Ed Venables
Bio
Aspiring neurophilosopher. Currently doing EEG research at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science.
Stories (2/0)
Mental Time Travel: Is the Plot of Arrival Coherent?
Time travel is a bit of a trope in sci fi. The device has been used in literature since ancient times, with Hindu mythology portraying people going far into the future. This kind of travel isn’t logically impossible – in fact, with Einstein’s discovery of relativity, we must accept this discrepancy between personal and external time as a necessary feature of reality. The faster an object travels, the slower its time moves: ISS astronauts returning from missions have aged slightly less than had they remained on earth (due to different accelerations).
By Ed Venables7 years ago in Futurism
Reviewing Charlie Brooker’s ‘Black Mirror’, Season 3
When Black Mirror first hit television screens in 2011, it was a quintessentially British creation. Episode 1, The National Anthem, shows an upstanding prime minister blackmailed into live sexual intercourse with a pig. The public responds with cynicism and ironic detachment, mocking the man on twitter, as the media scrambles for a scoop. The episodes that followed continued the condemnation of British culture – Brooker had given us a black mirror, reflecting us at our very worst. In Fifteen Million Merits he showed us powering the workings of an authoritarian regime, bombarded by advertising with an X-factor style talent show our only means of salvation. In White Bear, the justice system has been replaced by a sickening spectacle of psychological torture, with amnesiac criminals forced to relive their crimes, as children watch on. In The Waldo Moment, he shows a disaffected public voting a foul-mouthed CGI bear into office, rather than careerist politicians. The result is a degeneration into violence and fascism.
By Ed Venables7 years ago in Futurism