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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

The Outer Limits, “The Sixth Finger” (Oct. 1963)

I think everyone's familiar with the Outer Limits, the science fiction television series in the 1960s. This series is required viewing if you want to study the 1960s because many of the plots were metaphors for societal problems of the times.

In another thread someone mentioned the meme about AI art mis-drawing hands with six fingers and it reminded me of this episode, which itself, speculates about super intelligence.

As with most sci-fi at the time, a lot of the science facts in this show are wrong, but the philosophical examination isn't far off. The machine that the scientist uses in the film and the premise is really just there to provide a platform to think about what it would be like to have an intelligence that was so far beyond current human capabilities.

I highly recommend this one.

(Note: Some copies of The Outer Limits that are on streaming services have spoilers right at the top of video, so you might want to skip the opening segment.)

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accessible video description:
the video shows an shortened version of The Outer Limits introduction; then it shows a young woman walking into a laboratory and talking with the scientist in the laboratory; then it shows the same woman in a pub with a young man who is filthy from working in a coal mine and the woman’s mean sister tells her to deliver another loaf of bread; then it shows a scientist controlling a lever pushing it toward the position marked “forward” and the man is inside a chamber, he is all clean, but he is affected by the machine somehow; then the scientist opens the door and the man is covering his face with his arms so the audience can't see what he looks like and a scientist looks at him astonishingly and it fades out.

(fair use, unauthorized trailer)