Like in Byzantium there will always be iconoclasts; the breakers, haters and enemies of images. As then, now and forever: for the iconoclast of every age there is something deeply disturbing in the worship of the human image; he feels that humans ought to be humble, walk the earth...
Category: Theory of narratives
Writing a cybernetic novel
I would like to define a cybernetic novel as one that writes itself, or one where the reader is also the narrator. A novel that possesses self-reflexivity. I made the sketch (see above) some time ago while thinking about my novel "The Island Survival Guide". When I say "I thought about my novel"...
The big bang of the human mind, and our desire to build artificial beings
[slideshare id=46037137&doc=thebirthofart-150319085231-conversion-gate01] The "big bang of the human mind" took place around 40,000 years ago, when our prehistoric ancestors developed general purpose language. The reasons why this happened are yet unclear, and probably involve a number of genetic mutations. We know that something changed because of the emergence of art,...
Literary narratives and global warming
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/25679327 w=400&h=300] My talk (in Greek) at the Onassis Foundation in Athens,where I discussed my novel "The Passage" and the relationship between literary narratives and the contemporary understanding of global warming.
Victorian scientific romance and robot apocalypse
The 1800s must have been a great time to live. They mark the beginning of many things we take for granted today; most notably democracy, technological and scientific innovation, globalization and international trade. The British Empire was at its height, people started moving with steamships and trains across continents, and...
Pandora: the first android
Hesiod recounts in Theogony how Zeus became angry with Prometheus for giving the gift of fire to humans, that he decided to take revenge upon the humans by creating the first woman. Here’s a retelling of the story by using some more familiar terms. Zeus commanded Hephaestus, the god-engineer, to make the...
Metaphysics explained
The term “metaphysics” owes its origin to one Andronicus of Rhodes who lived at around 100 BCE and was an editor of Aristotle’s corpus. Aristotle had something to say about everything and Andronicus was soon confounded with an editorial problem: how to discern the great philosopher’s early works entitled “Physica” (physics) from...
The archeology of ideas
There is a curious phenomenon in the academic world of peer reviews and science journals. Pick up any scientific journal you like and look at the dates of any paper’s references at the end. Most will be from the 2000s. You may find a couple from the 1990s. If you...
Spoiled child goes to the market: two conflicting narratives about the fall of Greece
Are the Greeks the victims of unjust circumstances, or are they sinners for whom paytime is justly at hand? The international discourse about Greece has been debating this question since the beginning of the Greek crisis in 2009. Most economists generally focus on the inherent errors of the euro to...