Film: $9.99
As part of the Barbican's 2009 Australian Film Festival I went and saw $9.99, a great little Australian animated film released in 2008. Although I found the animation style a little uncomfortable at first, I feel that it was used to good effect giving the film an edgy feel that complemented the story line. The voice acting and sound effects were brilliant and really tied the film together.
If you are a fan of Australian film you should be able to spot a few well known voices making appearances throughout the movie. As seems to be the case with a lot of Australian movies the themes of the film were portrayed quite bluntly with the use of a rich set of symbols and straight speaking dialogue. The bluntness however did not stop the movie being richly layered and if you are inclined to mull over movies you will find a lot of themes to talk about.
All up, I found the movie really enjoyable and would recommend it if you are looking for an evening of quiet reflection.
Consciousness Explained
by Daniel C. DennettPartially to alleviate the pain of commuting on the central line, and partially just because I am interested, I've been reading Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett over the past few weeks. It has been slow progress but am a pleased to say I am finally near the end, at least close enough to write something about it.
Although I've seen a few talks by Dennett this is the first of his books I have read and I am please to say that I found it quite entertaining and informing reading. I still feel like I don't know enough about the subject matter to carry out a well informed debate but I do feel I know enough to say that I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in probing the topic of consciousness, artificial intelligence and what it means to be a self.
I found having read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter and pretty much any book by Richard Dawkins helped me understand some of the concepts that Dennet covered and would highly recommend reading these books before or after reading Consciousness Explained.
A few critics have complained that Dennett does little more than explain consciousness away rather than explain it, but I am still having troubles coming to grips with that point of view as everything Dennett wrote seemed to make sense to me. At least now I have a healthy list of further reading to do to try and understand the opposing argument!