science fiction
TagDid a Story about a Computer Made of Humans Scoop Searle’s “Chinese Room” by 20 Years?
A story called “The Game” by Anatoly Petrovich Mickevich (writing under the pseudonym A. Dneprov), published in 1961, tells the story of a fictional event in which people who don’t individually understand Portuguese are successfully arranged into a “computer” that translates a sentence from Portuguese. (more…)
Sci-Phi Faves (Updated)
Eric Schwitzgebel thinks that science fiction and speculative fiction more broadly is “a powerful philosophical tool.” He has been soliciting suggestions of philosophical science fiction from other philosophers this week at The Splintered Mind and you can view the results here and here.
Sort of related (to this and the big story of late).
UPDATE (10/6/14): Mor..
One of These Is Actually Happening
– Not happening. Yet.
Transcendence is the recently released sci-fi movie the plot of which involves uploading the mind of a scientist (played by Johnny Depp) to a computer system. You can watch the trailer here, and then you can head over to OUP Blog and watch a few brief videos of Nick Bostrom (Oxford) discussing the movie and the plausibility of uploading, whole ..