Not my review of Tron: Legacy

So, I am not reviewing Tron: Legacy here except to say that I really enjoyed it quite a bit. Sure, there are some flaws in there, but overall it was a very worthy successor to the classic original, and a phenomenal viewing experience. There's something else in this movie I want to talk about though, and I think it's a huge and profound idea; one which will not be evident to many for years.



See, the original Tron, for all its neon and primitive graphics was pretty well rejected at the time. It was something of a financial flop, and a lot of people really did not get what they were saying. The movie however inspired some fresh young minds, and in their way they have fulfilled the prophecies of that film. Wired Magazine in this article makes the case far better than I can, but in short, Tron predicted the concept of life inside a digital environment. Anyone who has wasted too much time on Facebook, or spent hours interacting with others in a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) have run their programs on the grid, little avatars making life decisions of a user in the real world. That's why this flopped cult film, some 28 years later, resonates. The generation who grew up on the internet get it. The film was prescient.

I am here to tell you, Tron: Legacy does the same thing, but with a different subject. I have not seen any reviews talking about this particular subject, which is why I think it may be a sublime prediction which will only be widely recognized when it starts to happen in the real world...if it isn't already. Minor spoilers ahead if you have not seen the film, but nothing integral to the fate of the characters.




In the film, the artificial "digital frontier" Kevin Flynn creates, the Grid, is intended to be a perfect environment. Soon after its creation however, the "ISOs" begin to appear: Isometric Algorithms. Digital lifeforms, self-aware equations. I think this is where the latest Tron chapter becomes predictive.

You all know I believe in God, and though sometimes I waiver on what I think that means, I do believe the universe exists out of intent. Further, I think part of that intent is that life exist. I think life is far more resilient than we believe it to be. Now, one doesn't have to tap into theology or philosophy to find this idea. Recently, we the human race had to completely redefine our idea of what life even is, though many are arguing in this case it is more a possibility than a new type of life. Yet from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the sea, we have found life on Earth is more prevalent than not, and little clues indicate Earth may not be the only stage for life. Regardless of how harsh the environment, it would seem, as Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park, "life, uh... finds a way."

We have created a new type of environment in the form of our various computer driven networks. As information flows to and fro, programs and viruses take on independent traits in simulations of intelligence or sentience. They reproduce themselves to ensure survival and distribution. How long until simulation becomes de facto sentience? How complex must a simulation be until it is no longer a simulation? There is an environment in our networks, and as harsh as it may be, what if life, uh... finds a way?

This is going to happen. One day we are going to gaze into the looking glass of the world wide web, and something will look back and say, "Mama?" The universe wants life to exist, and like bacteria which thrive on poisons, or how some simple proteins started working together and began to eventually ask itself "why," some program, some equation, some isomorphic algorithm will one day wake up in the soup that is the internet. I don't say this with a sense of doom in a Skynet sense; I say it with a sense of wonder at God's great Universe. And when it does, we will look back and say, "wow, that Tron movie was right!"

Now hopefully they will all look like Olivia Wilde.

This is the way the world ends.

So, I am a big fan of science. People tell me (on both sides) that it's contradictory to be an enthusiast of Science while being a man of Faith, but I am personally all into the idea God loves knowledge and gets a happy proud parent grin whenever we do something like map his human genome or figure out something on the Deific concept of quantum entanglement.

I am also a big fan of America as a nation and concept. It always hurts my heart a little when I hear about American students not holding up in Science against foreign students, but I also keep in mind a lot of the countries to which these studies compare us don't allow kids below a certain grade point to go to High School and instead send them to a trade school, thereby guaranteeing another generation of wrench turners and plunger pilots (both honorable and necessary professions, don't get me wrong). So I am usually not too bothered by the numbers because I know our schools allow everyone in, and on occasion someone who seemed destined to just be a clerk in a patent office has a flash go off in their head and the theory of relativity is born (yes, I know he didn't start in America- it's just an example. Sheesh you're a tough crowd today!).

So, it was with great joy we went to The Daughter's 8th Grade science fair last night. Let me talk about The Daughter for a moment. This is the girl who in 7th Grade asked her teacher if she could skip reading “Ole Yeller” because she was immersed in “Beowulf.” She also recently wrote an essay describing how initiating curfews leads to a tyrannical state and the duty of the citizen to hold the state accountable and at bay. 'At's my girl.

Anyway, The Daughter does a science project using soap to open human cells and electrolytes in gatorade to create a solution with visible chains of DNA, to see if you can tell the difference between different humans and even animals (getting the sample from the cat was a real pleasure- helpful Dad). I expected similar work from her fellow 8th Graders. After all teachers approved this stuff.

Instead I was greeted with such projects as “Will I last longer if I play as a bad guy in 'Fable II'?” and “How long will different Kool-Aid flavors dye my hair?” There were also several kids who did the old “Bread Mold- which one develops faster” trick, which each of my kids did in 4th Grade.

I suppose I don't fault the kids for going with what interests them, but why the hell are teachers approving this and letting people think its science? There were a couple of other kids, probably four including The Daughter, who didn't cop out and did something which taught as well as used scientific method. And a few at least had hypothesis/test/result formats. I don't understand though why we are letting ourselves get away with this.

Further- there were no prizes handed out. Only participation ribbons, all of which were blue. And, the whole thing, literally all of it, was over in 30 minutes. The last pep rally took an hour.

I know public education has its problems, but how many are self induced? Have we beaten these teachers into submission with low salaries and PC rules? Do I really need a computer in every classroom just to tell a kid that playing a video game isn't science?

Oh- by the way. Playing “Fable II” aggressively and not bothering to think about what your doing makes you last longer. Thanks for the life lesson, kid.

The Daughter is looking for passage off planet.

Let me be succinct.

This is your turn signal. Frickin' use it. Use of turn signals is not optional. Hit your frickin' blinker.

I have a droid.

So, I had a recent realization, an epiphany if you will. It started when I was reading Warren Ellis' "Doctor Sleepless." This is a really brilliant comic title, but not for everyone. If you're not familiar with Ellis, I warn you he's not for the squeamish, but one of the best conceptual futurists I think we have, despite simply stunning amounts of subversiveness and vulgarity.

While reading Doctor Sleepless though, the title character says something to the effect of "you are living in a science fiction world, and you don't even realize it." He goes on to talk about people (like me I must admit) who gripe about being in the 2000's and not having a jetpack or a moon base, and the fact they are missing what's going on around them.

I started looking around. Let's start with where I am right now. I am sitting in my living room in Washington state, and pushing little Chiclet-like buttons and making words appear on screens potentially anywhere in the world. Last week, I bought Star Trek toys online from someone Japan. I have a little box about three inches by six inches. I have over a hundred movies on it, the complete classic Star Trek, and about nine other TV shows. On the same box is 15,000 or so books, and somewhere around 11,000 pieces of music. I can put these on a smaller box and take them anywhere. That same smaller box tells me where to drive if I am going somewhere I haven't been before. I can put it to my ear, push a series of buttons, and speak to anyone in the world who has one of these boxes. While in Babylon last time, I could use a version of one of these magic boxes to talk in real time video with my wife on the other side of the world.

And that darling wife bought me one of these for Christmas:



I have a droid. When I tell him to, and I mean tell- no buttons- he roams around the house and tells me when someone is coming. He gets moody and I have to tell him to behave himself. Can he do everything in the movie? No, but it's beginning. This is the first step toward response trees emulating personality in an automaton. If only there were lasers.



That was the Spyder II GX laser. It has a visible range around 15 miles and is powerful enough at close range to light a cigarette.

My point is this. Ellis is right- we are living in a science fiction world. I haven't even gotten into important things like prosthetic limbs which react to your actual nerves, light sensor implants for the blind resulting in 20/80 vision, and life expectancy going from 73 to 78 in the US between 1995 and 2006. All the tools we need to BE Star Trek are there. As much as I love my Mac though, it is time to start using this future tech for what ANY technology's proper use should be- making life better for humans. That doesn't necessarily mean "easier." Think of what we could be capable of doing. And that's without a jet pack.



Oh. Jetpacks too. What an incredible time to be alive. Happy Brave New Year...