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RUPERT / CHRIS
I met Eales whilst at secondary school, where we happened to be let free to ‘boogie’ on a piano in our GCSE music lessons. Eales studied …philosophy…at Richmond Upon Thames College and then theology at what is now Roehampton Uni and I studied music at RUTC and then at Roehampton. I didn’t fare so well (at least academically) during a post graduate course in composition for film and TV at Kingston Uni but the experience did allow me the chance to become involved with the Transit Station exhibition/event which has taken me, as a pianist, from London - Berlin – Edinburgh so far and Copenhagen in 2010.
Like Eales I had been, and am still interested in the affect “powerful and endless stream of information that flows from terminal to terminal in every town and every city on Earth” on the social & cultural life of the planet.

THE BOOK
Chris Eales’ We All Know Too Much arrived in my Inbox via the “Highway” that was the "Internet" in 2006.

I recently (April 2009) asked him to explain how he came to write it:

"Studying Philosophy & Theology led me (as it has done for so many other troubled souls throughout history) to a sort of existential confusion, bordering on despair, and so I remained for many years, haunted by the ghosts of Descartes & Aristotle, and caught in the dilemma faced by any man who, like me, is in possession of a first-class imagination, but a second-class mind!
Slowly but surely, the rigours of rationality and certainty, were replaced by the illusions & delusions of literature & art, and I fell in love with dreamers & romantics like Ray Bradbury & Anne Rice, leading me to a more positive, more beautiful appreciation of life.
Questions as to the nature of consciousness, and the future of Humanity led me (like Asimov and others in the great pantheon of Science Fiction), to write a book based in the future, that wondered how Mankind might progress. My Theology background, and my fascination & indignation as to the horrors of fanaticism & religious fundamentalism, meant that these themes crept into the book as well.  And there we have my first proper completed attempt at a novel. The title of the book & main character came (literally) from a dream I had in August 2006. The title was intended both as a description of the characters in the book, whose knowledge gets them into terrible trouble, and also as a description of Mankind, and how knowing, learning and progressing (too much?) leads us inevitably to keep reaching, searching, and growing towards a destiny that none of us can really know, or guarantee.

We all know too much"

Where will the internet take us?

"the internet is an extraordinary & revolutionary step in Human communications"
(Eales, on Facebook)

Memory, Theology, Philosophy, Imagination, Virtuality, Humanity, Religion, God, Knowledge, Education, Evolutionary Metaphysics, Consciousness, Soul, Immaterial Existence, Politics, Money, Material, Space, Travel, The (London) Tube, Tokyo, Australia, China, Taste, Smell, Hearing, Exploration, Technology...

"The colony of New Earth was constructed over a period of 25 years. The UN World Government Council, or ‘The Leaders’ as most people usually called them, had conceived of the plan to build an entirely new habitat for the Human Race round about 2160, in response to the multitude of problems that had developed on Earth over the course of the C22nd.
They squabbled over it for about 30 years, and finally somebody somewhere managed to forge an agreement for it to go ahead. They started planning round about 2190, collecting resources & arranging finances. Construction was supposed to start in 2200, however various delays meant that they missed the turn by c3 years."

© Chris Eales, 2006-2010