Daryl Bem and Minority Report

Found this piece while browsing something else and was amused to find that it was an interview with Jonathan Schooler tying the work of Bem to the "PreCogs" of this series: http://scienceandfilm.org/articles/2919/minority-report-and-precognition

I haven't seen Minority Report discussed with frequency, the last time was when Eric Fargo was the guest of the podcast, which is odd since they depict psi as extremely credible but not entirely infallible, leaving room for free will. I know that the Fox miniseries was dull as hell, but the novel is actually quite good (classic 1950s sci-fi) and the 2002 film is passable.

PS- For reference, this is what a "PreCog" is in that fictional universe: http://minorityreport.wikia.com/wiki/Precog
 
Ah I just saw Minority Report - it was a bit weird that you only have a choice if you know the future...but then Dick despite having the label of "science fiction" comes off to my limited reading as a gnostic.

For example it's interesting to me that he authored the following limerick:

Determinist forces are wrong
Though irresistibly strong
But of god there's no dearth
For he visits the earth
But just for sufficiently long

I don't want make another free will debate thread out of this one, but I think Dick was very much inline with those who think the nature of the world is a kind of Veil fooling us into mechanistic interpretations.

Been reading a book about tying his work with that of Henri Bergson but don't have much to say at the moment beyond noting it...
 
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