In terms of theoretical situations, this one is among my favorites:
Say you were to create two robots: one that could see and explore the world with fast moving legs, and talented eyesight; and one that was very slow and had no vision, yet had arms and built in schematics for creating new robots like itself and its companion. The only purpose for this couple of robots is to create more robots like themselves, and to use any means of surrounding materials to do so...
Would this be like recreating the Garden of Eden? What sort of things would we learn about ourselves if we watched their experiences?
Saturday, April 24, 2010
War on Nature
While in philosophy this week, we talked about Darwin, and this was what came to mind during these conversations:
With the way that the world has been changing since the introduction of humans to the puzzle of oh so many pieces that make up the earth, there has been a constant increase in methods to avoiding the natural way to do anything. Some examples you can keep in your mind for the rest of this chat include: going out to find food, curing natural diseases, creating genetic clones of people/animals, even in some cases physically talking to another person.
The question that is reoccurring in my mind is that: will we ever fully defeat nature at this game? Is there going to be some point in time where we will fully break away from nature and create our own advanced style of living to which there are no natural flaws?
Well my argument to this is that nature's weapon of mass destruction is the ability to create variables to situations that seem to have no flaw. Nature's variables (like animals that are designed to kill us, diseases, and weather) are what it has to our advantage in this fight. The reason behind this is that unless we can defeat every single possible variable, then nature will always have a way of snapping back at us to keep humans in line.
But the tantalizing topic point here is: what if we could actually defeat every variable that nature could have provided? I think that the answer is simply this: if we manage to break away from nature, then nature’s last resort would be that it created humans with the incapacity to be completely efficient in its work. Thus the flaws that humans defeated within nature would only lead to flaws within the design of sed human creations: leading to new "human made" variables.
The answer is that even if we could defeat the nature that was given to us, we would only have become nature in the process, creating new flaws for other creatures to deal with.
Do you think that there would be a different outcome?
With the way that the world has been changing since the introduction of humans to the puzzle of oh so many pieces that make up the earth, there has been a constant increase in methods to avoiding the natural way to do anything. Some examples you can keep in your mind for the rest of this chat include: going out to find food, curing natural diseases, creating genetic clones of people/animals, even in some cases physically talking to another person.
The question that is reoccurring in my mind is that: will we ever fully defeat nature at this game? Is there going to be some point in time where we will fully break away from nature and create our own advanced style of living to which there are no natural flaws?
Well my argument to this is that nature's weapon of mass destruction is the ability to create variables to situations that seem to have no flaw. Nature's variables (like animals that are designed to kill us, diseases, and weather) are what it has to our advantage in this fight. The reason behind this is that unless we can defeat every single possible variable, then nature will always have a way of snapping back at us to keep humans in line.
But the tantalizing topic point here is: what if we could actually defeat every variable that nature could have provided? I think that the answer is simply this: if we manage to break away from nature, then nature’s last resort would be that it created humans with the incapacity to be completely efficient in its work. Thus the flaws that humans defeated within nature would only lead to flaws within the design of sed human creations: leading to new "human made" variables.
The answer is that even if we could defeat the nature that was given to us, we would only have become nature in the process, creating new flaws for other creatures to deal with.
Do you think that there would be a different outcome?
Response to Megan's Miraculous Animals
In response to Megan's stories about particularly intelligent animals:
(http://darkworldjazz451.blogspot.com/2010/04/response-to-alex.html)
I have been thinking about this story with the horse and it is really fascinating to me. I think with respect to that specific story, I would need to have more information (to the point that I would argue that I would have needed to be there to fully appreciate the situation's intensity) so that I could appropriately argue the truth behind it.
But that is more trailing away from what I got excited about in the first place, for it is the mystical side of this specific story that is catching my attention so strongly. I think that I would like to believe that animals have certain senses that are just amazingly more talented than humans to the point that they can provide miracles as suggested in that story. But part of me can't shake the idea that even if they had the ability to tell these certain things, why would they be so interested in helping the human beings that are keeping them captive? It seems frighteningly selfless of a horse that has been locked up its entire life within a barn community to decide one day that it is going to help a little girl with her tumor situation. This makes me think that if they actually had the capacity for that much compassion, then they would indeed have a superego that is present; that they would help when they felt it was appropriate. The sheer lack of other examples of this compassion leads me to believe that it is unfortunately not present...
But then again: it did happen, and I can't deny that it was possibly purposeful. So I will leave the open minded idea that in outrageously rare occasions, animals may have brief bursts of superego that is present to give them the ability to help out.
(http://darkworldjazz451.blogspot.com/2010/04/response-to-alex.html)
I have been thinking about this story with the horse and it is really fascinating to me. I think with respect to that specific story, I would need to have more information (to the point that I would argue that I would have needed to be there to fully appreciate the situation's intensity) so that I could appropriately argue the truth behind it.
But that is more trailing away from what I got excited about in the first place, for it is the mystical side of this specific story that is catching my attention so strongly. I think that I would like to believe that animals have certain senses that are just amazingly more talented than humans to the point that they can provide miracles as suggested in that story. But part of me can't shake the idea that even if they had the ability to tell these certain things, why would they be so interested in helping the human beings that are keeping them captive? It seems frighteningly selfless of a horse that has been locked up its entire life within a barn community to decide one day that it is going to help a little girl with her tumor situation. This makes me think that if they actually had the capacity for that much compassion, then they would indeed have a superego that is present; that they would help when they felt it was appropriate. The sheer lack of other examples of this compassion leads me to believe that it is unfortunately not present...
But then again: it did happen, and I can't deny that it was possibly purposeful. So I will leave the open minded idea that in outrageously rare occasions, animals may have brief bursts of superego that is present to give them the ability to help out.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Life is Absurd My Dear
One of the more interesting conversations that came up in our class this week while talking about existentialism is this statement that "Life is Absurd". The thing that is said to explain human life as absurd is this fact that we choose to continuously occupy our time with activity for no apparent reason.
I think that my answer is two sided, for it is biological and artistically amazing that we choose to use our energy as we do. We occupy ourselves with projects that will consume our time alive as a result of all of this energy that we have, and it is just the most amusing way that we can utilize it. In the long run of things, all living forms on earth do the same thing: why does a plant grow? what is the point of a tree? The amazing part about humans is that we enjoy creating, and we are really good at it, because no other life forms on earth have the same capabilities that we do in our creativity. The reason this is a cool argument to me though comes in two parts:
The fact that we create with no reason is true, and it is absurd; however, in creating we have come to using our creative abilities to please and impress other humans, as a beautiful art form of expression: and thus not so absurd as it was just moments ago.
I think that my answer is two sided, for it is biological and artistically amazing that we choose to use our energy as we do. We occupy ourselves with projects that will consume our time alive as a result of all of this energy that we have, and it is just the most amusing way that we can utilize it. In the long run of things, all living forms on earth do the same thing: why does a plant grow? what is the point of a tree? The amazing part about humans is that we enjoy creating, and we are really good at it, because no other life forms on earth have the same capabilities that we do in our creativity. The reason this is a cool argument to me though comes in two parts:
The fact that we create with no reason is true, and it is absurd; however, in creating we have come to using our creative abilities to please and impress other humans, as a beautiful art form of expression: and thus not so absurd as it was just moments ago.
Response to Jenna's Question
This is an answer to Jenna's question about "kill thrill" and wether or not it is occuring because of what kids are taught these days.
I think that this is an interesting question, because the biggest problem on the table in this argument is the statement that children should know better because of what they are taught. I think that since you mentioned it I have been wondering why there isn't a basic "morals" kind of class for kids who are young. Then the thought that came into my mind is that it is probably because up until recently in our history, it was just expected that you learned morals from your family... but I think that this is an ideal that is dying away quickly.
So my thought for the answer of this would be that those kids who are involved in "kill thrill" are probably not getting their expected dose of morality while at the family dinner table, because half the time they probably don't have a full family at the dinner table to begin with. Perhaps the best solution would be to teach basic levels of morality through public school... but I feel like this would end in controversy; what are your thoughts?
I think that this is an interesting question, because the biggest problem on the table in this argument is the statement that children should know better because of what they are taught. I think that since you mentioned it I have been wondering why there isn't a basic "morals" kind of class for kids who are young. Then the thought that came into my mind is that it is probably because up until recently in our history, it was just expected that you learned morals from your family... but I think that this is an ideal that is dying away quickly.
So my thought for the answer of this would be that those kids who are involved in "kill thrill" are probably not getting their expected dose of morality while at the family dinner table, because half the time they probably don't have a full family at the dinner table to begin with. Perhaps the best solution would be to teach basic levels of morality through public school... but I feel like this would end in controversy; what are your thoughts?
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