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PHILOSOPHERS NEWSContemporary philosophers · ideas · books
Philosopher
Writer and philosopher of science and technology (1921–2006)
Poland · d. 12 September 1921 (Lwów, then Poland, now Lviv, Ukraine); by Lem's own account the true date was 13 September, altered on his birth certificate out of superstition about the number 13 — 27 March 2006
Polish writer whose fiction and essays worked out the limits of knowledge and of contact with a radically non-human intelligence. Summa Technologiae set out a philosophy of technology that anticipated virtual reality, which he called phantomatics, machine intelligence and molecular engineering. He wrote in Kraków for most of his life.
John Wisdom was born on this day in 1904, Stanislaw Lem in 1921, and four boys from Montignac walked into Lascaux in 1940. Between them they raise the same awkward question from three directions: how far can we trust the grip we think we have on what is out there?
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Georges Bataille, Stanisław Lem
