Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Exit to Reality or Proteus and Euclid: A Love Story

Edith Forbes is new to me though she's written two other novels that I will be reading. Exit to Reality is a ghost in the machine type utopian novel. Characters uncover State secrets that reveal a world, thought to be real, instead to be virtual. Interesting philosophical questions are raised and explored: Would one rather have a virtual life free of the horrors of over-population etc or live wallowing in excrement known as the reality.

The brain's response to neuropeptides and stimulus as recipient of computer programming creates an interesting backdrop for a metaphysical question historically posed by both Hindus and Buddhists regarding maya, or what is real and what illusion.