Paradox …

 

 

Remember the movie Minority Report. Keep that in mind (if you have seen it and) Consider this …

 

You can see future using the system and prevent the crime. You have created the system and are aware of the people who are trying to discredit it. The system represents you and anything going wrong with the system or the system getting discredited would destroy you and your ideology.

 

The system comes up with Your own name as a 'future murderer' and now you are in a fix. You know you have no intention of killing the man you don't even know so you are innocent. But if you claim that, then you are saying that the system is wrong. That destroys your work.

 

So do you go ahead and commit the murder and destroy yourself to keep the systemyou're your own name and ideology alive.

OR

Do you go ahead and prove the system wrong, discredit your own work and destroy yourself anyway.

 

Paradoxical situation … isn't it ?

 

Now consider the 1000's of people whom you have sent to jail/death because your system 'predicted' them as criminals. Could the system have been similarly 'wrong' about them? Have you sent innocent people to jail/death???

 

Paradox again … isnt it ?

 

And finally, the fact that you have been punishing people for crimes they haven't committed? Isn't that wrong? But then if you did not punish them, they might have gone ahead and committed the crime …

 

Paradox again … isnt it ?

 

 

Such was the genius of Philip K Dick that he was able to weave all these paradoxes into a single short story spanning 30 pages.

 

Hats off to the Sci-Fi writers of the century … they were pretty awesome!!


 

Trivia 1 - Philip K Dick also wrote 'Paycheck' which was made into yet another superb Hollywood movie. Around 8 other stories by him became Hollywood movies over the years.  


Trivia 2 - While I was writing this post, a casual glance to the newspapers front page told me that a celebrated sci-fi author Ray Bradbury passed away a few days ago. 


Comments

  1. Its only through minds of people like Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov that we could read and enjoy master pieces like Minority Report, I, Robot, Bicentanial Man...

    Ever wonder how utterly sad life would have been, had we not been blessed with such imaginative authors? I feel sorry for those who do not read...they never know what they are missing out on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Restless Soul ...

    Totally agree. Blessed are the ones who read ..... They can escape to a different world anytime they want to.

    ReplyDelete

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