How to deal with reality when we're not built to

Philip K. Dick’s writing can be infuriatingly confusing. It feeds readers many ambiguoussignals that convey no real sense of closure—and The Man in the High Castle is no exception. Perhaps bewildering the audience is the intent, not a side-effect. We crave closure for many of the questions we find in Dick’s books, and he consistently denies us any real sense of arriving at definite answers. Lingering confusion and the gnawing feeling that the true nature of reality is just out of our grasp have been the dominant themes of both Dick’s narratives and philosophical and psychological studies for decades. Together, they all attest to how important understanding and embracing confusion can be in the business of dealing with reality

How to deal with reality when we're not built to

Philip K. Dick’s writing can be infuriatingly confusing. It feeds readers many ambiguoussignals that convey no real sense of closure—and The Man in the High Castle is no exception. Perhaps bewildering the audience is the intent, not a side-effect. We crave closure for many of the questions we find in Dick’s books, and he consistently denies us any real sense of arriving at definite answers. Lingering confusion and the gnawing feeling that the true nature of reality is just out of our grasp have been the dominant themes of both Dick’s narratives and philosophical and psychological studies for decades. Together, they all attest to how important understanding and embracing confusion can be in the business of dealing with reality

How to deal with reality when we're not built to

Part of the "Popular Culture and Philosophy" series. Our chapter provides an interdisciplinary perspective on how people deal with confusion and situations that push their cognitive abilities to the limit. Inspired by and analyzed within the context of the popular science fiction book and show "The Man in the High Castle"

Front-end process modeling in silicon

Front-end processing mostly deals with technologies associated to junction formation in semiconductor devices. Ion implantation and thermal anneal models are key to predict active dopant placement and activation. We review the main models involved in process simulation, including ion implantation, evolution of point and extended defects, amorphization and regrowth mechanisms, and dopant-defect interactions. Hierarchical simulation schemes, going from fundamental calculations to simplified models, are emphasized in this Colloquium. Although continuum modeling is the mainstream in the semiconductor industry, atomistic techniques are starting to play an important role in process simulation for devices with nanometer size features. We illustrate in some examples the use of atomistic modeling techniques to gain insight and provide clues for process optimization