Bibliograph

Picnic comma lightning, the experience of reality in the twenty-first century, Laurence Scott

Type

Label

Picnic comma lightning, the experience of reality in the twenty-first century, Laurence Scott

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Picnic comma lightning

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1053984430

Responsibility statement

Laurence Scott

Sub title

the experience of reality in the twenty-first century

Summary

Drawing on the intersection of philosophy, politics, and memoir, an existential meditation on personal loss and the role of digital tech in how we find meaning in today's world illuminates the transition into self-defined but vulnerable intangible realities. --Publisher"In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Humbert Humbert offers a memorably brief account of his parents' death: 'picnic, lightning.' Picnic Comma Lightning, too, opens with death--that of Laurence Scott's mother--because, for a philosopher, death raises a profound existential question: How do we know what is real, especially when we have come to question the reality of so many of our day-to-day experiences? Writing from the intersection of philosophy, politics, and memoir, Scott transforms his personal meditation on loss into a beguiling exploration of what it means to exist in the world today. It used to be that our lives were rooted in reasonably solid things: to people, places and memories. Now, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming flimsier and more vulnerable than ever before. Scott's far-ranging examination charts the ways our traditional mental models of the world have started to fray. He ponders how ubiquitous cameras reframe our private lives (an event only exists once someone posts the video), how mysterious algorithms undermine our attempts at self-definition through their own data-driven portraits, and what happens in those moments when our illusions about reality are ruptured by incontrovertible facts (like the death of a parent or a bolt of lightning). 'A report from the front line of the online generation' (Sunday Times), [this book] is an essential account of how we've started to make sense of our strange new world."--Dust jacket

Table Of Contents

The life fantastic -- Bedtime stories -- The end of things -- Optical disillusions -- Double vision -- Backstage pass -- Romance languages -- Fellow-feeling -- Bolts from the blue -- Final fantasies

Creator