WILL STONE samples the 20th anniversary atmosphere of this eclectic end-of-season indie festival
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Is our currently experienced reality a simulation?
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a book which is the perfect starting point for those with an interest in the possibilities of immersive technology
[Samuel Zeller/CC]
Comics are not just superheroes and spandex – it can be public art, telling public stories, suggests HARRIET EARLE
The bard serenades the Diggers of Wigan and their festive followers
ALEXEI SAYLE speaks to Angus Reid about a lifetime of protest, how to hone political art – and what to do now
ANDY HEDGECOCK, JAMES WALSH, LEO BOIX and MARIA DUARTE review Just An Illusion, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Blue Film, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, and Runner
MARIA DUARTE recommends a nerve-wracking reconstruction of the 72 hours before the Normandy landings
Reality+
by David J Chalmers
Allen Lane, hardback, £25
THIRTY-EIGHT years ago, I was struggling to understand the use of Boltzmann machines, cellular automata and neural networks in the simulation of human behaviour and development. Using these mathematical models as the basis for computer programmes was a challenge, but I was even more bemused by the philosophical implications of simulated worlds.
The experience might have been less perplexing if I’d had access to the thoughts and teaching of David J Chalmers, whose latest book is a comprehensive and painstaking study of simulation, consciousness, and being.
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GORDON PARSONS enjoys Kant’s ‘mind-boggling’ theory of human reality: that we create the reality we experience
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an entertaining, useful guide to the threats and promises of mathematical rationality
RICHARD SHILLCOCK examines an enjoyable, but philosophically conventional book, and urges Marxists to employ their capacity to embrace the totality in any explanation
JOHN GREEN’s palate is tickled by useful information leavened by amusing and unusual anecdotes, incidental gossip and scare stories