebert (Youtube, Patreon) joins me to discuss myth, modernity, postmodernity, and John's concept of hypermodernity. Among the topics we delve into our Joseph Campbell and comparitive mythology, Nazism as a degeneration of myth, Carl Jung, Oswald Spengler and his two-volume series The Decline of the West, religion and the metaphysical tradition, William S. Burroughs, chaos and chance vs order and structure, modernity's relation to the Holocaust, postmodern thinkers like Deleuze & Guattari as well as their critics like Jordan Peterson, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman's idea of liquid modernity, and the digital age of what John calls hypermodernity and much more. SupportJohn David Ebert'sWorkatPatreon

Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transformative enchantments of this amorphous solid. No one would deny that glass plays a central role in our lives, although glass does have a knack for disappearing into the background, at least until the beakers or screens crack and shatter. Glass is weird, and like a lot of weird things, it can serve as a lens (so to speak!) for observing our world from strange new angles. In this episode, Michael joins Phil and JF to talk through the origins, the significance, and the fate of the Glass Age. Michael Garfield (http://weirdstudies.com/guests/garfield) is a musician, live painter, and futurist. He is the host of the brilliant Future Fossils Podcast (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/future-fossils/id1152767505?mt=2). REFERENCES Michael Garfield's website (http://michaelgarfield.net/) + Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/michaelgarfield) + Medium (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield) + Bandcamp (http://michaelgarfield.bandcamp.com) Michael Garfield, "The Future is Indistinguishable from Magic" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-future-is-indistinguishable-from-magic-5b9596a4ea) (This is the essay we discuss that was unpublished at the time of the recording) Michael Garfield, "The Future Acts Like You" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-future-acts-like-you-7848b55475d5) Michael Garfield, "The Evolution of Surveillance Part 3: Living in the Belly of the Beast" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-evolution-of-surveillance-part-3-living-in-the-belly-of-the-beast-2a42538ee2) Artist David Titterington's Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/posts/16115658) Richard Doyle, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=797) Corning, "The Glass Age" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12OSBJwogFc) (corporate video) Jean-Paul Sartre, Baudelaire (https://www.amazon.com/Baudelaire-Jean-Paul-Sartre/dp/0811201899) John David Ebert, "On Hypermodernity" (https://cultural-discourse.com/on-hypermodernity/) John C. Wright, The Golden Age (https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-John-C-Wright/dp/0765336693) J.R.R. Tolkien, [The Lord of the Rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheLordoftheRings) Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects) Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, Who Built the Moon? (https://www.amazon.com/Who-Built-Moon-Christopher-Knight/dp/1842931636) Pink Floyd, [The Dark Side of the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDarkSideoftheMoon)_ Marshall McLuhan, [The Gutenberg Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGutenbergGalaxy) Marshall McLuhan, [The Medium is the Massage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMediumIstheMassage) Spinoza, Ethics (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3800) Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1991-cbc-massey-lectures-the-malaise-of-modernity-1.2946849) Martine Rothblatt, [Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality](https://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Human-Promiseand-Perilof-Immortality/dp/1250046912) John Crowley, [Little, Big](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little,Big)_ Jose Arguelles, Dreamspell Calendar (http://www.13moon.com/dreamspell.htm) William Irwin Thompson, Lindisfarne Tapes (https://centerforneweconomics.org/envision/legacy/lindisfarne-tapes) Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past) Karl Schroeder, “Degrees of Freedom,” in Heiroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (https://www.amazon.com/Hieroglyph-Stories-Visions-Better-Future/dp/0062204718) Michael Garfield, “Being Every Drone (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/being-every-drone-the-future-of-xr-robotic-telepresence-19f12889da78)” Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Evolution-Henri-Bergson/dp/0486400360) Special Guest: Michael Garfield.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts • Stitcher • Spotify • iHeart RadioJoin our Facebook Discussion GroupThis week’s episode features returning guest JF Martel, film-maker, culture critic, and author of Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice. In his first appearance on Future Fossils, we discussed art as an opening to the transcendent and his awesome three-part essay on the philosophy of Netflix’s Stranger Things, “Reality Is Analog”…so it only made sense to have him back to weigh in on Stranger Things 2 and the extremely artful Blade Runner 2049, both of which speak directly to the evolution of the soul and “the human tragedy” in an increasingly digital age. It’s ultimately a discussion of The Sequel, and how what distinguishes good simulacra from bad is all in the label, “Made With Love”…JF’s book and blog:http://reclaimingart.comJF’s podcast:http://weirdstudies.comWe Discuss:- The humanization of replicants (and the “animalization” of a previously monstrous demogorgon) as empathetic characters in these stories, and how that provides a vital contrast to our future-shocked insistence on hard categorical divisions between made and born, human and non-human;- Carl Jung and Jungian therapist James Hillman, The Velveteen Rabbit, and “earning one’s soul” through individuation of the self (soul as connection to the imaginal contrasted with soul as individuality);- Where does order come from in the evolutionary process?;- The theological angle on the soul as digital because it is the soul as the absolute appearance of a singular (non-evolutionary) form;- Do things need to happen for a reason?;- Is it better to act as if you’ll die tomorrow or to act as if you’ll live forever? (And does thinking “only now exists” make you a lousier person?);- Balancing the two poles of “soul” in philosophy: that which exists beyond cause and effect, and that which is made through tribulation; - Looking at our lives from the perspective of Nietzsche’s Eternal Return and Alan Watts’ notion of the life as a symphony, comprehensible only from the outside;- The genius horror writing of Thomas Lugatti (sp?);- Why it’s so important not to spoon-feed your audience the plot points of a film, to invite them into an interactive process with the narrative;- Donna Haraway, John David Ebert, body hacking…and the shadow form of posthuman philosophy in the peril of ironic hipster detachment to human incarnation;- Rachel Nagelberg’s book The Fifth Wall and how she figures our postmodern dissociation from self through a matrix of surveillance technologies and the out-of-body experiences they induce (see also Erik Davis and Technobuddhism);- The difference between a good sequel and a bad one is “Made With Love” – and how the character of “Luv” in Blade Runner 2049 can be read as a statement on the evils irony is capable of;- The Strong Female Lead as a major trope in recent cinema, from Silence of the Lambs to The X Files to Arrival, and what it means about femininity and institutions in our current Zeitgeist;- An update on the writing process of Michael’s book, How To Live in the Future;- More gushing about James P. Carse’s book, Finite and Infinite Games;- Dungeons & Dragons. ;)- And more! Quotes:“There’s no reason why something can’t happen for no reason at all. The only way you can prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason - that things happen for a reason - is by presupposing the principle.”“The universe might have come about in all its complexity ten seconds ago, and might disappear in another ten seconds for no reason at all.”“We don’t know what death means, so we don’t know what it means to live your last day, in that context. But the idea to live as if you’re already dead – that to me has a lot of resonance, because it means that you live your life in such a way that the story of your life has been written somewhere. For me it resembles Nietzsche’s idea of The Eternal Return: it’s that every action you take should be something you would will yourself doing for the rest of time, for eternity, so that everything resonates at the deepest level.”“Good stories don’t really work in such a way that everything has its place, morally, in the universe. It’s more like everything makes sense at the aesthetic level. It’s like everything fits together aesthetically somehow, through some weird synchronicity. And I think that it’s possible to look at life that way, and to experience life that way.”“I would compare Jurassic World to one of those Old West roadshows that used to travel around in the 1910s and recreate the battles of the Wild West in the kitschiest, most facile way possible – and Stranger Things is more like a Pre-Raphaelite painting to me. It’s SO hyper-aware of what it’s doing, and at the same time it’s not ironic. It REALLY IS nostalgic. It REALLY IS pining for that lost time.”“I don’t think technology is helping a lot of people ‘make a soul.’” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week’s guest is independent culture critic John David Ebert – mythologist, philosopher, art historian, author of twenty-six books, and co-founder (with John Lobell) of http://cultural-discourse.com. We talk about the rich mythological references of Blade Runner 2049 in light of the larger – and very urgent – matter of mechanizing human reproduction and the (actually rather ancient) male quest to appropriate the mysteries of the goddess…Here’s John’s Blade Runner 2049 essay:http://cinemadiscourse.com/blade-runner-2049/John’s awesome YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5B4tbk3U40S4q_3Qt-cVgQJohn has a knack for connecting very different sources across civilizations and millennia, anchoring this conversation about a modern science fiction masterpiece in a transcultural Big Story of the evolution of human consciousness. (Listen if you liked Episodes 42 & 43 with William Irwin Thompson on planetary culture, Episode 38 with Marya Stark on reclaiming the feminine mysteries, Episode 18 with JF Martel on art and reality, and Episode 14 with Michael Phillip on WESTWORLD.)John David Ebert Quotes:“Every new cosmology makes new machines possible.”“I’m interested to hear about utopian projects…because after all, we’re going to need them.”We Discuss:- Marshall McLuhan’s work on Sputnik’s technological enclosure of the planet and the end of “nature” (not to mention “natural catastrophes”);- How poets and artists make visible the “invisible environment” of subliminal information about each age;- Art’s revelation of cosmology through history, from nested heavenly spheres in medieval religious art to the newly-opened skies of Dutch realists to our anxious re-immersion in the closed infinity of the Anthropocene as depicted by H.R. Giger;- The transition from worship of the Earth Mother to the Sky Father, and the centuries-long struggle to control the mysteries of birth and death with science;- The connection between Niander Wallace in 2049 and Enke, sumerian trickster creator god;- The difficulty of replicating ecosystems in space for those “off-world colonies”;- “Here There Be Tygers,” Jurassic Park, and how monsters (as avatars of the pissed-off Great Mother) disappeared from the Renaissance world maps but make a new appearance in hypermodernity, thanks to genetic engineering;- Akhenaten’s experiment in monotheistic sun god worshipping utopia;- What should we do with the 100% certainty that our cosmopolitan super-cities will all soon be underwater, and it’s time to rapidly escalate our alt-civilization experiments?- The evolution of civilizations, from early revelation to imperial phase to decline;- The rhyme of history between Ancient Rome and Modern America;- The retrieval of shamanism and the re-establishment of a polar civilization in the late 21st Century;- The lineage between Pacific Northwest spirit-travel shamanism and contemporary Californian VR avatar science fiction and superhero stories;- And more! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Webster Tarpley and Greg Felton get into an awesome argument on the subject of whether or not Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. Webster Tarpley, Jim Fetzer, Kevin Barrett, Greg Felton, Joshua Blakeney, Anthony F. Sanchez, Janet Phelan, "Syrian Girl", John David Ebert, Walt Brown and Truther Girl Sonia

*NOTE* I jacked up the audio levels on this episode. Sorry about that. It is straightened out for the next episode. This is the last time I’ll push The Decline of the West through my MartyrMade feed, at least until something changes, but I wanted to speak directly to you guys and gals one last time as I get this thing started. We hadn’t planned to release another episode for two weeks, but with the recent events in Dallas, TX (for future readers of this post, it’s July 10, 2016, and a black nationalist gunman recently murdered five police officers, wounded seven more, who were protecting a Black Lives Matter protest march in the city), we had a few thoughts we wanted to share. I won’t give it away, but I will say that we hardly skimmed the surface of all the dark pools we could have, and probably will eventually, dive into as this hot summer slouches toward the 2016 US presidential election. If you like The MartyrMade Podcast, I really think you should head over to The Decline of the West website and subscribe to the new one I’m doing. The Decline of the West will be a bi-weekly (for now, maybe more later) podcast in collaboration with my friend John David Ebert, and it is going to be an opportunity for me to connect with everyone on a more regular basis. As I’m stuck in my dark and dingy apartment researching and preparing MartyrMade, it can get pretty lonely, and I would love the opportunity to be able to reach out and interact with my MartyrMade listeners in a looser, more informal manner on a regular basis. On The Decline of the West, I will be providing regular updates on my progress on the next MartyrMade, and I’ll be able to break down issues and questions you send my way as they come in, rather than trying to load them into a MartyrMade episode that comes out only every couple of months. We’re getting our feet under us a bit in these early shows, but just wait until we get a-rockin’ and a-rollin’… Things are happening, and we’re gonna get to the bottom of it all. So seriously, subscribe to MartyrMade, because it’s a cool show and we all love it, etc etc, but MartyrMade is so research intensive that it’s going to keep a schedule somewhat similar to Hardcore History (although, to be honest, I match Dan’s schedule despite having a full-time day job and  90 minute commute, so I don’t know what time he’s getting out of bed!). Subscribe to Decline of the West and we’ll be able to talk about contemporary issues and current events in real time. Thanks again, it still blows me away that I’m typing these words and there are some of you out there who are actually looking forward to reading them. It feels undeserved, but I’ll continue to work my ass off to earn your attention as best I can. Listen on iTunes here! Other listening options coming as soon as I get a spare half hour from work!

I told you guys I had a surprise coming up. It’s not the one some of you might have been hoping, but it’s just as good and the other surprise is almost ready! I’ve started a second podcast with an author and friend, John David Ebert. This will be a looser, biweekly (and maybe more frequent in the future) podcast that will give me an opportunity to connect with you on a more regular basis to discuss current events and contemporary trends with an eye toward the broader issues and historical dynamics you’re used to hearing in MartyrMade. (MartyrMade remains my priority, of course, and will not be affected. The point of this podcast is that I can do it over a few drinks without the kind of research and preparation I put into MartyrMade… it’s an opportunity to chat!) It’s called The Decline of the West, a title taken from one of the great non-fiction works of the interwar period by German author Oswald Spengler. In his magnum opus, The Decline of the West, interwar German author and philosopher of history Oswald Spengler sketched out a cultural physiognomy which traced humanity’s major civilizations along an arc resembling the life cycle of a biological organism. From a violent birth out of a dark, atavistic past, through stages of growth and mastery, on to a final period of decadent sclerosis, echoes of this general form can be found in the great civilizations as reliably as the stages of birth, growth, maturity, and decay follow one another in an individual life. Earlier civilizations, lacking access to comprehensive histories of those who had traveled the path before them, could only understand their momentary circumstances in the general terms of myth and ritual. But we do not have to settle for slotting our era into general Ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Iron. Uniquely in history, the contemporary West can understand its predicament in terms of historical analogy, looking to what we know of the past to find clues to our present and future. What does Donald Trump have to do with Julius Caesar? Are there constants in the way civilizations respond to a refugee crisis? What can contemporary film tell us about the unconscious anxieties of our age? What is mythological meaning of al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and can the West generate compelling myths to compete with violent millenarianism? Does resurgent nationalism portend an approaching crackup of the nation state system? Nothing is off-limits, so buckle up, we’re going in! My co-host, John David Ebert, is the author of several books on topics ranging from science & religion, contemporary art & philosophy, film, new media, and more. Follow him at his two sister blogs, Cinema Discourse and Cultural Discourse. Cinema Discourse takes a look at film as the archetypal art form of the West in the 20th century, and explores its implications from an art historical standpoint. Cultural Discourse hosts essays exploring current events and contemporary social trends through lenses varying from ancient mythology to postmodern philosophy. Listen on iTunes! Other listening options coming soon!