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What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

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Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#41

Post by AngryParsley »

bjg wrote: post #40
aditya wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't the totem work if someone else touches it, though?

The point of the totem is that only you know how it behaves, and how it feels and how it's weight is distributed. If someone else has held and seen your totem, they can possible recreate it exactly in a dream. If they can recreate it then they can trick you into thinking you aren't dreaming when you actually are.

The totems seem to be pretty vulnerable to trickery, but the film didn't explore that much. For example, (spoiler alert) replace Joseph Gordon-Levitt's loaded die with a fair one. He'll think he's in a dream and kill himself. Making an ever-spinning top would be harder though.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#42

Post by djacobs »

jonursenbach wrote: post #31
djacobs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: When you read the title, did you imagine the article was by a female author?

The sex of an author who's article I'm reading has never crossed my mind. Who gives a crap if they're male/female? They're an author, they should be treated as such.

Okay, then another question: if after you read the title, someone asked you something about the author so that you had to "instantiate" the author in your head, which sex would you think of? Is it likely than anyone would think of a woman? Is it then true that we're hiding women behind a male pronoun? Surely it's impossible to picture a "prototypical human" without gender, no?

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in the strict male/female binary or in universal identity, and I don't know if a woman inherently writes different from a man. But I do think that language's assumptions shape the way we think, and therefore the laws we make. That is enough for me to seek a more neutral and equitable way of speaking.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#43

Post by bbgm »

adbge wrote: post #33

I found the movie didn't make a whole lot of sense at times. It felt like the writer cut a lot of corners when it came to the whole logical coherency of the plot. Maybe if we blow something up they won't notice! The plot was entertaining and a good idea, but it left a lot to be desired. It's not destined to become a classic like: Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Requiem for a Dream, Primer. If you enjoyed Inception, do yourse…

Movies are much too subjective. 12 monkeys had some fine writing, but the editing, direction, and acting are way better in Inception (IMO of of course). Is it an all time great? Not sure, but it's a darn fine movie

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#44

Post by ilovecomputers »

forkandwait wrote: post #7

Inception also understands "Big Oh" ideas -- when you are looping inside the third level down, you have 10 seconds on the outside giving you 10^3 seconds on the inside. (EDIT: a single "tick" in one level allows for 20 or so "ticks" at the next level of dreaming, because of extra brain capacity during sleep.) Hehe -- I loved the movie...

Except the human brain doesn't have the capacity to process so fast that seconds turns into years.

None the less, the movie was entertaining and I'm just gonna leave it there. I know movie logic shouldn't be a comparison to real world logic, but the geek in me can't help but point out illogical happenings in the film.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#45

Post by almost »

bmalicoat wrote: post #21
forkandwait wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this wrapping around because of the first "act", when washes up on shore? I still don't quite understand how that fits in, if someone cares to elucidate.

Spoilers Don't read if you haven't seen it yet! Saito dies at some level (if I remember right at the top dream level) and he enters limbo. Cobb goes there from the snow compound dream level but Saito has already been there 20-40 years (maybe they said in the movie, I forgot that too). Cobb then helps him remember Saito is in a dream so they can wake up together from the limbo state.

STILL SPOILERS

Except they don't, you never see them kill themselves (to exit the dream) or pass through the other levels of dreams, it just cuts straight to the plane. Then at the end he sees his kids, but they're exactly as they appear in his dreams. The top continuing to spin just makes it more explicit.

So he never made it out of limbo, when you see him awaking in the plane that's just him creating his own reality inside limbo, one where he gets to go back to his kids.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#46

Post by [deleted] »

adbge wrote: post #33

I found the movie didn't make a whole lot of sense at times. It felt like the writer cut a lot of corners when it came to the whole logical coherency of the plot. Maybe if we blow something up they won't notice! The plot was entertaining and a good idea, but it left a lot to be desired. It's not destined to become a classic like: Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Requiem for a Dream, Primer. If you enjoyed Inception, do yourse…

[deleted]

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#47

Post by chc »

bmalicoat wrote: post #18

Can someone explain why the zero g scenes didn't cascade down through each dream level? They were feeling forces in the first dream in the van and those would go to the hotel but those sleeping there would not feel the same forces (eg lack of gravity) the next level down. I did really love the idea behind the totem though, very clever.

They didn't talk about it explicitly, but in my mind it was connected to how the guy who got injured felt progressively better each time he went down a dream level. Dreams are affected by what happens above them, but it's sort of passed through a filter.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#48

Post by twism »

adbge wrote: post #33

I found the movie didn't make a whole lot of sense at times. It felt like the writer cut a lot of corners when it came to the whole logical coherency of the plot. Maybe if we blow something up they won't notice! The plot was entertaining and a good idea, but it left a lot to be desired. It's not destined to become a classic like: Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Requiem for a Dream, Primer. If you enjoyed Inception, do yourse…

I felt exactly them same way when I left the theater, but then I thought "isn't that the way dreams are?"

In dreams (at least mine anyways) there are solutions/objects/processess that suddenly, without explanation, just materialize out of thin air (but makes perfect sense while in the dream) to problems/events that occur in the dream and only realize how absurd the whole thing was when you wake up.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#49

Post by Scriptor »

forkandwait wrote: post #7

Inception also understands "Big Oh" ideas -- when you are looping inside the third level down, you have 10 seconds on the outside giving you 10^3 seconds on the inside. (EDIT: a single "tick" in one level allows for 20 or so "ticks" at the next level of dreaming, because of extra brain capacity during sleep.) Hehe -- I loved the movie...

Another cs-related theme was the massively parallel capabilities demonstrated by the unconscious. It's also interesting that it's decentralized and actor-based. No two projections were aware of each others' knowledge or events unless they directly communicated.

Re: What a Programmer Sees When He Watches Inception

#50

Post by Scriptor »

chc wrote: post #47
bmalicoat wrote: post #18

Can someone explain why the zero g scenes didn't cascade down through each dream level? They were feeling forces in the first dream in the van and those would go to the hotel but those sleeping there would not feel the same forces (eg lack of gravity) the next level down. I did really love the idea behind the totem though, very clever.

They didn't talk about it explicitly, but in my mind it was connected to how the guy who got injured felt progressively better each time he went down a dream level. Dreams are affected by what happens above them, but it's sort of passed through a filter.

Exactly, the dreamers in the van are feeling 0g, so they're dreaming in 0g as well. However, it's still a dream so when you reach the dream-within-a-dream level, the brain probably defaults to what it's more used to.
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