Final Blog: Transcendance

 

 

THE TRANSCENDANT MAN

 

 

 

The Transcendant Man is the concept that humans can transcend biology due to the accelerating rate of technology change. It is the notion that humanity is now fast approaching an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non-biological and millions of times more powerful. Technology blurs the lines between humans and machines, and the real and virtual worlds.

 

 





 

 

This idea is originated by Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is an American scientist, inventor, author, futurist, and the director of Engineering at Google. In Google, he's currently heading up a team; developing machine intelligence and natural language understanding. He holds twenty honorary Doctorates and a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions. Among his many inventions, he created the fist CCD flat-bed, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. He is a multi-millionaire and the author of New York Times Best Seller "The Singularity Is Near" and the protagonist of the film called "Transcendent Man: The Life and Ideas of Ray Kurzweil".

 

 

For the purpose of this project, I decided to create a blog as my hosting cite, I am currently still working on it. But using a blog as my web hosting cite for this project is best because its a cite where I can imbed many videos and images; while still being heavy on the amount of materials and text I use. I want this cite to be very informational with academic language. Doing a Blog will help me have freedom to also include my thoughts on the subject and design the webpage however I like. Since I learned how to do blogs in this class, I thought it would be appropriate. But what I like the most is that I can tweet this blog with our class hash-tag #Dig311 and immediately contact you all as my audience.

 

 

 

Ray Kurzweil refuses to accept the unavoidability of human physical death. This inventor proposes The Law of Accelerating Returns. This law is based on the fast increase of information in technology. Ray Kurzweil notes that this fast increase in technological information will cause Singularity. What he means by Singularity is a point in which humanity and machines will merge, allowing one to transcend into biological mortality. This means that advancements in genetics will help provide the knowledge to reprogram biology. In doing so, this will eliminate disease and stop the aging process. The goal of this nanotechnology is to keep humans healthy from the inside of their bodies through the use of robotic devices that provide a human-computer interface within the brain. Artificial intelligence or robotics will provide the ability to back up the mind creating the possibility for superhuman intelligence.  

 

 



Bolter ch.9 & 16

"The virtual traveler sees and interacts with bodies, not minds, and she must be inclined to deny the traditional hierarchy in which we are minds and merely have bodies" (pg.249)


     

     I found this quote by Bolter to be very interesting. After rereading it a few times, I found myself disagreeing with it. My opinion is that a virtual traveler only sees and interacts with minds, and instead must acknowledge that we are composed of a mind and soul within a body. This is my belief because in order to have real interaction with bodies, I believe one's physical self should be there face-to-face with the other person. Even virtual communication, as in face-to-face through a webcam or Facetime will never be the same or equal to the physical interaction of having someone literally right in front of you. 

Bolter Ch.6 & 7

Who is The Artist?!?

 

 

 

*Blog prompt:

         Watch the following videos (one, two, or all three), please. You don't have to watch the whole thing. Who is the artist here? Is it the graphic designer, or do you believe the programmers and engineers behind the creations are? Is it only one, a combination of a few, or are all people who work on them artists in their own right? Explain.

 

 

 

 

*My Answer:

          After briefly watching a few sections of every video, I believe that all the people who work on them are artists in their own right. My reason for this is because it takes every one from the graphic designer to the programmers and engineers behind the creations to work together and make the final master piece. So much needs to happen during the process to be able to have a great final product. Without the help of all the artists involved in these creations, the final product wouldn't be what it is. I believe that the process is as important as all the artist involved in these videos.



Hyperlinked Science

Hyperlinked Science

 

 

 

 

*Blog Prompt:

 

                 "In regards to hyperlinked science, Weinberger discusses the Internet as a distracting and ‘dizzying’ place that can often lead us to unexpected places. Do you agree with this statement, and in your experience have you ever felt overwhelmed by the abundance of information on the Internet? Or do you think that it allows our inquiries to be “free flowing and uninterrupted?” Explain how hyperlinked science relates to knowledge and abundance". (Carla Couture)

 

 

 

 

 

*My Response:

 

               I agree with Weinberger on that the Internet can be a distracting and
'dizzying' place that can often lead us to unexpected places. In my personal experience, there has been times in which I have felt overwhelmed by the abundance of information on the Internet. Times when I have tried to really focus on a research project but kept getting distracted by shopping pop-up ads or other websites. In my opinion, it just never works out to try to go online and just visit one webpage. In this way hyperlinked science relates to knowledge and abundance very well.  The internet has no limit to its knowledge and can easily cause someone to feel overwhelmed or even lost at its use. I can even bet that at some point in every internet users life, they have felt overwhelmed or lost at the use of the internet or a webpage. Think about it...have you ever felt this way or know someone who has?!?  IF SOO... I WON MY BET LOL :)

 



Violence

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The Smart Room

                 


   HOW SMART IS THE ROOM YOU'RE IN?

               The book "Too Big To Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now that the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room" by David Weinberger, expresses in depth statements about the modern technological world we are all living in today. Modern society today, revolves on an evolution of technology. This technology keeps advancing right before our eyes with every second that goes by.

 

 

          

     Weinberger makes an interesting argument based on our knowledge about technology networking. Weinberger states that "as knowledge becomes networked, the smartest person in the room isn't the person standing at the front lecturing us, and isn't the collective wisdom of those in the room. The smartest person in the room is the room itself: the network that joins the people and ideas in the room, and connects to those outside of it". This notion is interesting to me because I picture this "smart-room" as the Internet.  

 

   

 

 

 

 



    The Internet has provided us with an immense amount of knowledge and networking possibilities and\or opportunities. Before the Internet, it took us longer to do research and receive information on anything we were interested on. People would have to search for hours throughout many textbooks or go around asking people questions. But now, thanks to the Internet, that is no longer the case. The internet has provided us with a "knowledge overload", as Weinberger says, which in my opinion has helped us have an easier life. It is so much a part of our daily lives that personally, I can not imagine a day in my life without having any access to the internet at all. Overall, the Internet is THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM!! I cannot think of any human who is more knowledgeable than the Internet....can you?   

Buck vs. Bell Case

                                        
                                BUCK VS. BELL CASE

Eugenics is defined as

a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of race or breed.

                     There are positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics seeks to make the human beings the best they can be (more creative intelligence). An example of this is artificial insemination. Negative Eugenics attempts only to eliminate genetic weaknesses. Examples of this are genetic screening and sterilization.

 

                        This case was between Carrie Buck vs. James Hendren Bell, the superintendent of State Colony for epileptics and feeble minded.

 

Carrie was 18 years old with the mental capacity of a nine year old and
her mother had the mental capacity of an eight  year old child.  James Hendren Bell sued Carrie Bell for having a child because he did not believe feeble minded people should have children.  

 

 

 

 

The Supreme court basically ignored the 14th amendment by  

upholding a statute, instituting compulsory sterilization of the unfit for the protection and health of the state by stating:

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for the entire world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”

 

              Unfortunately, Carrie Buck lost the case and ended up being sterilized against her will. I found this case to be very interesting because it presents the question of how much does the law regulate humans? Lawmakers believe that “The state’s interest in improving the quality of a population’s genetic pool in order to minimize suffering, to reduce the number of economically dependent persons, and possibly, to save mankind from extinction arguably justifies the infringement of individual’s civil liberties.” But is this always fair?