Blade Runner - A Warning from the Future

Ridley Scotts vision of the future is disturbingly real in its depiction of technological progress amidst a world in social and moral decline. This is not Alice in Wonderland stuff. Scott created a future some 37 years in advance of 1982 and he is not far off the mark. We can see how the world imagined by Philip K Dick and visualised by Ridley Scott, is actually coming to pass. It's not rose-tinted, shiny and sparkling. Blade Runner depicts a dehumanised, highly technocratic, advanced-stage corporate capitalist society. It is grimy, dark and bleak and presents a fantastic allegory for our own modern dystopian world that is crying out for change, and what direction we are going in if we don't... or even if we survive.

The special effects are astonishing for it's period. No CGI anywhere in sight, except I think the 2007 digital remaster did include a few tweaks here and there. Unlike modern blockbuster movies the effects don't spoil the film but are there simply to embellish the story and make the world of Blade Runner more plausible and believable. It works brilliantly. An original score by Vangelis just adds further layers of depth and dimension to this highly unusual, original and classic film. It is arguably the best film ever made, and personally my all time favourite.

But what will a future civilisation really look like? We can imagine a world in fifty or a hundred years time, but what will it look like in, say, a thousand or a hundred thousand years? Since there's no conceivable end point in terms of civilised development, no one can ever know, so it's pointless to even speculate about it. The future is the great undiscovered country.

One thing is certain however: nature and natural processes will always remain the same. The universal laws of nature are in every sense epic, yet timeless. If you could travel billions of years into the future or the past you would find that physical laws do not change, and that nature looks and behaves exactly the same throughout geological time. Time is a human construct we use to measure linear motion in three dimensional space and to scientifically quantify the physical properties of matter which exist in a perpetual state of flux. In every other sense, it is meaningless.

For humans to survive long into the future, we are going to have to rediscover nature within us and form a symbiotic relationship between the synthetic and the organic. The future is not going to be the synthetic monochrome vision of a single or handful of futurologists and engineers, but an organic evolution resulting from our democratic participation in practical problem solving and decision making, combined with our innate desire to remain connected with nature and the natural processes of life. Civilisation is an artificial construct, but we need that artificiality to organise and build for the long term sustenance and survival of the species, embracing natures best attributes while rejecting its worst effects.

Technology is not something we should fear, but we do need to guard against dangerous humans who may seek to apply technologies by stealth without proper consultation and democratic decision making. Engineers and technologists, for example, are still working on the idea of creating artificial intelligence without understanding what "intelligence" actually is. A super advanced technological society that works to emancipate and liberate individuals is not about rejecting nature but building for intelligent integration with it, such that we do not turn into dehumanised mechanical beings devoid of emotional sensibilities. Technology and mechanisation is about freeing us, not enslaving us all over again. Our emotional bond with nature is as eternal as nature itself, and we must never lose that "spiritual" connection. No "intelligent" machine will ever be able to understand or replicate organic emotional intelligence in its truest and purest form. Mother nature - with regards our innate moral compass - must be the nurturing arbitrator between the synthetic and the organic when it comes to personal, social and technological development.

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