Matrix Reloaded

Saw "Matrix Reloaded" yesterday on my birthday. I had heard some bad reviews from my kids, I was pleasantly suprised. Some of the scenes seem to drag out, but I really enjoyed the software land aspects of it -- that's where I live a lot of the time. So, the Matrix is on version 6.n, and it is time for v7.0, and they have to do a fairly complete reboot for each version. I liked the software only entities -- the Oracle, the Merovingian and his pals -- self-modifying or code-creating utilities from v2 or 3 of the matrix who had escaped deletion.

I believe in strong AI, which posits that mind can be instantiated in hardware other than the human brain (More on this in the future.) Matrix Reloaded takes that for granted, and is a major step past Matrix 1, which was more that humans could plug into VR (Virtual Reality).

I had intended to have more reviews of AI and cognitive science books here as I read them -- but -- haven't read that many lately. Overwork is the main factor, plus my son got me reading the George R.R. Martin "A Game of Thrones" and "A Clash of Kings". I don't read much fantasy anymore, but these are good escapist fare, and are written for adults. But -- 9 narrative threads, 1800 pages, no way he can wrap this in a third (fourth? fifth? ...) book.

Rule of thumb for the standard modern novel: minimum 100 pages per narrative thread. A couple of William Gibson's mid-career books violate this (too short by 100 pages are so) -- I formulated this when I noticed that the novels seemed "sketchy".