is the internet really bad for us?

in class this morning we discussed about the statistics that describe that the internet isn't good for us. according to these stats, people who use the internet are less empathetic, mmore lonely, more depressed, and have poor communication whith their family. personally, i have to disagree with everything. although there are people on the internet who have these problems, i think the internet is not the cause, but it's an outlet or comfort for people who already have these problems. what do you guys think?

Discovering the T.O.E

Scientists have been working on the Theory of Everything (TOE) for many years. This theory would ultimately prove the existence of God. I am personally a very faithful person and if they were to prove this theory, I'm not sure exactly how I would feel about it. If this theory were to be proven there would be some people who might change their minds and become faithful which would be a good thing. However, people who are already faithful probably wouldn't agree with it. This would be because it goes against some of the things we believe in. Eventhough you might not see God or be able to prove his existence, that is what makes his power so great. Being able to believe in the unseen takes a lot. We don't necessarily need this theory to be proven. The evidence is all around us. The earth with it's beautiful scenery is evidence as well as ourselves. Who else could've thought of our different organs and how to make them function just right? So what does everyone else think? Does the Theory of Everything really need to be proven for us to believe fully?

The multiple self

The article ”Heidegger and Borgmann on how to Affirm Technology” on page 317 has an excerpt from the New York Times. It states “we are becoming fluid and multi-sided. Without quite realizing it, we have been evolving a sense of self appropriate to the restlessness and flux of our times”.
I feel that this coincides with a very important part of Heidegger and Borgmann’s hypothesis. The changing nature of technology and its place in our lives is changing us. Our culture itself has been changed so that the ability to be flexible and multi-talented, capable of reinventing oneself and adapting has become desired. I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing, however. While I am speaking from inside that culture, the idea of confining oneself to a single, unchanging ideology seems to be at odds with human nature. It is not the purpose of the human to make the personality, but the other way around. While there perhaps exists problems in the idea of fluidity; such as a loss of actual personality and a constant state of flux, it makes sense that one should change based on their surroundings. Perhaps it is the result of our technological world that I cannot think of a different state of affairs.

New Facebook and Other Matters

From Dan Gillmore in today's Guardian

If you buy a refrigerator for your home, it's yours. And once installed, it's going to work the same way for the rest of its working life, letting you organise perishable food inside a cold space.

But in the world of technology, once you buy something – or, even more, become a user of a web-based service – there is a very good chance that it will change. And increasingly, the changes come with a take-it-or-leave it choice – which is to say, little to no choice at all.

This comes to mind this week as Facebook announces the latest array of changes and improvements to the social media platform that has become by far the biggest global network apart from the internet itself. Many of its users consider Facebook to be integral to their lives, but they will live with the new features – some of which sound quite useful – or they will leave. At least some of its users have already told journalists, based on some news leaks, that they are outraged.

The Facebook changes come only a couple of days after Google added many new features to its much-less-developed Google+ social networking product. Google's users welcomed the additions, but who's to say that a year from now Google won't turn the product in radical new directions.

But it's not just web-based products and services that change radically. The more a company has market power – that is, the more captive or happy its customers are with what they've been using – the more ability it has to shift directions in ways that make clear who is boss.

Consider what Apple did this summer with its new Mac OS operating system for desktop and laptop computers. Apple has been steering its business toward the iOS ecosystem it has created around mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) – a world it utterly controls. Mac OS X "Lion", as the new operating system is called, took on more iOS-like features and gave credence to some observers' belief (including mine) that Apple's long-range plan is to converge the two ecosystems.

Because I like the Mac, which gives me freedom to install what softwareI choose to install, and don't like the iOS restrictions on what software may run, that trend worries me. Moreover, I strongly dislike many of the new cosmetic and more structural features Apple has put into Lion. On the computer (not the one I use every day) where I've been testing Lion, I've had to do a series of tweaks to recover most – but not all – of the functionality I had with the previous OS. But if I buy a new Mac, I will have no alternative but to use Lion or its successor; Apple rigs its new hardware in ways that prohibit the operation of previous operating systems.

But it's Apple's ecosystem, not mine. And if I want to keep being a Mac user, I'm going to have to do it Apple's way, not mine. (I am making alternate plans, about which I'll say more here soon.)

The control-freak behavior by companies is worst when they change existing products that you've purchased and can't return. The latest egregious example comes from OnStar, a communications system sold with many General Motors vehicles. The GPS-based service has been marketed primarily as a way of letting others know if you've been in an accident or otherwise need help in your car.

But OnStar can do a lot more than that. It records, among other things, just about everywhere a driver has gone, and at what speed. And last week, OnStar changed the terms of service to allow it to use customers' data in just about any way it chooses – including selling it to other companies. The uproar was deafening, especially when people realised that even if they stopped subscribing to the service, OnStar could (and would) continue to capture the data and do what it pleased with the information unless customers explicitly disabled the devices. Thecompany's assurances that it would not actually misuse the information fell on understandably sceptical ears.

We're only at the beginning of this trend, I fear. Someday soon – count on it – governments will order car makers to install software and communications "services" that give government not just the power to know where you are, but also to govern your top speed or, should it decide it needs to do this, stop your car, dead, on the highway.

The point is this: the more our products contain software – and increasingly, code is integral to the things we buy – the more likely it will be that these products are not really ours anymore. The companies that sell them (or, in the case of web services, allow us to use them) will increasingly make decisions that they can change at a whim, or a court order. Probably the most infamous example to date took place whenAmazon reached into its customers' Kindle book readers in 2009 to delete copies of – irony alert – George Orwell's 1984, which, it turned out, were being sold illegally by one of its online vendors.

I don't expect bad faith to rule. Most of the changes will be upgrades, no doubt. But we will have no choice but to accept them. That's the problem.

Technology In Schools

Technology in schools is becoming very important in our world today, giving our children a better learning experience and the capability to obtain new material everyday. Technology can be both good and bad in this sense. I think that technology is great for our youth when used in the right way. Using technology to obtain information and use it for your overall knowledge is great but as these kids get older, the start to lose sight of technologies purpose. When they lose sight of the purpose, thats when they start to take advantage of it and do things they are not supposed to be doing.

These kids today use their cell phones way more often then they do using technology for good. I think that they are very dependent on these phones. Texting is becoming very popular in today's youth and is also becoming a distraction in school. These kids are spending more time texting others and less time paying attention in class. This is becoming an ongoing problem with teachers and faculty members of the school. Not to mention that the kids use the texting language. This abbreviates all of the words to make them shorter. This is messing with their grammar, these children know more about the texting language than they do with the English language, which I think is a big deal. Technology is good for the classroom when used the right way. If we can regulate what the children do with the technology, I think that they can get back to using the technology what its meant to be used for.

The Humanity of the Megamachine

Mumford in Knowledge Among Men defines the 'megamachine' as a self-propelled entity composed of all machines including humans, the most adaptable machines that can also produce machines. Humans still remain a necessity to the megamachine, but as some fear, robotics may take the place of humans, ejecting humanity so as to increase the efficieny of the machine. The purpose of this machine, if there is one, is not clear and seems to be limited to self-preservation.

After reading Mumford's selection and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, as well as the Japanese loose-adaption of the movie*, I came to a realization that the near-miraculous medical technology I dissuced of in my last post may actually be only a part of the bigger picture--Mumford's megamachine. What does medical tech do? It heals humans and cures them of biological diseases. Are not humans part of this machine, if not at least machines themselves? If so, health technology is only maintenance of the machinery of humanity. In this manner, medical technology is also part of Mumford's megamachine.

Human "maintenance," however, is not limited to biology, but also encompasses psychology. In Mumford's essay, he explained entertainment, role-play, and fantasy to be a method of keeping humanity sane from the constant, specialized jobs given them. Given that entertainment would be maintenance of human workers, would entertainment itself not be part of the megamachine if the above logic is taken as true? Entertainment takes up a considerable portion of society and its economy and includes many forms of media from television and movies to music and art to video games of which the average gamer is 37 years old according to an ESA report.

Given that work and entertainment (or simply play) are part of the megamachine, are humans completely engulfed by this machine? We may be seperable from the machine, but we may not be able to function without it. I fear technology is integrated into humanity. Our only option then would be to limit its scope of reality (if such a thing can be done). However, a single part of a machine can stop the machine in whole such as a plane's trim tab that appears to have been the cause of a P-51 stunt plane's failure, which ended in the death of the pilot and spectators (the elevator of the P-51 was missing it in a picture before the crash).

* The Japanese Metropolis lacks the same characters and plot, but keeps the setting relatively intact and presents robots as replacing human workers, leaving them in even worse condition then had they been working.

Aristotle's Principle

We learned in class more about Aristotle's Principle and a supportive theory on cognitive capacity. Basically, a cognitive capacity states that human brains can only handle and process so much information at once, and when we are stressed is because we have gone into information overload. I believe we strive to conquer complex situations because we enjoy the feeling of success that follows a triumphant victory over our problems. Humans, whether we like it or not, pursue complex tasks that require us to think and solve problems. However, in today's society we have become lazy and complacent, and we expect the technology to solve all our problems. Rarely does someone tackle a task without the use of excessive technology.
Along with Aristotle's Principle, we learned about Dreyfus' argument over a flat culture. This idea illustrates the uniformity of today's culture, and how boring our similarities have become. The population lives in subdivisions that consist of "cookie cutter" houses where they are so similar in stricture and design that is is hard to tell them apart. Also, almost all of our towns are set up in similar fashions where there are a vast majority of fast food restaurants and then a large supermarket. Society has become complacement with letting technology consumer our lives, and we have lost our originality as a culture because we are so concerned with keeping up with the latest trends.

Dreyfus-A leveled culture

Dreyfus argued that our culture has been leveled or flattened, meaning we lack culture and differentiation. This is undoubtedly true. The majority of the population lives in similar looking houses, wears similar clothes, drive similar cars, eat similar food, and owns similar smart phones. Religious and ethnic clothing are worn less. Mass production of similar goods and media have a huge part in why we have become dehumanized. Many people are vulnerable to a good commercial that is trying to sell them the latest fad. The more we are told something is "normal" or "cool" the more some fall prey to that idea, and the more large industries will produce to keep us 'flat'.

A.I. used in medicine

I recently heard on the radio that IBM was planning on using their super computer (Watson) in medicine. They said watson could be a valuable tool for diagnosing patients. Is it possible that one day A.I. could actually replace human physicians? I am not against the idea of using A.I. as an aid, however i do not feel the same way about using A.I. to completely replace the human physician. I do no think that A.I. would ever be able to think and act, as a human does, in the medical field. There is also a certain doctor patient relationship that they would simply not be able to replace. I hope i am not getting diagnosed by a robot anytime soon.

Further comments on Arostotle's Principle...

We had some good discussions going in class the other day in regard to our ideas on Aristotle’s Principle. I wanted to further comment (my own opinion) on this principle. I first want to comment on the gentleman’s comment regarding cognitive capacity. I really agree with this theory you brought up. But to further explain my own reasoning, I will begin by simply saying that I do believe humans are biologically programmed as problem solvers. Human beings have an unconscious need for complex tasks that require us to think and solve problems. However, I believe that the amount of technology thrown in our faces from very early ages can shape our brains in such a way that we become cognitively lazy. I have my own theory in regard to ADHD. I was born in the 1980’s and while I remember watching Winnie the Pooh as a toddler, I don’t remember watching TV in the way that most children do today. More and more I hear parents talk about sitting their kids in front of the TV as infants. And more and more children in today’s world are being diagnosed with ADHD. Infant’s brains are developing at an exponential rate, and if we are sitting those developing minds in front of a TV, then are we programming those minds around the idea that the world is fast moving?

I sat down and watched a kid’s show one morning for all of about ten minutes. I couldn’t even keep up with it, to be honest. It was nothing but insanely fast movements, colors, and sounds. I really had no idea what was even happening with the characters—granted, I’m sure it was meant to be funny. However, I thought about a specific child I know who was diagnosed with ADHD a year ago. I remembered observing her watching these types of TV shows and I remember her behavior after. Her behavior after the shows ended was extremely hyperactive. I also know that her parents began sitting her baby brother down in front of the TV when he wasn’t even old enough to hold his own head up. I am curious to see if he too is later diagnosed with ADHD.

Perhaps these parents are gearing their kids up to be cognitively lazy as adults too. I work on a mental health unit and I offer various group activities to patients. One of the activities I offer is art therapy. I am always astonished by the fact I only have a few people a day who are interested in participating. The activities I offer are basic. You don’t have to be an artist to get involved or enjoy them. In my mind, I would rather be doing something with my mind that is productive than sitting and watching TV all day. But I am always amazed at the amount of patients who tell me they would rather watch TV. (I understand the patients who are manic not wanting or being able to engage for obvious reasons.) It’s saddening in a way that our society is this cognitively lazy. Yes, the majority of our patients suffer from a form of depression… but my advice to them is always to make themselves get up and do something good for themselves. Some listen and do find they enjoy the projects I teach them. Some even tell me they will be continuing to do arts and crafts once released. But, there are others who just want to be entertained. So… again, I wonder. Could this be related to the massive amounts of technology thrown in their faces starting in infancy or early childhood?

Dehumanization through Technology

This past week in class, one of the ideas that has stuck with me is the thought if technology dehumanizing us. In my life I can actually provide an example of this that I experienced. When I first started college several years ago, I witnessed the social revolution known as Facebook. I remember the first invite I received to join, back when it was just restricted to college campuses, and thinking that it will last briefly. Now almost everyone has an account and "Facebook" me is part of our vocabulary. Human interaction moved to a realm where face to face was not necessary. In doing this we lost an important piece of what it is to be human and communicate through speech.

Aristotle's Principle true or with flaws?

I believe that Aristotle's principle has more truth to it then flaws. When a particular task demands more of us, we usually enjoy it more. This is because when you have finished the demanding task it is very rewarding. We feel a sense of pride when we have accomplished that goal.
With Aristotle's Principle I feel it somewhat depends on the person also. There are some people who like to be spoon-fed and take the easy way out and then others are very driven and are very proud when then have accomplished something they had to work hard for. There is a huge sense of satisfaction when the task is over. This is why many people play sports or take part in other focal practises because they are more challenging and are very rewarding no matter what the outcome.

Could technology replace God?

In a brief interruption to the series studying autonomy, I would like to discuss a simple philosophical question. Could technology truly ever replace religion? I don't mean in the sense of making individuals atheists, I'm referencing how the growth in technology can now fulfill roles that religion used to cover.

1. Religion vs. Technology as a measure of understanding for out world.

Religion tells us the world was created in one week by a kind and benevolent God who loves us, judges us, and promises us eternal bliss if we follow his set of social rules. The backdrop in this largely lies in faith, any evidence outside of this is sketchy at best, whether that be a near death experience, or our Mary “presenting” herself on a piece of bread. Technology on the other hand explains our world as a natural progression of random events, from the big bang to evolution, technology tends to try to develop a concept of understanding for everything. Many would claim that technology and science is superior in this sense as it requires logic, evidence and testing. However, truly how many individuals who use technology to measure their world truly understand the complexity of the big bang as governed by quantum mechanics? A jump of faith is required here as well, not coming to the conclusion that “It's a secret to everyone,” but instead coming to the conclusion “It must be true because some other people smarter than I understand it.”

2. Religion vs Technology as a societal focal point.

During a large part of western society we've focused our society around the church, up until the concept of the separation of church and state, it truly was one of the largest factors effecting our lives. This separation of church and state didn't even stem from a individuals wanting to shrink the churches role, it instead came from church philosophers wanting top preserve the holiness of the church. Since the separation, we have become a technological society, with every individuals carrying a cell phone and a laptop. While it may not yet say “in technology we trust” in our pledge, the fact that it can and is regularly broadcasted over the web implies this. With religion as a focus, we chose to concern ourselves with a preparation for a possible next life, with technology as a focus we chose to better this one as much as we can.

3. Religion vs Technology as a social comfort.

Religions roles as a comfort is an obvious one, the promise that an all loving God is looking out for us and doing what he can to make our experience a meaningful one truly can bring upon that warm and fuzzy feeling. Technology’s comforts are a quite a bit different. Most of technology and the sciences don’t claim that there is no God, they just instead chose to give people comfort knowing that if the individual can buy it, they can increase their quality of live. The individual is comforted by what human medical and recreational technologies exist and knowing that someone else in fact understands them.

In a brief closing, I am not proposing that technology and religion aren’t capable of coexistence, I am simply making an observation that modern technology can substitute old roles of religion. However, this is simply one observation, please leave your regards in the comments below. Perhaps, answerer the question of “What aspect of life does religion help us with that technology cannot.”

Teleportation...In The Not So Distant Future

Teleportation...the idea of almost instantaneously traveling from one point to another, has intrigued and perplexed people since the early 30's. Not only would it completely change the way people use transportation, but it would open a whole new section on science, mainly being physics.

If there was some kind ot machine to acomplish this feat, what would the reactions of people be? Would they turn to God in praise, resent Him? Would people abuse the technology (i.e. use it for unlawful doings)? What about control over the technology, protecting it as other technologies, like the nuclear warhead, have been protected from others (unless they figure it out themselves)?

Currently there is two theories of accomplishing this. One is essentially making a copy of oneself and sending the copy to the new destination, much like the way a fax machine works. Then the question rises about what would happen to the copy? Just kill it off? Would it really be the same person on the otherside (can we copy the soul, basically)?

-If you have ever seen The Prestige, this is what hugh Jackman's character does to himself after he aquires the Tesla machine.

The other theory is the breakdown of the matter to be sent, down to the atom, and sending it through a transportation medium (think fiber optics). While this way may seem to be physically more real than the first example, the technological hump that needs to be crossed is much more massive. Technologies need to be invented for every part of the process, including something to break down matter, down to the atom....a medium/wire that will transport incredibly small parts of matter....and then the hardest part, taking these atoms and recreating the matter just as it was before. Maybe we will have to have numerically ordered atoms.

What are your thoughts on the ethical issued posed by teleportation?

Who needs Technology?

Some people may argue that up to date technology is necessary for modern business. Most people would agree with this statement, however, sometimes this is not the case. My father is a self employed engineer that operates a steady business. He competes with all the major engineering firms that use the most advanced technology that is available for this particular field. My father, on the other hand, does everything with limited technology. The most advanced machines he uses for his business are the typewriter, to draft letters, a fax machine and a telephone. All of which are older than I am. I'm not saying that it is better not to use technology, I'm just stating that up to date technology is not necessarily vital for all businesses.

RoboCop

Albert Cy-Borgmann

The main point in Albert Borgmann's work is focal things and practices. A focal thing is something of ultimate concern and it must be conserved by a connection with practice. Borgmann once said "If we are to challenge the rule of technology, we can only do so through the practice of engagement." What he is saying is that if we dont want to live in a technologically ruled world, we must continue to practice the things that don't involve technology. This could include anything from running outside instead of going to a gym where one can watch their favorite talk show while working out, or a sporting event in general. Today many people are content with sitting at home watching their favorite baseball team play. Todays society relies on technology for things that in years past required no technology. The game of baseball has been played since 1845, and has only been showed on television since 1951. This just shows you that people were enjoying their favorite team and feeling the atmosphere of a major league game without looking into a box that shows pictures and makes sounds.

People need to realize that if we continue the way we are, there will no longer be focal things or practices in the world. Society needs to stop being so lazy and start doing things for themselves again. The only way that these focal things can be preserved is to practice them. And you know what they say, "Practice makes perfect"...

Hasta La Vista,

Terminator

Wealth and the Good Life

In life we all want all the wealth in the world and want to be living in the so called "Good life". Albert Borgmann talks about how the actual focal concern that we will see is misguided to think that focal things are being enetered in a competition with the concept of engagement and the Aristotelian Principle in a quest to reform technology. He says that only things that we experience as greater and other than ourselves can move us to judge and change technology in the first place. In life we have to go out experience the real things in life and get the actual experience of things to really understand the real meaning behind something. I agree with Borgmann and what he said because we have to experience the greater things in life first in order to judge something and to change it into something new.

Hiding Behind a Screen Name

Perhaps the biggest technological innovation in our world, the internet is doing way more than its original creators intended. The creators didn't know they were creating a sort of other world. in this world people can say whatever they want about whoever they want and suffer no consequences for it or ever have to own up for what they said. Thankfully, the blog we use is an educational blog so people don't usually say mean things. On other blog sites though, or IM sites or even social network sites, people hide behind a fake name or generic page to bully, ridicule, or harrass others. I think this is foolish, cowardly, and immature. In our world, our REAL world at least, people should have to defend what they say and if they hurt others, the "victims" for lack of a better word should know who's bad mouthing them and be able to stand up for them. I myself think it's pointless to argue or especially ridicule a screen name, but lately people that do this have really grinded my gears. Especially on Facebook, the new trend seems to be for people to start fake pages and harass other people they know by posting pictures and awful personal information about people they don't like. This to me is ridiculous and I believe these people are commiting crimes of harrassment and should be punished for their actions. In no world should such hurtful things be said about people and the person who said them not be identified. That's what a coward does.

The Dead American Dream

I would say the Aristotelian Principle is rooted in nature. It is engraved in our very sub concious of the human race. Look how far we have come. We would not be here if there was not a thirst and hunger to seek more and accomplish harder tasks.But I think our soceity has removed itself from nature. We are no longer part of nature, but part of the American dream. The American dream is dead. We killed it when we decided to stop thinking and responding. We just absorb and accept as truth; this is what has killed our thirst and desire. It has removed the glory of taking on a hard task, instead we just allow everything to be spoon fed and accept it as the American dream.

Aristotelian Principle

The Aristotelian Principle states that other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities, and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized or the greater its complexity. While discussing this topic in class several people stated whether this statement is true or not. In my opinion this statement is not true for all humans. I believe that there are humans out there who want to challenge themselves to the most of their ability. Some people strive to learn new things and take on new challenges. I believe though that most humans tend to stick to activities they are most comfortable with. Most people are scared to try new things because of the possibility of failure. The book explains that people work to become a master of chess because it is more complicated than checkers. Most people I know would not challenge themselves to learn chess because it is too complicated and they know they can be successful when playing checkers because it is common sense to them. I believe most people, including myself, take the easy route because it is much easier to always win, rather than to fail several times at something new.

A New Sports Scouting Report.... Statistics of Everything

We typically think of stats in sports as how many points someone scored or how many assists they had. This leads to basic assumptions of "hey that guys pretty good, we should guard him". But imagine if we could have stats beyond stats... like the fact that Kevin Durant, after dribbling more than 6 times, has a shooting percentage in the single digits. There is new technology led by syncronized cameras (Sports VU) around a stadium that track each players every move and can tell you everything you need to know about them. This new technology begs the question of how close teams will be related knowing the weaknesses and strengths of their opponents.

Here is an excerpt from the link that is posted below:
Durant's box score line read 44 points, seven
boards and four assists. SportVU,
meanwhile, detailed that he held the ball for a total
of 2:51, averaging 2.3 seconds on his 75
touches. He was good for 0.6 points per
touch, just up from his season mark of 0.5.
He ran 2.8 miles in all, averaging 4.1
mph. But the really interesting discovery
was that Durant dribbled 96 times, or 1.3
dribbles per touch, and that the more he
put the ball on the floor the worse he shot:
55 percent with zero dribbles vs. 3 percent
with six or more. Consider, for a moment,
the insights gleaned from this correlation.
If opponents know that Durant shoots
worse the more he dribbles, defenders
will force him to put the ball on the floor.

http://www.stats.com/media/ESPN_062011.pdf

Conversation: A Lost Focal Practice?

The ways that people communicate today are different than the ways they communicated 10 years ago, and the ways people communicated 10 years ago were different than 10 years before that. Communication technology, like all other types, is evolving rapidly. Communication that at one time took months to cross continents and oceans in physical letter form can now go into outer space and bounce across the globe in a fraction of a second. To communicate today, we have the option of phone calls, text messages, video chat, Facebook posts, blogs, etc., etc. See? It's easy to make a list of ways of available communication and leave face-to-face conversation completely out of the picture.

Conversation as a means of communication is a major example of one of Borgman's focal practices. In addition, conversation is an art that can be perfected and performed in a complex way, making it qualify as an example of the Aristotelean Principle as well. However, our modern technological society has made conversation somewhat of a lost art. New ways of communication make it possible to have close personal relationships with a person that one has never met, and such relationships can be started or stopped in no time flat. One can share detailed up-to-the-minute experiences with anyone, anywhere, and one can graduate from college without ever having met a professor or administrator. In a world with these realities, does personal conversation have a place in our busy lives?

I think that it's absolutely essential that the focal practice of conversation is preserved. Face-to-face communication is still the most honest, organic way to share one's thoughts. Anyone that wants to lie would most like to do so with a text message instead of telling it in person. Conversation makes our communication genuine, and in my opinion builds stronger, deeper interpersonal relationships. In the professional world, rarely is one hired without a face-to-face interview as part of the process. Employers value social (or "people") skills as part of the skill set of an effective employee. Good interpersonal communication is a hallmark of a good leader, and bad interpersonal communication is the hallmark of a bad one. The problems inherent in electronic communication are displayed in the cyberbullying phenomenon, where the inability to see the reaction to one's words can cause a complete loss of sensitivity and decency. When we lose the ability to use nonverbal language in both statement and response, an important part of our ability to communicate is lost. Deep, nuanced communication is one of the characteristics that sets humans apart from other animals. Let's strive to keep this essential part of our human identity.

Does complexity bring happiness?

It seems as if in today's society most people would agree that the Aristotelian Principle is flawed in that we, as a society, like to find the easiest way through things. Complexity on a day-to-day basis does nothing but cause us stress and aggravation. However, I think it is important before making a decision about the accuracy of the Principle that we understand the language Aristotle used. In our world today we think of happiness as a state of mind. We feel it when we are at a ballgame with friends or when we found out we just aced a test; it is a state of being that can appear and disappear at any given moment. With this definition of happiness it is very easy to assume that the Principle is indeed flawed. If we want to be happy, we do not want to take the long, hard route to get somewhere, we want to get there the quickest and easiest way possible limiting ourselves to little or no stress. Once we start to make things more difficult for ourselves our state of being moves further and further away from "happiness." However, this is not how Aristotle defined happiness. In his regards, happiness was an end product; it could not be achieved on a daily basis. Happiness, to Aristotle, is something that one must work towards his/her entire life. One can only say that they are happy at the end of life when all of life has been lived. Now, if we apply the Principle with this definition on happiness I can see where it will appear to be less flawed. At the end of our lives, when happiness is determined by how proud of our lives we are, how can we say we are happy if we breezed by the entire way never accepting a challenge? It's like in sports; we are presented with this new skill we think is impossible. It is so complex that there is just no way to do it; but then, we do it and we're elated. The happiness that we experience after accomplishing this difficult skill is far greater than what we would have felt had we simply dismissed the idea of learning something hard. Before we make assumptions about the accuracy of Aristotle's Principle it is important to understand just how he was using the language. To him, happiness could not be reached by watching TV rather than reading a book because that is a one time activity and not an end product. He would say, however, that a life filled with reading was far happier than one centered around the television. Aristotle believed that happiness comes to us when we live a life full of being presented with and overcoming challenges, not taking the easy way out.

Another Nugget from the World Question Center

I just discovered this on the World Question Center website. Please read and discuss:

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Media theorist, Author of Life Inc and Program or Be Programmed

Technologies Have Biases

People like to think of technologies and media as neutral and that only their use or content determines their impact. Guns don't kill people, after all, people kill people. But guns are much more biased toward killing people than, say, pillows — even though many a pillow has been utilized to smother an aging relative or adulterous spouse.

Our widespread inability to recognize or even acknowledge the biases of the technologies we use renders us incapable of gaining any real agency through them. We accept our iPads, Facebook accounts and automobiles at face value — as pre-existing conditions — rather than tools with embedded biases.

Marshall McLuhan exhorted us to recognize that our media have impacts on us beyond whatever content is being transmitted through them. And while his message was itself garbled by the media through which he expressed it (the medium is the what?) it is true enough to be generalized to all technology. We are free to use any car we like to get to work — gasoline, diesel, electric, or hydrogen — and this sense of choice blinds us to the fundamental bias of the automobile towards distance, commuting, suburbs, and energy consumption.

Likewise, soft technologies from central currency to psychotherapy are biased in their construction as much as their implementation. No matter how we spend US dollars, we are nonetheless fortifying banking and the centralization of capital. Put a psychotherapist on his own couch and a patient in the chair, and the therapist will begin to exhibit treatable pathologies. It's set up that way, just as Facebook is set up to make us think of ourselves in terms of our "likes" and an iPad is set up to make us start paying for media and stop producing it ourselves.

If the concept that technologies have biases were to become common knowledge, we would put ourselves in a position to implement them consciously and purposefully. If we don't bring this concept into general awareness, our technologies and their effects will continue to threaten and confound us.

Technology is Changing the Game!

Technology in sports is growing here in America. It is becoming part of the game, but is it right? I think that technology brings a lot of change to our sports that we know and love, but I think that its for the good. Look at football, where would it be without replay? It is very hard for a referee to make a call about whether a guy was in or out at the speeds that they are running. I think that it is better to get the right call then to let a team lose by the wrong one. Some people think that replay is taking away from the integrity of the game. I think that its just the opposite. How can you honestly want a game where the referees are constantly getting calls wrong, I think that that is taking away from the integrity of the game.

Take a look at baseball. This sport is desperately needs replay. Umpires are constantly getting calls wrong about if a player is out or safe, a lot of the times affecting the outcome of the game. Major league baseball needs to implement replay more than it already has, because I hate to see teams lose because of umpires, its just not fair to the players. Replay is a great piece of technology that is helping our sports, making them better for all of us.

Replay is being used in many different sports other than the ones that I mentioned, such as basketball and tennis. These sports are actively trying to improve their games by using technology. Replay is a great source of technology that is helping make our sporting world better. I think that this technology is being used in the right way and is not hurting our games at all.

What does everyone else think?

Aristotelean Principle

We discussed how the Aristotelean Principle says that as humans we would rather partake in complex things than passive things. I would say that this theory is flawed. Maybe this was true at one point but with society today people are looking for easier ways to get what they want. For example reading a book is a more complex way of getting a story opposed to watching tv to see a story, but now days most people including myself would rather watch television than take the time to read a book.

Email: A step forward or backward?

In class today we talked about the philosopher Borgman who wrote about focal things and practices. He expresses how focal things and practices come to light within modern technology. Borgman describes how focal things are the central things of life that we need to bring into focus, family life being a prime example. Borgman goes to say how each focal thing is connected to a focal practice, and technology cannot provide focal things or practice. Some examples he gives is running which connects us to the environment, culture of the table are sacred times for our families to connect to each member, hiking gives us insight into the wilderness, and etc. Personally, I think hand writing a letter should be on this list as well, something that very few people still do.

Hand writing a letter used to be the prime way of long distance communication, it was how nations communicated with each other, how scientists released there discoveries with other scientists, and etc. These hand written letters did not just prove as a way of communicating with each other at the time, they are now historians ways of looking into the past, an insight into how someone was thinking at that time. When you hand write a letter, you have to put time, effort, and personality into it, so the person receiving the letter will be able to read the letter for not only what it means, but be able to read the emotions that the writer put into it. With hand writing a letter, you could almost connect with one-another, email as almost completely destroyed that aspect of hand writing letters.

Email, or electronic mail, is fast, easy, and efficient. Scientists can spread their information across the world to other scientists to help make world discoveries, nations can communicate with each other just from a click of a few buttons, students can email their professors for questions from their own home, and etc. Email has led to text messaging on phones, which is not only extremely convenient, but it is the main source of communication across the the younger generation of today. So whats so bad about email? Email conveys the message from the writer to the recipient, but it does not convey emotions. Where hand writing letters would help bring two people together, show their true feelings, email does none of this. People used to wait for and become extremely excited when they have mail from distant relatives or anyone, but with email, we get more than we want, email which we call spam. People used to only receive hand written mail from family or friends, but now with email, it is more of a type of advertising and propaganda. Borgman claims focal things and practice only come to light in the midst of modern technology; because of email, we can really see how hand writing letters is a focal practice for connecting with other people rather than just broadcasting information. So is email a great technological advancement, or is it disconnecting us from the very humans we are?

A Singularity?

One of the beliefs discussed in class is that of the technological singularity, a point at which the machine becomes indistinguishable from humanity. The implications of this are vast; are these machines alive, are they really thinking as we think, ect? However this would go about, I feel that the idea that a singular, recognizable point at which this would occur, perhaps with an invention or innovation, which was expressed in class is unlikely to occur. I feel that it is more likely and reasonable that such changes would occur over a long (relatively) period of time than that they would happen overnight. The idea that computers will suddenly achieve sentience to me seems not well thought out.

Unnecessary A.I.

We watched a short clip in class about creating artificial intelligence and what we would be capable of doing with it. The idea of A.I. raises ethical questions and I believe that the creation of it is unnecessary. It is just our way to flaunt unnecessary technological advances. I feel we have no use for robots that can surpass humans and possibly take jobs away from people who need to feed their families. This technological advance I feel will cause more trouble and make our world even more complicated. Also, I feel it is unethical to spend the money and resources to create A.I. because that money could be used for other things that we actually need. The idea of A.I. goes into another topic we talked about and that is the freedom that technology gives us.
Mankind has become dependent upon technology, and therefore we have no freedom because of it. The use of A.I. will just become another technology that we do not need, but after we have it we will feel like it is necessary to live a happy life. In conclusion, the chase for A.I. is an unnecessary and almost unethical purpose that will disrupt our already chaotic technological dependent lives.

Bacon's four idols

Bacon stated that knowledge is power, and through technology (which feeds our knowledge) civilization is getting better. Bacon has four idols that he states society wrongly worships. These idols are tribe, cave, marketplace, and theatre. Idols of the tribe are reflections of ourselves and not those of nature. This is an idol of humanity and it inflates our power of thinking and causes us to believe that what we see is completely factual. Basically, Bacon is saying that we need to get out of our own way if we want to see the truth.
Next, is the idols of the cave. Bacon uses the cave to illustrate people who have not gone out into the world and seen with their own eyes and made their own experiences. These are the people who believe what others tell them, and Bacon states that we need to go out on our own and learn from our own experiences.
The idols of the marketplace illustrate the meetings of people with one another. The marketplace is known to be an area where people gather and communicate. Bacon says that these idols are because language gives us false seeing. Words often betray their purpose because they obscure the actual thoughts they are used to express.
Finally, idols of theatre illustrates the idea of a play showing a false world. Life is a stage in itself, and the theatre idol is that of a false world. This idol shows the false worship of our society to groups of theology, philosophy, and science because society follows everything these groups say because they are usually people of education. Therefore, we believe what they say must be true, and don't question them.

Does technology give man freedom?

An interesting idea was mentioned in class discussion on Wednesday. Technology gives humans freedom, the idea that man is free because of technique. This may be true in a sense, but the greater underlying reality is that modern technology is robbing man of freedom. Man has become dependent on technology for the necessities of life. As Jacques Ellul said in the text, “Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity.” In this modern age, technology does not necessarily give man freedom because the absence of technology would disrupt modern life. Technology has moved man from freedom to dependency.

For example during Medieval times, people survived without eletrical power. Typical day-to-day life continued and functioned efficiently. In today’s society if an electrical power outtage occurred, people’s lives would become disrupted. For example, traffic lights would not be operational which would lead to car accidents. Employees would not be able to work in offices, professors could not teach in classrooms, etc. And on a larger scale, whole industries would have to be shut down. The examples can be endless. Man has become so dependent on electricity that he could not accomplish much without it. Man has become so connected to technology that the absence of it would disrupt the necessities of life. This is unfortuante because technology builds upon itself. The absence of one technology would impact another form of technology and subsequently form a chain reaction. In a simple example, the technological product of a surge protector would be useless without electricity.

To conclude, Stephen Kline stated in the text, “Without sociotechnical systems, we humans might not exist as a species, and if we did, we would be relatively powerless, few in number and of little import on the planet.”

A.I.

A.I. is a hot topic based on what it could mean to the world. On one side you have the benefits, such as assisting the elderly and so on. On the other side you have the science-fiction type horror stories where the machines take over the world, i.e. the Terminator movies. This keeps A.I. in a constant debate of when have we went to far, but if we continually stop progress based on our fears wouldn't we still be living in caves? The key is to weight the benefits against the downside to see what is greater, that is how you stay ethical in science, there are review boards set-up to ensure research is staying in the ethical realm. A.I. is just the next step in progress.

wise philosophers?

in class today, we talked about some of the greatest philosophers of technology the world has ever known. such great minds like Stephen Kline (no, not the baseball player), Arnold Gehlen, and Martin Heidegger, the latter two being in a very influental group of thinkers called...the NAZIS?? what the flying hell?!? does anyone else feel very uncomfortable that we're taking the philisophical thinking of two people who helped shoot and gas over six milion innocent people?? these characters are very morally questionable considering their backrounds! call me crazy, but i find it hard to believe that the same people who imprisoned and slaughtered innocent lives because of how they were born would have much to say that would be considered deep. whats next, are we gonna have rapists become marriage councelers? if there is a person who took part in several war crimes, i wouldn't be looking to him/her for philosophy! what do you guys think?

Advances in Technology

I originally thought technology was not ethical or unethical it just depended on the people using these technologies. But people are trying to advance technologies just to prove we are capable of it when some of the technologies don't really have practicall purposes. Trying to do things like creating A.I computers that could pass as humans is just taking it too far there is more bad that could come out of it than good. Also trying to bring people back to life and using technology to live forever has no advantages, we are meant to use the time we have on earth to try to get to heaven, not to try to stay on this planet forever. People will try to continue to advance technology until we live in a completely fake world.

A Study of Anonymity Post 2

Anonymity and the internet have become one in the same on a vast majority of the websites. This break from reality can even become the core component of a virtual world like the World of Warcraft. Last week we've delved into the basic concept of anonymity. This week we shall discuss what happens when the break from reality is threatened and how those anonymous individuals will share their lines of thought on the issue.

In July of 2010 Blizzard games, the company responsible for the massively popular Warcraft and Starcraft franchises decided to unveil it's Real Id system where gamers who wished to continue playing these games must register their legal name with Blizzard, only then would they have access to the game forums. A representative from Blizzard commented the following,

“Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven't been connected before.”

While several media outlets simply viewed this change as a way for Blizzard to make its forums more pleasant and a way to drive the trolls away, gamers were not so unanimous on the decision. In fact, the fourm post discussing this topic was so hot (it received well over two thousand responses in a single week) that Blizzard was truly out numbered when the majority of players made comments about how this sort of change would ruin their hobby and take away “the most important part of the game.”

A writer for the Washington Post disuses how Blizzard philosophical mistake here is that anonymity isn't necessarily the issue. The issue is unaccountability. As Plato has discussed, anonymity brings unaccountability where even a moral individual becomes immoral due to the lack of consequence. This brings us to an ethical question regarding anonymity. How far does the right to be anonymous go, if there is a right at all and how does it interact with the ethical concept of an individual being held accountable for their actions. In past centuries anonymity and unaccountability were one in the same, but with the advent of technology IP addresses and computer virus's can remove that anonymity and make an individuals identity known, thus making them accountable.

Briefly, back to the World of Warcraft, Blizzard's CEO the very next posted on the forums that,

"As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums."

Through this example we see that while technology does not cause the philosophical problems, it does change their nature and practice in a basic practical fashion. Perhaps truly to make judgment on the line of where anonymity end and accountability to begins we must examine several legal cases in the following weeks to see what the courts have decided on the issue. However, before we discover anonymity in practice, we must delve deeper into the effects anonymity has on the human conditions and the reasons for the deep desire of unaccountability. As a social experiment for the next week, it may be interesting to seal ever blog post written with your legal name, just to see how it effects what you're posting on the web, just something to consider.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30zhuo.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257832

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/07/world_of_warcraft_real_names.html

http://blog.iternalnetworks.com/2011/anonymity-on-the-internet/

iPad's In Schools, Good or Bad?

Original Article: http://tinyurl.com/schoolpad

The above article is about schools switching from textbooks to the Apple iPad. It illustrates a brand new step into the evolution of the way knowledge is presented. We can say that early humans passed on lessons through word of mouth, and then by hand written books, when Gutenberg invented the printing press, knowledge became available to the masses and no longer to just the privileged. Now, for the first time, knowledge has become digitized and interactive.

The article does list many, but solely positives of this transformation. Interactive apps geared towards teaching by doing instead of seeing a picture or chart, note taking, online testing, videos, and tutorials. It also has a capability to help special needs students too with pictorial learning, which is sometimes more effective that traditional lecturing. Also, it is stated that average textbook cost savings for an order of books would be almost $4,000.

Personally, I see this as a smart change to the way that knowledge is presented. I would be much more inclined to learn if I could see actual examples of the way that the circulatory system works in the body as opposed to reading about it and visualizing in my head what that would be like.

When I first saw this article, I thought to myself, "Well what's going to keep the kids off of Facebook during their class", until I read on and saw that they can limit what can be used on the iPad much like one can limit what websites can be viewed in a controlled environment, such as TMC.

Surely time will tell if this is the future of school or not, however most school districts feel as though the investment is worth it in the long run for the students. This is definitely a good example of how technology is constantly evolving in order to make life easier for humans, in this case learning. What are your thought on this topic?

Computers In Our Lifetime

It's incredible to think about how far computers have come in our generations short time here on earth. When we were born in the early 90s, if you wanted to use a computer, you had to go to the library or to a rich friends house. the internet was primarily used by the government and large businesses. No one had ever heard of facebook, myspace, or even instant messaging. Games were being played on Sega Genesis and no one ever imagined being able to play those games on a computer. But just as we grew up, so did the computer. Desktops became more popular and then you had to have a computer you could put on your lap. No longer was the internet used by only the government. Average peoplie could use it to get ahold of their friends far away. Kids could use it to play endless amounts of games on it. It's hard to think of what a computer used to be when you see what they are today. The designers at Microsoft or Apple had no idea their machines would become this complex, but because they have, those people have become some of the richest people in the world. It scares me to think about what computers will become as we get older. Things we see as science fiction will eventually become reality. Computers will run on our brain patterns so we won't need a mouse or keyboard. Who knows, maybe we will eventually live through computers.

A tool to make other tools?

In reference to our class discussions the past several weeks on tools, I thought this would be a fun and interesting video to share. As stated in class, "human culture and tools seem to be intertwined at the roots." We are constantly striving to create new tools to aid us in our daily lives. And if “tools are a means to accomplish ends” then new technology does indeed bring about a need to additional (new) means in order for us to meet additional ends!

Ironically enough, this device you will see in this video is a tool that can make other tools--or anything for that matter! It's truly as if it were pulled out of a science fiction movie! It leaves me puzzled as to what exactly a machine like this could mean for finding means to meet the new ends it has probably initiated. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw

Technology In our world

Technology is a symbol of epithet used for important working procedures and to represent progress. In our world today technology is used all around us and technology is the daily things we use in every day task that we perform whether its work or school or just regular activities. The most common usage of technology is said is used in the process of manufacturing equipment and addition to people who operate the equipment. The extensions of human capacities by us of sociotechnical systems are both quantitative and qualitative. Technology is leading to the expanding of humans capabilities and the things we are able to do now days which leads in the expansion of technology every single day. It said that the sociotechnical systems and the pattern in which humans use them to create the physical bases for our societies past and present..

Taste of Your Own Medicine

While technology may be considered as dangerous and have a 'will' of its own, many technologies are beneficial to human life. Of course, I'm not referring to temper-inducing video games, but rather medical technology. The use of technology in medicine has, as I have observed, grown exponentially. Today, we can keep people alive who would otherwise die in an earlier time period. The ICU (Intensive Care Units) rooms have some of the most amazing life-saving equipment. For example, the ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenator) machine will take over the functions of both the heart and lungs, when those organs have severe trauma, while these organs recover (Medscape). Then, there exists the dialysis machine which cleans out blood, supplementing damaged (or missing) kidneys. Next, the basic of all machines, the life monitors, a technology taken for granted. These provide the data doctors and nurses work with--blood pressure, heartbeat rate, etc. And, of course, don't forget about the ambulances, including air-care.

Now, some of the machines often only delay the inevitable. All humans die and age--even computers do as they age with time and become outdated and may eventually crash for good or be thrown out (How's that for death?). Some may see the ICU as being somewhat unpractical, such as using it to keep a 90-year old on indefinite life support. It's costly, and it takes away from that persons last years of life (Atul Gawande, "Letting Go..."). In other words, is holding back certain death ethical? Of more importantly, is the technology being used to do so ethical?

However, at the same time, is not advances in technology accounting for medical emergencies. With new technology, we live in a safer, yet dangerous world. With our understanding of viruses, we can label the movie "Contagion" as fantasy. Yet, at the same time, millions die in technological accidents--transportation (automobiles specifically), construction, etc. In some cases, new technology is also impeding medical technology. In an article from Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, entitled "Cyber War has Begun", a review is given of cyber warfare and new methods of murder are available--hacking. One can theorically hack into hospital systems and cancel life-support operations "before the medical staff knows anything is wrong." Heard of sabotaging breaks? How about doing so miles away via computer? Cars have computers, in fact multiple ones in lieu of having specific tasks (fuel injection, braking, etc.). Sick stuff right? now obviously, these hackers are at fault, but is society also at fault for enabling this and making humanity so vulnerable? Technology, like many other things, has its pros and cons--life and death.

A.I.'s In The Future

The video we watched yesterday morning that dealt with Artificial Intellegence (A.I.) really caught my attention. The idea of having robots that looked exactly like humans and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and us frankly scares me. I'm not sure how everyone else feels about that but I'm just stating my opinion. I would be afraid of what the robots would be capable of and what would happen if we weren't able to fully control them. The situation might be just like what happens in the movie "I Robot." In the video they made it sound as if being able to create these A.I's would be an amazing accomplishment for man kind when I feel it would be just the opposite. Granted, it would be a great accomplishment but it might not be the right accomplishment for humans. Robots would be very helpful with various things like laundry and other house hold chores but the question is do we really need that? I feel it would make humans lazy and not be able to fully take care of themselves. This wouldn't allow humans to live up to their full potential. They would have to rely on the robots to do a lot of things for them. Whether A.I.'s will be around in the future is still uncertain but right now we can all ask ourselves...would our lives change for the better if they were invented?

Technology and Achievement Gaps

This week in my Educational Technology course we discussed a topic I found to be intriguing and quite shocking as well... I'm sure most of us have heard something about the achievement gap in our education system, one of the subcategories is the gap between female and male students. It seems as if technology has actually had an effect on widening this gap in time. Research has shown that females and males respond differently to the use of technology in and outside the classroom making how and what they learn very different, especially at an early age. It is a proven fact that males tend to gravitate more towards the scientific/technological jobs than women and it is believed to be caused by the way boys and girls are exposed to technology throughout their development. In early childhood, computer games are actually beneficial to a child's development. However, most games are geared toward the male gender (shooting, racing, sports, etc.); thus, already turning girls away from technology. I think this is a valid argument and I think that it is important to realize how big of an impact a seemingly small issue can have on society.

The Ultimate Computer: is it necessary?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/3m-and-ibm-to-develop-new-types-of-adhesives-to-create-3d-semiconductors


The above link contains a video and explanation of a new innovation that is in production by the companies IBM and 3M. The idea seems is that they will create a silicon substance that will allow them to stack computer chips together, creating an even faster microprocessor for today's computers. This could make computers 1000 times faster than they are now.


This is a good example of how new technology leads to more technology. The technology to develop the silicon layers for the chips has now led to a super computer. This seems like a good idea for large companies who use a large network which can be slowed down when hundreds of people are using the same connection. But why would anyone need a PC that has a microprocessor that is any faster than they are today? In my opinion this technology is not necessary. Computers are already fast enough for personal use. This would be a waste of time and money that IBM and 3M could be spending on something that could better benefit our society.

I'll be back,

Terminator

Technology In Classrooms

Technology in classrooms has been growing exponentially. One of the first technological devices used in classrooms was calculators. That was considered evolutionary in its time. Only a few people could even afford them. Today, technology has been more and more incorporated into classrooms. The one the students of Thomas More are most familiar with is the smart board. This is a whiteboard that is connected to you computer. Although, this is relatively new technology to Thomas More, other universities are far more advanced.

The University of Cincinnati is a good example of the technological advances. For example, in the larger classes, they use clickers. These clickers track attendence and also are used to take quizzes. Each clicker corresponds to a particular student. The clicker is used for multiple choice quizzes and each student locks in there answer much like a game show. The newest thing they are experimenting with is performing labs for science online. All the data, materials and instruments are online. The student then can perform their experiment from their laptops. Pretty amazing if you think about it.
Sayonara
RoboCop

Ray Kurzweil-Idea of living forever

http://transcendentman.com/

The link above talks briefly about Ray Kurzweil and his ideas/inventions. The video mentions that he is working on finding a way to allow humans to live forever, and finding a way to bring the dead back to life. Humans are not suppose to live forever, and if we were God would make it so. However, that is not his will. Putting aside religion there is another reason why the idea of allowing humans to live forever is wrong. Resources. Where would we put all these humans if no one died but people still produced children? The world is becoming over-populated as it is now and ten years from now if no one died and new people were born there would be no where for people to live with privacy. We would lack the resources to sustain that many people as well. Food, power, water, air ect..would all be a huge issue. Philosophers like Ellul years ago already worried about our well-being in the future the way things are now. He feared we'd destroy ourselves through nuclear war. Others worry we will destroy earth and its resources. Bringing back the dead would only add to this population and resource crisis as well.

How many people does it take to fill up the world?

It is pretty believable from the readings (and common sense) to know that technology is growing in exponential form. If you look at a graph of this, the curve (as time increases) shoots up at a higher and higher rate. It's also easy to see that the more technology we have, the more people that we have on earth (close to 7 billion now). If technology keeps saving people then that just means an even more rapid growth of our populaton and a threat of overpopulation. The question that comes up is... is it ethical for us to continue our research in saving people? Or should we let nature run its course? If our generations primary job is to protect future generations, are we helping our cause by finding a cure for AIDS and curing some 30 million people in Africa and promoting even more third-world country over population? If a person knows someone who has an uncurable disease then they would easily say continue research and hope for a cure because that is human nature, but if we break away from human nature then what should we do?

Technology

People in our world refer to technology is several different ways. Technology has become such a luxery that we sometimes forget its true meaning. Technology is very important, everyone knows that. Technology is used to represent things, actions, processes, methods, and systems. Technology is also descirbed in symbolic ways to represent progress. There is new technology being created and discovered by human beings every day. Technology is something that does not impress us very much today because there is always new technology coming out that we have to own. An example is the iphone. People wait to by the newest version of the iphone which is the Iphone 3 because they know there will be an iphone 4 coming out that will be even better than the one before it. Human beings take advantage of technology, in my opinion. My generation is lucky to experience such advances in techology and it's hard to imagine what technology will be like 10 years from now!

Heidegger: Technology and Art

Martin Heidegger had no problem defining technology as a human activity that is a means to an end (The Question Concerning Technology, 1954). His search for the "essence" of technology, however, was much more complex. The Greek root of the word, technē, refers to both the works of craftsmen and the works of philosophers and artists. The word means a deep knowing, through which a revealing of truth is possible. Therefore, the essence of technology lies within the realm of art.

 

How are technology and art connected today? Surely, something that is especially useful as a means to an end can be considered beautiful or artful. Entire technological projects are undertaken to create a "new" goods that are more aesthetically pleasing but serve the same purpose as the previous generation (See: iPods - how many ways are there to play a digital music file?) In this case, the technology is serving another function other that a simple means to an end. We use technological advances to make ourselves more beautiful (cosmetic surgery, Accutane, the Shake Weight). Technology is a form of art.  According to Heidegger, this has always been the case. 

 

Technology is also changing what art is and how it is produced today. According to Neal Gabler of the Los Angeles Times, art has changed from discrete to evolving creations. Comparing the current art climate to a Wikipedia-like environment in which anyone can edit works, the authorship of art is in a transition from a single artist to the population as a whole. 

 

Because they are intimately connected, could a possible singularity in art foreshadow a coming singularity in all technology? 

Kurzweil and I, Robot

In class the other day we addressed a man by the name of Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is considered one of the world's leading inventors and is the go to guy when it comes to developing Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is defined by http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/artificial%20intelligence as follows;
1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers
2 : the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.
The basic premise form what I understand is that Kurzweil is trying invent a computer/machine that can think, learn, and react just like humans do. Upon doing so this new technology will become widely available in every day life in many different objects. The AI will then become tools in our everyday life and expand our human potential as a race. This is my best and most simple understanding of AI.
As I sat in class as we watched the video about Kurzweil and AI, I was taken back to the booming year of 2004. As I watched the video I could not help but think that this is the real life version of I, Robot! Now for those that do not know, I, Robot is a movie about AI...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0f3JeDVeEo
Above I have posted a link to the movie trailer on YouTube.

I will have to say that I agree with Will Smith's character in that AI seems to good to be true. Now I am not saying that AI does not have a place in this world, but I surly have no idea what that place it. I also am not saying that if AI ever becomes part of this world than I, Robot will happen for real. My basic point is that if as a society we are every going to utilize AI then we need to proceed with caution. This field has massive potential to do both good and or bad. It is our duty as citizens of the world to approach this new technology in a responsible manner and not let I, Robot happen, if its even possible. So moving forward I neither agree or disagree with Kurzweil and AI. This citizen claims ignorance till a later date...

Mandatory Microchip: Mark of the Beast?

As mention in class, we tend to think that the more we progress in technology, the more free we actually are. Hons Jonas claims that progress is an end in itself, technology is out of our control. He goes on to express that we are approaching a point at which AI (Artificial Intelligence) will take over totally and direct their own future. Ray Kurzwielz is not as pessimistic about this subject as philosopher, he actually accepts this and wants to progress with it. He believes we will no longer need our biology base.

The word of placing microchips within humans has been kept in secrecy within the government for numerous years and is now being tested on actual human beings. This microchip is said to be part of Obama's health care program, anyone on a certain health program will be required to have one implanted in their hand. All babies born into a family who already have the chip and babies who the parents cannot afford a sufficient health insurance will be forced into Obama's new health program. The government hopes to eventually have all future babies implanted with the microchips and possibly later in the future, everyone.

These human microchips can cause many benefits and problems, ethical and non-ethical. The benefits of these human microchips is that they will be able to record all of the humans health problems, giving medical doctors and nurses a more direct and correct way of diagnosing/treating patients. These microchips are said to be able to detect swine flue and etc. These microchips will not only be able to hold memory of our health, but all of our finances as well, giving a possibility of swiping your hand rather than your card to buy stuff. These chips are also said to have GPS tracking in them, giving cops the ability to identify and locate criminals in their acts.

The problem associated with this is that it is technology, and current technology is outdated each month. Computers, Internet programs, and etc are always being hacked into, so who's to say that the same thing can't happen to the chips implanted in us? Identity theft is already a nationwide problem right now with just credit cards; if we "brand" each of us with these chips, we will have a certain IP address associated with us, an IP address that could be hacked. With the GPS tracking, it may be just for the government, but there will be hackers out there that discover ways of getting into the system, being able to track our every move, giving burglars the ability to know when we are not home, or to just tell if anyone is in a certain house hold depending on the lack of human IP addresses.

This rises huge ethical questions/debates. Putting a microchip in every single individual is the same as branding each and everyone of us, just like cattle, while technology would be the farmer. Humans were once identified by words, actions, and looks; now they will be identified as different IP addresses? This would put technology at the forefront, while we, the humans, are the ones being experimented on. Implanting this microchip or branding of technology can be related to or the equivalent as the mark of the beast that is mentioned in the bible. With this passage in the bible, God also claims he will have no mercy on those who receive the mark of the beast, whether it be on their head or hand. So is this mandatory microchip giant step in the progress of mankind, or will it be the first step into a world where humans bow to technology instead of God?

This is the website where I found my information from.
http://www.tldm.org/news4/markofthebeast.htm