Films in which philosophy of
mind is salient may, like films in which metaphysics is reconfigured, run the
risk of not being understood. The
Matrix (1999), however, depicts solipsism (or, “mind in a vat”) in a
way that viewers could grasp the philosophy without much difficulty. Dialogue,
image, and narrative all contribute to give audiences a coherent sense with
which they can go on to look at their daily lives as if they were illusory
rather than real. Sixteen years later, The Imitation Game (2015) brought
to audiences a salient question that would become more pressing during the AI
revolution: How does the human brain’s thinking differ from a computer’s
thinking?
The full essay is at "The Imitation Game."
