Decipher SciFi

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Natural Sciences
**Decipher SciFi**

Decipher SciFi explores the how and why in science fiction with conversations about technology, humanity, and the future. This is not a review show, nor will you see much criticism or snark. It is a rationally optimistic look, through film, at where society and technology are and where they are headed. Also, butts.

Latest Episodes:

Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix: wizard and muggle technologies w/ Eric Molinsky Dec 20, 2016

Show notes

Scifi and Fantasy

Our different aptitudes for processing fantasy. Fantasy tropes, internal consistency, Patrick Rothfuss.

Wizard and muggle technologies

Telegraphs, internets, owls and agentive magical paper airplanes. Other things too!

The power of names

“True name” magic in Harry Potter. IRL examples. Ancient Egypt, Medieval Europe, Jewish mysticism, Aronofsky’s Pi. Rothfuss again.

Classism and wizard racism

Wizard Hitler!

Wizard warfare

Magic bullet machine gun enchanted buckler wizards. Enchanted riot shields with a wand-hole in them. Other innovations.

Characters

The fascististic headmistress, Ballatrix, Luna, and other characters we wanted to note.

Harry Potter: iTunes Amazon
Imaginary Worlds Podcast: Apple Podcasts RSS

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The Golden Compass: scifi fantasy, polar bear evolution, and dark matter dust Dec 13, 2016

Show notes

Chris' favorite Decipher SciFi selfie ❤️ Production

Issues before, issues during, issues in the final cut. So many issues! How the movie lost much of the depth of the book.

Scifi vs Fantasy

Sciencey veneer over a big pile of fantasy. Maybe steampunk?

Dark Matter

Recognizing that dark matter makes no sense as an explanation for dust. Considering the public conception of dark matter way back when the book was written. Discovery and modern evidence. Bullet cluster. Baryonic matter. Dark energy or the cosmological constant.

The Mind-Body Problem

Familiars and daemons and souls. Dualism. Consciousness uploading. Metaknowledge.

Polar Bears

Polar bear evolution. Shrinking habitat. Hollow hairs and skin color and other adaptations. Blubber and keeping cool.

Parallel Universes

Svalbard! Aurora. The many-worlds interpretation.

His Dark Materials By Philip Pullman: iTunes Amazon
Does Dark Matter Break Physics? by PBS Spacetime: YouTube

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Outlander: viking history, the Prometheus problem, and bioluminescence w/ Lee Accommando Dec 06, 2016

Show notes

Alien Seed Colony

Human aliens in Norway c 709 A.D. The “Prometheus Problem.”

Viking Language

Old norse and 12th century Icelandic. The Icelandic sagas.

Ocular Data Input

Brain implants, language learning, and nosebleeds.

Whaling

Whales are big!

Warrior Culture

Berserkers and their magic mushrooms. Specific training methodologies between vikings, space marines, and dragon-fighting.

The Monster

The movie turns into Predator. Elephant-lion-crocodiles. Apex predator population scales.

Bioluminescence

Frequency of bioluminescence. Adaptation. Wavelengths. Is bioluminescence expensive?

Viking Age Podcast: Apple Podcasts RSS
Beowulf the movie: iTunes Amazon
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heeney: Amazon

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Arrival Part 2: debunking Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, alien phonology, and conlang writing w/ Nick Farmer Nov 29, 2016

Show notes

Nick Farmer

He’s a linguist! And a conlanger, technically.

His website: Nick Farmer Linguist

His Twitter: @nfarmerlinguist

Sapir-Whorf

AKA linguistic relativity, and why it is a very very wrong thing. A warm and fuzzy idea that turns out, after facing science, not to reflect reality well. Nick really really wants to set the record straight on this matter.

Spoken Alien Language

Considering the possibilities. Different modalities. Language need not be sound-based! ASL. Frequencies of sound.

Written Language

Heptapod B! Bending over backwards to figure out a way for alien languages to break the linearity of time.

Alien Writing System

The complexity of deciphering alien writing systems. Extradimensionality. Stephen Wolfram wrote the software to create the logograms. Human language analogies. Mapping ideas and words and concepts is REALLY complicated.

Everything by Ted Chiang: Amazon

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Minority Report: Eliot Peper on freedom and algorithmic precognition Nov 22, 2016

Show notes

Futurists

Eliot shares how Kevin Kelly, Stuart Brand, et al advised the filmmakers on how the future ought to look. The movie’s prescience makes a lot more sense now.

Privacy Intrusion

Intrusion creep. Giving up your privacy knowingly. Testing users.

Thought Crimes

Is it a thought crime? Or just determinism?

Big Data/Precogs

Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Policing, advertising. Oakland and other cities.

Utopia/Dystopia

The rather rosy picture painted by Minority Report and its realism. How it seems more reasonable now than it may have at the time.

Gestural Interface

Feedback cycle between our fiction and real life.

Dismantling The System

Could such a system be dismantled! It’s hard to just part with a murder rate of zero. Eliminating murder vs civil liberties.

Cumulus by Eliot Peper: Amazon
Make it So by Chris Noessel: iTunes Amazon

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Arrival Part 1: superdimensionality and alien physics w/ Jolene & Adrian Nov 15, 2016

Show notes

Alien Ship Technology

Ship materials construction. Anti-gravity technologies. Tesseracts. Shadows looking into other dimensions.

Alien Math and Physics Jef Raskin's alien math

Superdimensionality. Imagining alien understanding of maths and physics. Different perspectives forcing different approaches. The physics of alien arrivals.

Linguistic Relativity

The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not backed by good evidence. Superdimensional alien languages. Gaining new perspective into the reality of the universe.

Preparation

Military secret-keeping. General Whitaker’s Morpheus operandi: “I cannot tell you what the matrix is. I have to show you.”

Everything by Ted Chiang: Amazon
Ted Chiang on Decipher SciFi: Decipher SciFi
Darmok: iTunes Amazon

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Star Trek Beyond: drone swarms, teleporters, and decompression w/ Jolene Creighton Nov 08, 2016

Show notes

Lament

Our love for Star Trek and how this does or does not fit.

Drone Swarm

Drone swarm tactics. Realizing they’re robots.

Explosive Decompression

It is all manners of unpleasant.

Universal Translator

Christopher’s revelation. IRL real-time translation software. Skype Translator.

Security Systems

And bad design.

Teleporters

Breaking phsyics. Weaponization.

The Trouble with Teleporters by CGP Grey: YouTube
Deep Space Nine: iTunes Amazon
The United Federation of 'Hold my beer, I got this': Imgur

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The Island of Dr Moreau: vivisection, individual plasticity, and the human animal w/ Joe Ruppel Nov 01, 2016

Show notes

what Vivisection

Definitions. Victorian science and protest movements. John Hunter and the John Byrne Irish Giant. Behaviourist views of animal feelings.

Humans as an animal

Coming to terms with our place in nature in Wells’ time. Natural selection vs selection by Moreau.

Individual plasticity and heredity

More vivisection. Human body modification and evolution.

Religious analogy

The “father” and the “laws.”

Should we do x?

Chris plays the amoral scientist monster every time we ask this question.

Carnivore vs herbivore

Moral of the story: Moreau really should have bred a race of herbivores. Would have side-stepped a lot of issues.

Transhumanism

Strategies in evolving humanity and combining with our replacement life form.

Frankenstein: science fiction horror, reanimation, and victorian context w/ Joe Ruppel: Decipher SciFi
The Limits of Individual Plasticity by H.G. Wells: Google Books

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The Thing: antarctic explorers, extreme doctoring, and figuring out aliens w/ Cae & Ryan Oct 25, 2016

Show notes

Movie origins

Who Goes There? short story. Previous adaptations: The Thing From Another World (1951) · Horror Express (1972) · The Thing (2011)

Antarctic Exploration

British and Norwegian missions. Cultures and approaches.

Antarctic Research

Conditions. Connectivity. Boredom. Whiskey, cigars, and shoe leather.

Antarctic Doctoring

You need a certain kinda Dr MacGyver badass for this job. Spinal self-diagnosis, etc. Wilford Brimley diabeetus.

John Carpenter cinematography and soundtracks and storytelling

Cae and Ryan understand these things, and explain them to us. We mostly get it.

The Thing

So many questions. Where did it come from? How does it work? The nature of the creature. Is it intelligent?

The nature of consciousness

If you were The Thing, could you know you were The Thing? Would The Thing know it was The Thing? Self interest in all cases. Group interests in all cases.

Infection

If I can’t win, neither can you. The doctor was the only one acting rightly. Best plan: destroy the base and kill everyone, just in case. Sexual tests as alternatives to blood…

“The Things”

I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front. I am being Copper. I am rising from the dead. I am being Childs. I am guarding the main entrance. The names don’t matter. They are placeholders, nothing more; all biomass is interchangeable. What matters is that these are all that is left of me. The world has burned everything else. The Things by Peter Watts

The Things by Peter Watts: Clarksworld Podcast
The Politics of Experience & The Divided Self by R.D. Laing: Amazon
Lee Hardcastle's The Thing Claymations: Thingu @ YouTube Claycat's The Thing @ YouTube Frozen blood test scene @ YouTube

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The Exorcist: demonic possession, skepticism, and horror w/ Adrian Falcone Oct 18, 2016

Show notes

Editions

Theatrical vs “The Version You’ve Never Seen.”

Demons

Devils, demons, pazuzu, deception. How do people get possessed? Different theories.

Supernaturalism

Supernatural detective work. Priest losing his faith.

“Real” Exorcism

The Catholics. The Rite of Exorcism. Bureaucracy. Serious vs loosey-goosey exorcisms.

Simple vs Easy Explanations

Occam’s razor. Science.

Latin

Tradition. Latin as the language of ancient evil. Ecclesiastical latin.

Order of Operations

Medicine -> fringe medicine -> call a priest!

Horror

The ways this movie is timelessly excellent and scary. Parenting.

Demon Battle Plan

Demons might not be the best at planning, OR we might be inconsequential nothings to them, OR creating a rift between god and his people is their job.