Saturday, October 08, 2005

un bref parcours

I'm probably the last person to hear about this site, but a coworker of mine clued me in to it: Kubrick2001 "explains" what's really going on in the 1968 classic and cult hit, "2001: A Space Odyssey." After the Flash presentation, you're invited to write a comment. I wrote that the presentation was great, though it lacked something in the final section, which didn't seem to explain very much. Go check it out and see what you think.

I thoroughly enjoyed Wooj's takedown of the spy Robert Kim. Wooj is right on the money to suggest that Kim isn't doing either America or Korea any favors. See here.

Check out Naked Villainy-- all of it-- for assorted commentary from the various ministers (as well as from the Maximum Leader himself) regarding the Harriet Miers nomination. Check out Keith Burgess-Jackson's "I don't see what the big deal is" perspective here.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nope, you weren't the last to see the 2001 site. I hadn't seen it either. Of course, I had my own ideas about 2001 before I saw this. When I first saw the movie, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Later on I learned about Von Neumann probes. That's what the monoliths are, of course. They weren't exactly "planted" by an extraterrestrial who visted Earth, they were just a few of many self-replicating machines sent out into the universe by an advanced civilization. The probe on the moon lay dormant until our Type O civilization evolved into a Type I civilization. The whole mission to Jupiter was a test to see if we had mastered interplanetary travel.

Of course, Kubrick mixes science and mysticism, and he also has his own message (the whole thing about humans being too dependent on technology). I think the final part of the movie (and the last scene of the presentation) are a metaphor for humanity's evolution beyond our current state. It's kind of like computer technology: we develop faster and faster chips with the existing architecture until we reach the limit of that architecture. Then we develop a new architecture and start over. In 2001, humanity had reached "the peak of its evolution" and so needed to start over. Thus, the Starchild. Like I said, there's a lot of mysticism in there, but I think it's ultimately metaphorical. It's only mystical because we don't understand it yet (and also because Kubrick takes us for a twenty-minute psychedelic ride).

For more info on Von Neumann probes and Type 0 and 1 civilizations (along with a paragraph on how this relates to 2001), see Michio Kaku's "The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations." It's a great read if you're into that sort of stuff.