I think Omni magazine must have risen from the grave and is starting to demonically possess other magazines (Aeon, anyone?). This article is a prime example, complete with the Matrix-y background (GET IT?!?!) and — priceless — his ‘desktop computer’ metaphor to explain how things ‘really’ work. Yes, I know The Matrix came out decades after Omni’s heyday, but that kind of anachronistic association isn’t my problem, it’s how this kind of rubbish works. James Flint (and CC Hari Kunzru]) rightly points out this guy basically does to Kant what all those Mojo Risin’ hangabout fans did to Pere Lachaise, but it also does it to much more recent and plainly relevant thinking like, um, cybernetics. A snake isn’t really a snake? OMG WHOA DEEP… (“Mr. Descartes, would you like a coffee?” “No, I think not—” POOF!) The point isn’t that the cybernetics crowd was or wasn’t ‘right,’ but that there’s an intellectual history to everything this guy is saying — and that if he wants to propose a ‘radical’ thesis, he should maybe get some of those basics down. (Otherwise, how can he knows his thesis is a radical break? WHOA…) But, as John Belushi used to day, BUT NOOOOOO… This kind of attention-seeking techno-con-game depends entirely the use of computational metaphors for consciousness, and it does violence not just to philosophy but, more important IMO, to history. I mean, please, if there’s no ‘reality’ then there’s definitely no ‘history,’ right? POOF! And where do we end up? Pretty much the same kind of pop techno-schmysticism exemplified by…Omni magazine! WHOA…