philosophy – Page 11

New Releases: Six NEW Philip K. Dick Audiobooks

New Releases

Brilliance Audio has released five new Philip K. Dick audiobooks, none ever audiobooked before, all novels, all available now!

The Divine Invasion
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Dick Hill
8 CDs – Approx. 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: October 18, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814497
God is not dead: he has merely been exiled to an extraterrestrial planet. And it is on this planet that God meets Herb Asher and persuades him to help retake Earth from the demonic Belial. Featuring virtual reality, parallel worlds, and interstellar travel, The Divine Invasion blends philosophy and adventure in a way few authors can achieve. As the middle novel of Dick’s VALIS trilogy, The Divine Invasion plays a pivotal role in answering the questions raised by the first novel, expanding that world while exploring just how much anyone can really know — even God himself.

Lies, Inc.
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Luke Daniels
6 CDs – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: October 18, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814381
When catastrophic overpopulation threatens Earth, one company offers to teleport citizens to Whale’s Mouth, an allegedly pristine new home for happy and industrious émigrés. But there is one problem: the teleportation machine works in only one direction. When Rachmael ben Applebaum discovers that some of the footage of happy settlers may have been faked, he sets out on an eighteen-year journey to see if anyone wants to come back. Lies, Inc. is one of Philip K. Dick’s final novels, which he expanded from his novella The Unteleported Man shortly before his death. In its examination of totalitarianism, reality, and hallucination, it encompasses everything that Dick’s fans love about his oeuvre.

Now Wait For Last Year
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Luke Daniels
7 CDs – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: October 18, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814428
Earth is trapped in the crossfire of an unwinnable war between two alien civilizations. Its leader is perpetually on the verge of death. And on top of that, a new drug has just entered circulation — a drug that haphazardly sends its users traveling through time. In an attempt to escape his doomed marriage, Dr. Eric Sweetscent becomes caught up in all of it. But he has questions: Is Earth on the right side of the war? Is he supposed to heal Earth’s leader or keep him sick? And can he change the harrowing future that the drug has shown him?

The Simulacra
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Dick Hill
7 CDs – Approx. 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: October 18, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814541
On a ravaged Earth, fate and circumstances bring together a disparate group of characters, including a fascist with dreams of a coup, a composer who plays his instrument with his mind, a First Lady who calls all the shots, and the world’s last practicing therapist. And they all must contend with an underclass that is beginning to ask a few too many questions, aided by a man called Loony Luke and his very persuasive pet alien. In classic Philip K. Dick fashion, The Simulacra combines time travel, psychotherapy, telekinesis, androids, and Neanderthal-like mutants to create a rousing, mind-bending story where there are conspiracies within conspiracies and nothing is ever what it seems.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Joyce Bean
7 CDs – Approx. 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: October 18, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814558
The final book in Philip K. Dick’s VALIS trilogy, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer brings the author’s search for the identity and nature of God to a close. The novel follows Bishop Timothy Archer as he travels to Israel, ostensibly to examine ancient scrolls bearing the words of Christ. But more importantly, this leads him to examine the decisions he made during his life and how they may have contributed to the suicides of his mistress and son. This introspective book is one of Dick’s most philosophical and literary, delving into the mysteries of religion and of faith itself. As one of Dick’s final works, it also provides unique insight into the mind of a genius, whose work was still in the process of maturing at the time of his death.

Each of the above is currently available through Audible.com too.They’ve also got Dick’s non-fiction/memoir that’s been called “The Exegesis.” This comes as a kind of a surprise, even though we knew the paperbook was coming, this thing is massive, even edited, and may make for some very strange road trips. Here it is:

The Exegesis Of Philip K. Dick
Edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem; Read by Fred Stella
36 CDs – 44 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: November 7, 2011
ISBN: 9781455814626
Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this is the definitive presentation of Dick’s brilliant, and epic, work. In the Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called “2-3-74,” a postmodern visionary experience of the entire universe “transformed into information.” In entries that sometimes ran to hundreds of pages, in a freewheeling voice that ranges through personal confession, esoteric scholarship, dream accounts, and fictional fugues, Dick tried to write his way into the heart of a cosmic mystery that tested his powers of imagination and invention to the limit. This volume, the culmination of many years of transcription and archival research, has been annotated by the editors and by a unique group of writers and scholars chosen to offer a range of views into one of the most improbable and mind-altering manuscripts ever brought to light.

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: The Philosopher’s Arms

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Philosopher’s Arms is a new BBC Radio 4 program that moves the Café Philosophique movement into the English pub. All four episodes have been uploaded to RadioArchive.cc |HERE|!

I particularity like episode two in which one gentlemen says “it’s self evident” to a question that was not in the least self evident to me. Episode four is perhaps the most disturbing, it is an attempt to examine the feeble and disgusting groping that we feel for reasons we cannot explain, disgust (moral and physical). In another episode a participant suggested that having quick answers to these sorts of questions is likely because the answerer hadn’t thought very much about them. That sounded right to me, but I think I’ll have to think about it a bit more before I make any conclusions. To join in the fun go grab it.

The Philosophers Arms

The Philosopher’s Arms
Hosted by Matthew Sweet
4 Episodes – Approx. 28 Minutes (per episode) [DISCUSSION]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Sept 6 – 27, 2011

Welcome to the Philosopher’s Arms – a very special pub where moral dilemmas, philosophical ideas and the real world meet for a chat and a drink. Each week Matthew Sweet takes a dilemma with real philosophical pedigree and sees how it matters in the everyday world.

Each week in the Philosphers Arms Matthew is joined by a cast of philosophers and attendant experts to show how the dilemmas we face in real life connect us to some of the trickiest philosophical problems ever thought up. En route we’ll learn about the thinking of such luminaries as Kant, Hume, Aristotle and Wittgenstein. All recorded in a pub in front of a live audience ready to tap their glasses and demand clarity and ask – what’s this all got to do with me?

So questions such as should the government put prozac in the water supply? And my daughter is a robot, how should I treat her? Lead us into dilemmas, problems and issues from the treatment of mental illness to the structure of financial markets, from animal rights to homosexuality. And they will challenge a few of the assumptions and intuitions about life that we carry round with us.

Episode 1 – The Experience Machine (September 6, 2011)
This week he’s been offered an Experience Machine. It’s a device that guarantees the sensation of a happy and fulfilled life. But it’s not real. Should Matthew plug in? David Willets, Jo Wolf and David Geaney join him for a drink to explain the big thinkers behind this idea and debate the nature of happiness, drugs, reality and the role of government.

Episode 2 – A Robot Daughter (September 13, 2011)
This week Matthew discovers that his adopted daughter is a robot. Should he treat her any differently from before? She’s indistinguishable from a human so should she have the same status as a human? Philosopher Barry Smith, Autism mentor Robyn Steward; Artificial Intelligence creator Murray Shanahan and all join Matthew for a drink and a bit of advice.

Episode 3 – The Ultimatum Game (September 20, 2011)
Where do we get our sense of justice and fairness from? Is it hardwired in us? Are we nakedly self-interested creatures, or are we, at least partially, altruistic? These are questions philosophers – from Plato to Hobbes, from Rousseau to David Hume – have pondered for hundreds of years. And a famous game invented by economists- called The Ultimatum Game – may help provide some of the answers. All this is up for discussion and debate this week in The Philosopher’s Arms.

Episode 4 – Moral Disgust (September 27, 2011)
And is there anything morally wrong with having sex with a supermarket chicken?

Guests in the series include:
David Willets, Universities Minister; Val Curtis, Hygiene Expert; Peter Tatchell, human rights activist; Barry Smith, Director of the Institute of Philosophy; Jo Wolff, professor of philosophy at University College London, Robyn Steward, mentor people on the Autism spectrum and their families; Murray Shanahan, creator of intelligent machines; Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.

Producer: David Edmonds

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: The Ethics Of Torrents

SFFaudio Commentary

Look at this screenshot. Just look at it!

The Pirate Bay - Ethics

It’s screenshot of a torrent for an audiobook about ethics. The audiobook in question (one from Recorded Books’ The Modern Scholar series) is entitled Ethics, A History Of Moral Thought. It’s a course by Peter Kreeft, a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the uploader is listed as “anonymous”.

Why did he or she upload it?

Why did he or she do so anonymously?

Was uploading it wrong?

Am I wrong to download it?

Am I wrong to even point it out?

You may have answers to these questions. If you do they’re probably swirling around somewhere inside of you – but if they are of the sort of answers that are ready to latch on to just about any reasonable sounding analogy, the kind of analogy that matches the conclusion you want to come to, I’m betting they are the wrong answers.

If your answers to those questions don’t originate in your brain (figuratively) as much as they do your gut (again figuratively) we’d probably call those answers moral answers.

If, on the other hand, your answers have a structure to them, are logically argued towards (rather than just intuitively felt) and have some basis in experience we’d probably call those ethical answers.

Let’s go through the old argument:

1. Theft is wrong.
2. Using torrents is stealing.
_________________________
3. Therefore torrents are wrong.

This argument sounds good. It is simple and has a morally satisfying conclusion.

But if the premises have something wrong with them, we must reject the conclusion.

The problem is with premise #2 .

Torrents are/is a technology, like podcasts and email. Technology doesn’t usually come in only one flavour, just good or wholly evil. Torrents are the same. Copyright owners torrent their own material – that isn’t wrong. Public domain material is torrented – that isn’t wrong. So torrents themselves aren’t the problem. Even if we associate 99% of all torrenting with wrongful behavior that doesn’t make the technology wrong. Etc. Etc.

So what is wrong exactly? Is it that copying is theft?

Let’s go through that argument:

1. Theft removes a thing from someone’s use.
2. Digital copying does not destroy the original.
__________________________________
3. Therefore digital copying is not stealing.

Makes sense right? So theft, at least the precise meaning of it isn’t the problem. How about this argument:

1. Harm is wrong.
2. To infringe upon copyrighting causes harm.
___________________________________
4. Therefore copyrights shouldn’t be violated.

I like this one. I think a lot of other people like it to. My only problem is with premise #2. What does it mean exactly?

Does it mean that someone is physically wounded? Clearly not. I’m betting this isn’t a physical thing at all. Maybe it is something else, or maybe it’s purely financial.

Is there a financial harm?

Maybe!

Let’s have a look at that one such argument:

1. Copyright generates revenue for copyright holders.
2. Infringing on copyright subverts copyright.
___________________________________
3. Therefore not infringing copyright helps copyright holders financially.

And if you believe #1 I’ll happily lease this post for 1¢ per day (minimum 100 days please). Premise #1 in the above argument just isn’t true. It can be true, but it sure doesn’t make for as compelling an argument:

1. Copyright can generate revenue for copyright holders.
2. Infringing on copyright subverts copyright.
___________________________________
3. Therefore not infringing copyright could help copyright holders financially.

That’s enough to start with.

If you would definitely not have paid for Ethics, A History Of Moral Thought would it have helped the copyright holder?

If you definitely would have paid for Ethics, A History Of Moral Thought, then why haven’t you?

If you once considered it, but didn’t buy it, I’m betting it is either price or convenience that’s prevented you.

Both can influence ethical arguments, but often don’t because they complicate matters.

Consider:
$49.95 + shipping used CD on Amazon (no DRM but slightly inconvenient format) – copyright remuneration $0.00
$38.95 on Audible (with DRM) – copyright remuneration UNKNOWN
$30.36 + shipping used on cassette (no DRM but inconvenient format) – copyright remuneration $0.00
FREE on Audible for first time customers (with DRM) – copyright remuneration UNKNOWN
FREE on ThePirateBay.org (with no DRM and no inconvenience) – copyright remuneration $0.00
FREE at your public library (variable formats and convienience) – copyright remuneration UNKNOWN

What we end up with is a lot of question marks. And if you suspect that the answers to the three UNKNOWNS above aren’t likely to be equal I agree with you. But what I find more interesting is that two of those $0.00 answers actually don’t generate any moral disgust in most people and I think that may be where our answer lies.

Yeah, I said it. The used versions of books are neither immoral nor unethical!

And why is it exactly that the arguments in favour of making the purchase of used books unethical have all failed to change our minds?

Now weigh those variable UNKNOWNS against these knowns:

Negatives regarding download of copyrighted material via torrent:

1. Copyright holders do not directly benefit monetarily.
2. You may be, depending on jurisdiction, in violation of a law – which may be scary.
3. You may feel guilty.

Positives regarding download of copyrighted material via torrent:

1. Convenience – torrents are fast and easy, they are often better labelled versions of the content, they lack DRM.
2. Price – torrents are free.
3. Intangibles – sharing makes you feel good, other torrent users benefit, copyright holders may benefit indirectly.

If our reasoning happens inside a big bag of blackness our reasoning is going to be poor. Ethics is hard. I’d like to hear some arguments.

What’s your answer to these questions?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #124 – READALONG: Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

The SFFaudio Podcast #124 – a discussion of the Audible Frontiers audiobook Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein with Scott, Jesse, and Tamahome.

Talked about on today’s show:
“We believe that an armed society is a polite society”, under the pen name Anson MacDonald, his 2nd novel, For Us The Living was first, “no nudity or free love”, The Amazing, The Astounding, And The Unknown by Paul Malmont, “a string of ideas broken up by action”, like two novellas put together, a novel about genetics and dueling, list of characters and terms, reversed names like Korea, “he’s a special guy”, moderators, germplasm, “sperm wars”, engineering away violence, Gattaca, Brave New World, “great egg!”, naturals, experimentals, written in the time of Hitler, kids are like Dune, Felix wonders what’s the point, reincarnation?, “says crazy ideas like they’re common sense”, synthesist, Scott has some quotes ready, Felix doesn’t want kids, “Felix just needs a good woman”, rambunctious scene with Felix and Phyllis, “I’m gonna kiss ya!”, Galactic Suburbia would not like this book, Heinlein’s characters, frozen football player, “everyone’s going to be a telepath”, John W. Campbell, “they don’t talk about telepathy anymore”, Podkayne Of Mars, Heinlein and fertility, Heinlein FAQ, the economic system — Social Credit, Beyond This Horizon on Wikipedia, spread the wealth, “What is money?”, it all goes to 0’s and 1’s, waterbed conception, The John W. Campbell Letters, bringing up super-writers, we never change, Campbell hated Dune Messiah, Felix is a “starline”, no Heinlein sequels??, “needs more telepathy”, best Heinlein novel?, Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Double Star is like Moon Over Parador with Richard Dreyfuss, Starship Troopers has an action-packed start, Heinlein’s short stories like By His Bootstraps with Dreyfuss dramatized on 2000X, Red Planet with pet ball that’s an alien (now I get the Willis joke), Have Spacesuit Will Travel starts well, Heinlein as a dad, Fullcast Audio did a lot of these, Tunnel In The Sky just arrived and is like The Hunger Games, it’s a sci-fi Lord Of The Flies, Full Cast Audio is trying to be family friendly, nudity, worst Heinlein plot?, will the future remember football?, the sport “bligablong”, let’s read the opening, “the halt?”, serialized like The Space Merchants, “it’s all of those things and much more!”, it’s quotable, is the U.S. more polite?, England, duels are stressful, old reviews, 1900-1950 era, 1984, Brave New World, Heinlein starts the SF novel and hardback trend, Hugo Gernsback, Scott loved Foundation, Nazis on the moon, Rocket Ship Galileo, generation ship in Universe (nice old cover), “sucker for space.”

Beyond This Horizon - cover illustration by Hubert Rogers

Beyond This Horizon - Astounding Science Fiction April 1942 - illustration by Hubert Rogers

Beyond This Horizon - Astounding Science Fiction May 1942 - illustration by Hubert Rogers

SIGNET - Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

New English Library - Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

Signet Science Fiction - T4211 - Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

Science Adventure Books, No. 1, Winter 1952 - Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

Otre L'Orizzonte by Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Breck illustration for Beyond This Horizon, 1948

Posted by Tamahome

Tantor Media: FREE AUDIOBOOK: Hard Times by Charles Dickens

SFFaudio Online Audio

The good folks at Tantor Media are offering a new limited-time FREE MP3 download of Hard Times by Charles Dickens!

As usual you will need to have an account, and to login. Start by clicking HERE. Accounts are free and do not require a credit card. After logging in you will be redirected back to the Hard Times page, and there you will be able to find the download link. Hard Times should be available for FREE through August 31, 2011. Unlike previous FREE releases from Tantor this audiobook comes with a PDF of the entire text as well.

Hard Times
By Charles Dickens; Read by Simon Prebble
37 Zipped MP3 Files and PDF Ebook – Approx. 12 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: January 12, 2009
Full of suspense, humor, and tenderness, Hard Times is a brilliant defense of art in an age of mechanism and a blistering portrait of Victorian England as it struggles with the massive economic turmoil brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Red brick, machinery, and smoke-darkened chimneys. Reason, facts, and statistics. This is the world of Coketown, the depressed mill town that is the setting for one of Charles Dickens’s most powerful and unforgettable novels. The highest priority for Thomas Gradgrind, head of the Gradgrind model day school, is his version of education—feeding the mind while starving the soul and spirit. Inflexible and unyielding, he places conformity above curiosity and sense over sentiment…only to find himself betrayed by the very standards that govern his own unhappy life. Hard Times is Dickens’s scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy. And Thomas Gradgrind is one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, Hard Times is also a daring novel of ideas—and ultimately a celebration of love, hope, and the limitless possibilities of the imagination.

Finally, Tantor is offering a special promotional code that may be of interest. To get $80 worth of audiobooks, when you spend $40, (until 8/31/11) use the promo code “Aug11” (without the quotation marks) upon checkout.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – READALONG: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Gregg Margarite talk about Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Forever War, Forever Peace, Forever Free, Haldeman’s experiences in South-East Asia (during the Vietnam War), William Mandella, Mandala, Julian Class, Philip Klass (William Tenn), racism, remotely controlled soldier robots, jacks, empathy, sharing menstruation, baldness as a fashion, the nanoforge (a molecular nanotechnology), caper, Stranger In A Stranger Land, heist, “two novellas smushed together”, John W. Campbell, Ben Bova, self help groups, one conceit that remains unexamined, magic machine (aka a sub-atomic replicator), Mack Reynolds, telepathy, asymmetric warfare, prescience, Libya, Pakistan, the two peaces of Forever Peace, what of the aftermath?, applying Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics to people, Gregg is a creature capable of killing, not everyone wants to be the black sheep, is 98% of humanity humanizable?, the earth where everyone is gay, the earth where everyone is a clone, “a giant of SF”, The Memory Of Earth by Orson Scott Card, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do you grok the group?, “The Hammer of God”, Jonestown, David Koresh, a religion that requires you believe in evolution, punctuated equilibrium, treating the bible like a science book (is problematic), we’re gonna drill into you brain and then you won’t have those feelings anymore, a utopian dystopia, Malthusian theory, the singularity, A Clockwork Orange, moral conviction vs. physical restriction, Gregg needs his murderer (and we do too), Starship Troopers, false consciousness, Women’s Studies, The Tea Party,

“False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society”,

following orders (as false consciousness), Stockholm syndrome, identifying with your oppressor, why do people do things that are against their own interests?, Costa Rica, withholding technology vs. holding resources hostage, Plato’s cave, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, is Jesse making an argument for absolute truth?, what is truth?, “one person’s murder is another person’s dinner”, “God exists or he doesn’t exist”, “assuming we agree on the definition of God”, “we have a bedrock of truth”, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction, “we’re here and we’re invading your software”, our perception of reality changes, “how can it not always be this way?”, “it’s The Matrix“, Gregg can find reasonable doubt in his own existence, Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), René Descartes, “I doubt therefore I am”, Tama has no take, good and bad vs. right and wrong, a mass of conflicting impulses (ambivalence), Heinlein’s militaristic thinking vs. Haldeman’s militaristic thinking, Heinlein’s Future History series, religious conversion, telepathy vs. total immersion, Jonathan Swift, “you can’t reasons someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into”, there are two tenets in Greggism, what you believe doesn’t has to be true, Alan Moore’s personal made-up religion, Scott isn’t a Catholic because of feeling alone, Joseph Campbell “everything is true”, “he was born with a plowshare”, magical thinking, “that’s true for you and that’s fine”, a religious wacko who wants to end the world seems like a tired villain, Source Code, Moon is fantastic (but Source Code is not), the Norwegian whack job, can’t we find another kind of religion, Carl von Clausewitz, The Operative from Serenity (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), effective villains, Robert E. Lee, Adolph Hitler vs. Joseph Stalin vs. Mao Zedong, the Tehran Conference, “Uncle Joe”, Stalin’s ending was noir, Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton has a great (and dirty) villain, Orson Scott Card’s Buggers, Speaker For The Dead, Ender’s Game, zombies are like a force of nature, Heinleinian villains are not diabolical, the ultimate orbital platform, the English Empire, “besides we’re better than you”, why do English actors always play villains? American accents = movie stars, Vancouver is a science fiction ghetto, iambk audio, the proper pronunciation of “about” in Canada, shock vs. shark, accents are lazy ways of speaking, George Wilson (the narrator of Forever Peace), P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie and Jeeves, the secret language of (drunken) Cockneys, no stupid voices please (in audiobooks), if you hire Nicholson for you movie your movie is a Jack Nicholson movie, Gregg’s signature voice may lose him work, why does the narrative switch between first and third person throughout Forever Peace, Yes, Minister, Goodreads.com, senior civil servant (3rd person) vs. elected official (1st person), The Long Habit Of Living by Joe Haldeman, The Forever War is told in first person (right?)

RECORDED BOOKS - Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Posted by Jesse Willis