(In)Coherence

Mary Shelley Started It

Ellen Season 1 Episode 2
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In this episode we contend with monstrosity as we look into creativity’s double binds: The unintended consequences of scientific creation.
What it means to be human in the presence of moral challenges and the absence of certainty. How science fiction may show that paranoia is precedented when it comes to evaluating our rush toward artificial intelligence.

 Mary Shelley started it all. Frankenstein was published in 1818. 

Mary Shelley had spent the year without a summer at Lake Geneva in 1816. The gloomy weather found her writing by candlelight about Victor Frankenstein, a scientist and inventor who finds the secret to creating artificial life, and creating a conscious life.

The monster creation became the subject of dozens of movies. (The 1931 James Whale version starring Boris Karloff as the Monster was made with a $262,000 budget. Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks may be the second-best known.)

In part one, Larry Lockridge, professor emeritus at New York University, talks about virtue ethics and botched creations. Owen Flanagan, neurobiologist and professor of philosophy at Duke University, discusses his founding of a new term in philosophy, neuro existentialism--and how motivated are we, actually, to flourish?  Science fiction illustrator Vincent Di Fate talks about why the brain itself, "a rather homely organ," has played such a starring role in sci-fi imagery. 

Producer and Host: Ellen Berkovitch
Co-Producer and Interviewer this episode: Mary Jo Vath
Guests: Larry Lockridge, Owen Flanagan, Vincent Di Fate
VoiceOver Artist: Roberto Sharpe
Post-Production and Theme Music: Dennis Javier Jasso
Creative Commons Samples: Spinning Merkaba, The Stars Look Different under a creative commons license courtesy ccmixter.org

STEAMPlant Team: Ellen Berkovitch, Mary Jo Vath, Iliyan Ivanov, Agnes Mocsy

Funding: STEAMPlant grant from Pratt Institute.