Wildnerness Experience Machine

To go along with the discussion in lecture about the "wilderness experience machine," I would highly recommend checking out the 2010 movie "Repo Men" starring Jude Law. I don't want to ruin the ending, but it raises many of the same questions as far if this "wilderness experience machine" would be an adequate or ethical substitute for reality. Also, it's a pretty good movie in its own right.

Neurath's boat

Neurath's boat goes by other names, for example, Neurathian Bootstrap. 

The wiki entry includes this passage from Willard Van Orman Quine, who writes in Word and Object:

"We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction."

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone!
Jim

p.s. for more on Apollo 13:

 

Welcome to the 2012 Semester!

Hi everyone,
welcome to the blog for NTRES 3320 for the fall semester.  Have fun with posting and with discussions. 

Jim