You’re free to order the book, and free not to – right? That’s a surprisingly controversial subject. Free will, consciousness, and many other aspects of our human experience remain puzzles to philosophers, neuroscientists, would-be programmers of artificial intelligences, and of course, science fiction fans. Pondering what would be involved in creating an artificially intelligent computer program is one of the thought experiments that can help us reflect on what it means to be human, to be conscious, and to be free.
But whether you think you have free will, and whether you actually have it, you still might buy the book. The only question will be why.
The TRON films actually have lots of interesting points of intersection with religion, in particular as they explore the analogy that humans (“Users”) are essentially the gods of the computer world, and in TRON Legacy as it explores – and problematizes – a creator’s (and a demiurge’s) vision of a perfect world.
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