The latest Dragon Page Cover To Cover podcast features an interview with philosopher Jason Eberl (an Assistant Professor at Purdue) who is also the editor of Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. The book of essays delves into the metaphysics from both the original Battlestar Galactica and the modern re-imagining.
You can download the |MP3| directly or subscribe to the show’s XML feed:
http://www.dragonpage.com/podcastC2C.xml
Philosophy Bites is a podcast about philosophy. Recently they talked to Oxford’s Stephen Mulhall who’s authored a book titled On Film. Fans of SF and philosophy rarely mix (which is a damn shame) but the connections between the two are legion. Good SF is always a “thought experiment”, but Mulhall thinks philosophers should also consider film itself as philosophy. His illustration for this comes from a few scenes in Blade Runner. I don’t see quite the connections Mulhall makes in the movie myself (Voight-Kampff machine as camera and Deckard as Director) but I agree it is a deeply philosophical film. Have a listen |MP3|, judge for yourself. You can subscribe to the podcast via this feed:
http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/rss
Posted by Jesse Willis
From the creator of the long running The Sci Phi Show podcast comes Sci Phi – The Journal Of Science Fiction and Philosophy!
“[This] is a new popular level journal aimed at readers who like science fiction but want to think
about its implications a little more. Each issue of Sci Phi will contain short stories and articles. The short stories will tend to have an interesting idea underlying them and the articles will look at various philosophical ideas through the lens of science fiction.Issue #1 contains stories and articles by:
Matt Wallace, Paul S. Jenkins, Lee Battersby, Jason Pomerantz, Geoffrey Maloney, Michael Spence, Stephen Dedman, Ben Goertzel, Stephan Vladimir Bugaj, Ryan Nichols and Jason Rennie
Each issue comes in various ebook formats as well as all of the stories and articles in mp3 format for your listening pleasure. Each issue costs $7, and all of the contributors are paid on a royalty basis, with about 80% of the issue price being paid directly to contributors.
Additionally after one year each the journal will be released under a creative commons attribution non-commercial license 3.0.”
Look for a review of this first issue in the coming weeks.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Sci Phi Show, has a very cool interview with Courtney Brown, who is rightly famous on this site for his excellent Science Fiction and Politics university course (it is podcast).
Download the interview direct |MP3| or subscribe to The Sci Phi Show podcast feed via this url:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheSciPhiShow
Eifelheim
By Michael Flynn; Read by Anthony Heald
2 MP3-CDs – 17.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1433206129
Themes: / Science Fiction / Philosophy / Religion / Catholicism / Aliens / Physics / First Contact / Black Death /
“Eifelheim” is a novel that’s not in a hurry. It’s a multiple course meal that offers helpings of philosophy, science, and religion at a leisurely pace that’s refreshing in today’s hurry-up climate. It was also a Hugo nominee for Best Novel of 2007.
The novel takes place in two times. In “Now”, two live-in scientists discuss and compare their findings on seemingly different subjects. One of them is investigating the absence of people in Eifelheim, a German town whose population disappeared during the 14th century. According to calculations of population patterns, this is a mathematical anomaly. The other scientist, a physicist, is trying to figure out why the speed of light is slowing down. That these two things are related is part of the story.
In the 14th century, a parish priest named Father Deitrich, who is dealing with the beginnings of the Black Death in his area, experiences first contact with an alien race that appears in his town of Eifelheim. Father Deitrich is a smart, compassionate priest, and, as he considers the aliens God’s children, he befriends them and cares for them as he can.
The focus occasionally switches back to the two scientists from “now”, who have conversations that shed light on the happenings in Eifelheim in the past. The main charm of this novel for me was the realistic portrayal of this honorable priest, and his culture. It portrays a medieval religion that was considered the source of all knowledge, and as such, the priest’s logical reasoning makes for compelling listening. To readers who enjoy philosophy and speculative science, and the history of both, it would be hard to find a modern novel more interesting.
Author Michael Flynn provides historical and physics notes at the end of the novel, and thanks should go out to Blackstone Audio for including them here in the audiobook. Narrator Anthony Heald does a tremendous job with the narration. He’s an excellent match with the material, handling accents and characters with unobtrusive skill. Choices he made with the alien voices were particularly effective.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
BBC Radio 3 has an intriguing program available through their Listen Again service. A three part series about the consequences of the existence of alien life…
The Essay – Life, But Not As We Know It
3 Radio Broadcasts – Approx. 45 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
BROADCASTER: BBC Radio 3
BROADCAST: July 16th, 18th and 19th 2007
A biologist, a writer and a philosopher each explore their fascination with the notion of extraterrestrial intelligence and what such a discovery could mean for the future of humanity.
Part 1 – “Biologist Jack Cohen on why the discovery of aliens would change our view of biology, evolution and organised religion.”
Part 2 – “Writer Andrew Crumey delves into our literary past to discover a fascination with alien life dating back to the middle ages and beyond.”
Part 3 – “Philosopher Nick Bostrom explains why he believes that the discovery of aliens would be a disaster for the future of humanity and lead to the end of civilisation as we know it.”
All three parts are available HERE via the BBC Radio 3 Listen Again service for the next few days or so.