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O Brave New Words [sic]...

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All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. William Shakespeare; As You Like It " When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. " The Wachowski Siblings; The Matrix The Matrix may have been released 27 years ago, but it stands today as probably the most iconic "World-as-Simulation" narratives in popular culture. Its story - about a lowly computer hacker who comes to realise that his entire Reality is nothing but a vast computer simulation - has become a genre trope unto itself, begetting countless other films; television episodes and fringe conspiracy theories. The Matrix may not have invented the concept, but it doubtless introduced it into the general cultural vocabulary for the next two decades. The problem is that the plot of The Matrix really doesn'...
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Life's But a Walking Shadow

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Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing. Have you ever been tempted to wield total, absolute power over everyone ? Come on, be honest... have you? Maybe just a little bit? Forget for a moment about all the paperwork that might entail or the money it would cost; right now I'm just talking about the power . All those annoying people out there who are so chaotic and disruptive: all thinking their own thoughts and disagreeing with each other; all those radicals and extremists who worship the wrong gods or vote for the wrong politicians or go to the wrong movies... wouldn't life be so much easier if you could make their decisions for them? If you could decide what they should think; who they should love; how they should live... wouldn't that make the world so much better...? Okay, okay, I'm being silly. Obviously no one would ever be so arrogant as to think that they alone should get to dictate the worldviews and mindsets of every other person in existence. What kind of s...
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Consciousness Itself: Part Two

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" We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. " Andrew Niccol; The Truman Show " Oh dear. I think you'll find Reality's on the blink again. " Douglas Adams; The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Escaping from Escapism Philip K. Dick (a writer whose relationship with Reality was often, shall we say, pliable ) wrote, among other masterworks,  The Man in the High Castle ; a landmark "alternate history" novel in which Germany and Japan had won World War II. Most of the action of the narrative takes place in the Japanese-controlled Western sector of the former United States, and follows a diverse assortment of characters whose lives and fortunes interconnect in various ways. One of those characters is an older Japanese businessman, Nobusuke Tagomi. After a particularly disturbing and traumatic experience, Tagomi desperately tries to find some inner peace, and is inexplicably transported (for a few enigmatic minutes) to our wor...
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