Alex Garland: Fundamental Questions Inspire Art and Science | Alex Garland on The Origins Podcast
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- Опубліковано 12 сер 2022
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Alex Garland is probably best known to the world for writing and directing the blockbuster film Ex Machina about the consequences of the coming of age of an AI humanoid robot. Before that, he wrote the film 28 days later, about the fictional aftermath of a mysterious incurable virus that spreads through the UK. Most recently he directed a television series for FX called Devs, about many things, but hinging on quantum mechanics and issues of a multiverse.
The human implications of new technology seem to play an ever-present role in his films, and Lawrence has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to chat with him about science and art in the past and was eager to sit down and record a podcast. He is remarkably thoughtful and at the same time self-deprecating. Since the origins podcast tends to focus on issues of science and culture, Alex was the perfect guest, and he seamlessly blends the two. Lawrence sat down with Alex and talked about his own origins, emerging from a period of more or less complete disinterest in science to returning to the kind of questioning that his scientist grandfather used to embark on with him when he was a young boy. Recorded in the building in which his most recent TV series Devs was being recorded, they had to talk about the quantum universe as well.
It was a fascinating and thoughtful conversation about the human interface with modern science, as displayed in film, writing, and art.
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Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on Lawrence's Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites. - Наука та технологія
alex garland is still very underrated. he's a humble quiet genius
I love this mans scientist storyteller brain so much. Annihilation has been my most favorite scifi ever since it came and i love and seen all scifi since 15 years, since i first got internet. more power to this man.
Alex Garland is a brilliant guest to interview. Humble , curious and very insightful. He must be a joy to be around.
It's really refreshing to see an artist who is taking on sci-fi that is so deeply humble about the debt they are in. Not really being into science until they were in their 20s, feeling like they were doing a lot of catching up, and trying to say what they can say without feeling like an imposter. It was great to see transparently how "tortured" of an artist Garland is, not in the sense of some fantastical idea of that concept...but just the burden of being given a team and production that can make the movies they want to make...and feeling they owe that team the script and capabilities and knowledge required to pull it off...and never being really sure if they had it.
As an artist watching final works of other artists, it can feel daunting to see how cohesive it all feels, how complex the research had to have been to get the details, and then it makes it hard to tackle subjects that require that level of research to feel as though you have something to say about it beyond just the visual desire to go to that space.
Great interview, disagree with ya'll on a few things on just an A priori level when it comes to things like Machines being able to be hard coded the inability to kill, I just don't think that's inherently true. We don't really know the level of complexity required to produce consciousness and the amount of contradictory information needed to sustain that could inevitably lead to the ability to make judgements against hard coding and may necessitate it or in a certain sense...are they actually conscious or are they simply a simulation visually with all the bits that make them conscious cut off for safety reasons?
He's put some of the most compelling scenes on screen in the last few decades. His use of these high level scientific concepts commenting thematically on the internal struggles of his characters to to tell an intriguing story is an absolute pleasure to experience. It's a tragedy his work isn't finding more commercial success in today's media landscape.
alex garland is one of my favorite filmmakers of the last decade. devs was incredibly well made, just rewatched it it for the fourth time
I just like the idea that Alex Garland defined every Film he has made as his own understanding of a certain theme. Wether it could be AI or other particular Topics.
Garland is amazing and pioneering modern scifi. Really enjoyed the interview. I really enjoyed how he invoked his friend's argument around 39:50, sounds like a great friendship
What a talent and inspiration. Thanks for the video, Lawrence.
Really enjoyed this. Need more of it.
Wow! Excellent!!! Thank for your podcast.
Great podcast and a very interesting artist that I didn't radared much(only Ex Machina) . Thanks for sharing the knowledge ❤🎉🎉🎉
Thank you for providing us with this!
Really interesting. I look up to Garland. Thank you for this, great interviewing!!
Great conversation thank you
really enjoyed this one, TY Lawrence!
Is this an older podcast? Devs the tv show has been out for quite some time now
Terrific conversation ,thoroughly enjoyed it,devs is an amazing show do watch it all physics lovers out there......
I remember reading 'The Tesseract'. Perhaps, of many, my most memorable reading experience.
I still tell people, if they are ready, read that.
In my experience, mushrooms have something to say on the subject. Mushrooms showed me all about many things that I don't know anything about, so I went looking for things that looked familiar to me from the mushrooms. I found quantum physics, among other things, and I can only guess that ether the quantum world was invented by scientists that did mushrooms, or the mushrooms are a living part of quantum physics and can communicate on the subject. If movies like Annihilation are not inspired by mushrooms, then we need to figure out how people are coming up with ideas like the ones in those movies.
Free will, don't have any when you need a washroom, but before you leave the washroom free will is you deciding to, or not to wash your hands. Great interview, thank you very much both Alex and Lawrence, wide ranging and exploring discussion that was fun.
@Josh from Bakersfield keep telling yourself that
Just because you have conditioning,that's no guarantee that it will last, years of training and self control can be tossed out the window in the blink of an eye. I really don't want to argue with you, my point was that when you have to go to the bathroom, choice is gone, the taps will run. Have a great night.
@Josh from Bakersfield first it's believe in, not on, by that reasoning no one is responsible for the crime they commit, it was always going to happen, set them free. Keep thinking the way you want, we can each live our lives on this rock, while there's a little room left.
@Josh from Bakersfield the parenting I received wasn't parenting, I actually love my sons very much what ever they do, all I wanted were Free Thinkers. Ironic, no, as we have this discussion. Have a great night Josh, the world will be here in the morning.
This is deep and philosophical. I love it!
All of his movies and scripts are deep and philosophical
that was amazing.
Great pod with a really interesting guest. I'm not sure I agree with Alex's reasoning about AI not being an existential threat though. Sure, we can be smart and resourceful at responding to threats but we have never had to respond to one that was fighting back with its own intellect, possibly a much greater intellect than our own.
This was such a great dialogue. When thinking about A.I. the most instersting possibility to me is that a consciousness could have multiple bodies. You know being a sort of omnipresence. I wonder if its even possible since you’d had to rely on some kind of connection which will have a level of delay and create a different version of yourself by milliseconds of which you’ll be aware. Or perhaps this could be avoided by having a uni-mind merely controlling the bodies and processing the data once is all together. I don’t know if this is too sci-fi, but using bio-sensors/receptors to give access to an A.I so that it has a first person account of what flora and fauna perceive, and then process those inputs as a conscious being. This could provide a variety of thinking modes, visual libraries, etc. Additionally, having access to other neurophysiologies could give rise to some out of this world social constructs.
I also wanted to share some thoughts on Fusion Reactors since there have been some important advancements. There is a lot of optimism for a sustainable(for the most part giving the materials needed to construct it in the first place) renewable energy source, but it seems that once they are successful it will create as many problems as it will solve. First only a few countries have reactors, so mostly likely they’ll be the only ones distributing that energy, if at all. Second, the places without access to them could simply start burning fossil fuels like crazy since they could take over that production of carbon dioxide. Perphaps, they’ll even buy the rights to do so from Fusion countries. Lastly, the Fusion Reactor itself is a diffult task, but getting one built in areas like Africa and Latin America seems even harder to accomplish. The U.S. will also face its own challenges given its current record with contruction projects such as the California high-speed rail and infrastructure in general.
Thank you for all the great conversations.
The omnipresence thing sounds like the alien species in the novel Pandora's Star - it was a pretty good book actually which explored a number of interesting concepts.
I love Alex Garland
People think self determination is choosing a major consequence in their lives. But consider that even the amount of time you procrastinate to do something banal proves free will is being exercised.
Providing that the person agrees it is procrastination, right: jail, health etc are situations imposed from the outside. Procrastination is not something that you can accurately surmise about another only that it might be something they could agree to about one’s self.
it’s a judgment not a symptom. Lethargy from depression, anxiety, poverty, hunger etc
@M Can 1 being split into 2 identical copies down to the quarks existing in the same space and time unaware of the other be in synchronization for the entire length of their existence or do you think that 1 being will take an extra second to decide to get up from bed?
@@dragonskunkstudio7582 but did they, in fact, get up from bed or not?
Wow I just fell in love
Was this recorded a few years ago? Devs came out in 2020
yes
Never stop doing Media Alex Garland. I have enjoyed all of it so far.
I wish you would have asked about gender when Alex mentioned it.
What a view you have out that window.
The beach was the worst. I'm sorry hahah
When will you have Lenny Susskind ?!!
English is not my native language. But what I feel from this conversation is what Garland is trying to say is beeing put back in the "box" of what we "lay-men" already have "heard" through science articles etc. I feel he asking something else with his ideas that doesn't come across.
I get that it is show and so on. And he doesn't have the scientific vocabulary to get it across his idea, but I feel he is asking something else.
At times I felt like Mr. Alex thought he knew more physics than Mr. Lawrence ...!!
Timestamps please
❤❤❤
Maintaining, as they are doing in this discussion, that there is a case to be made that humans are the first intelligent race to arise in the galaxy is the very definition of special pleading. That indeed MIGHT be true, but the probability of that actually being true is so exceptionally small given the size and age of the galaxy that it should be considered only as a last resort. We really have no idea why no one else seems to be out there. And saying we are the first in the galaxy is sheer hubris on our part.
One of the true originals in cinema today, too bad the masses seem incapable of appreciating him fully. But that is the curse of many artists who wanna push boundaries.. Keep working, man!!!
Masses eat, shit and die. Mindless existance without any high values.
I enjoyed this so much. It raised so many interesting concepts and made me realize how much I'm ignorant of. I'll definitely be checking out Alex Garland's work.💛🥰
My brain hurts!!!!!!
📍52:03
So where did Alexs' friend think consciousness is seated?
31:00 that's interesting. if you follow religious debate channels at all (why would anyone?) one the best known is pinecreek who often says that evil and sin would not exist at all if god had not created, the idea of "ending it all" to stop this continued agony of life is kind of a mirror image, god could have saved all the pain and suffering by not creating in the first place - and no one would be around to mind.
the background noise/music is distracting.
Dr. Krauss I have an idea I’d like to share. What if the Higgs field is a 3 dimensional field. This field could be conceptualized as a fluid, and particles coming through the field ‘inflate’ much like bubbles nucleating in a fizzy drink.
If we could observer an electron during a Quantum leap in mind blowing slow motion. Then we might least have evidence that particles inflate as they come through the Higgs field.
Dunno know, it was just an idea. Probably a stupid one.
it is a 3 dimensional field.. but we understand its interactions with normal particles.. no need for inflating..
@@TheOriginsPodcast thank you for replying, that means a lot to me.
If all life is subjected to an evolutionary process across the universe then it would seem natural to ask an alien about those same shared experiences that is unless they had a machine that took over that imagination process for them ie and simply produced solutions like to space travel / time travel etc.
Frank Herbert’s: The Jesus Incident. ( Machines that have the powers of a God)
44:00 surely the silence is that "they" have moved on, i think in order to colonise other planets, like mars, we will have to modify humans rather than terraform, even if we generate an atmosphere for mars it will get swept away, we already have robots exploring, we already have prosthetics, we are exploring AI, the answer to living in the galaxy is not to wait hundreds or thousands of years for planets to terraform, but to modify humans, and the logical extension from that is we don't bother with planets at all, you make people that can survive _in space_ or you live on "space ship worlds" - people that have no need of a base planet. brian greene was talking about "generation ships" that travel for hundreds of years and have people living their entire lives on the journey, and travelling at near light speeds, and if that were the case they will all be "out of sync" with their home world _and_ each other, and they would either still be en route, or long dead, in "our" time frame. the reason we don't see intelligent life is that it's so different to what we're looking for and it's living in a different era.
anyway, just saying.
I should say, I only want the prestige to get work in the fields which accord to those skills. But I would trade that prestige for being enabled rightly to do my work in the shadow of others.
Prestige and fame are not my desire or ambitions. I would even continue to feed your desires. My main desire is not sex, though I love it, but I wish for not one more day for Jules to have to worry that this work endangers her livliehood or mental health, and same for my in-laws. Basically.
Love what you’re offering here, but please consider not having recorded sounds/noise running in the background during the conversation/interview(s). It’s extremely distracting for many, if not all, of your autistic viewers/listeners. Thank you, in advance, for your consideration. Pavanna
I didn´t notice anything like that!
I thought the background music was unnecessary
Isn't Laplace's demon best argument against free will? Tnx for the interview professor Krauss!
"In looking at a waterfall we imagine that there is freedom of will and fancy in the countless turnings, twistings, and breakings of the waves; but everything is compulsory, every movement can be mathematically calculated. So it is also with human actions; one would have to be able to calculate every single action beforehand if one were all knowing; equally so all progress of knowledge, every error, all malice. The one who acts certainly labours under the illusion of voluntariness; if the world's wheel were to stand still for a moment and an all-knowing, calculating reason were there to make use of this pause, it could foretell the future of every creature to the remotest times, and mark out every track upon which that wheel would continue to roll. The delusion of the acting agent about himself, the supposition of a free will, belongs to this mechanism which still remains to be calculated." - Friedrich Nietzsche
for what it's worth i tried watching sunshine about four times and gave up, to me it seemed silly. likewise ex machina, that seemed like a cliche version of the frankenstein tale. sorry. (never watched 28 days - i _did_ however do special effects on resident evil, the movie, if that means anything.
Krauss comes across as the laymen in much of this. I understand the value of popularization but perhaps he needs to step back a bit and re-focus.
The lingering music is torture. Stop it once the convo starts plz
I tire of the incessant complaints of scientists that it is being taught rote. There is no other way to teach what they know other than rote. It is rote, there is no other meaning. If you want meaning then learn philosophy
not teaching rote does not mean that you take away the meaning, it means that the learner understands what they're learning, rather than repeats the subject like a robot, like a checkbox to be ticked and exams to be passed. i think it's a pretty valid concern.