The Machine: A New Perspective on Capitalism

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There's this just relentless obsession with time travel, you know, like that started with Angela and Elliot's favorite movie being back to the future. Something about this machine seems to relate to this idea of undoing the past. I think it's in a Ted Chang kind of way accesses parallel streams, parallel universes, so that you can access sort of a nearby parallel universe where something might be slightly different.

We try (with varying success) to wrap our heads around Thomas Nagel’s classic article “What is it Like to be a Bat?" Does science have the tools to give us a theory of consciousness or is that project doomed from the outset? Why do reductionist or functionalist explanations seem so unsatisfying? Is the problem that consciousness is subjective, or is it something about the nature of conscious experience itself? Is this ultimately an epistemological or metaphysical question? What are we talking about? Do we even know anymore?

Plus, the return of Mr. Robot! We talk about the big new mystery at the heart of the new season.

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