Just Looking ...

Dr. Sagman's lecture on nanotechnology was quite the eye-opener. The things new technologies are capable of are truly amazing. Things that were once not possible seem to be almost effortless with nanotechnology. With today's advancements, new technology is almost inevitable, and Dr. Sagman made a note about that fact during his talk. This is probably something we'll have to get used to during our lifetime. Because these new technologies are appearing so fast, there doesn't seem to be anyone who is regulating it, which is very concerning. For example, cloning created a lot of concern when it was first introduced. People feared that a superior race would be created since specific genes could be selected and take over the world. It seemed those science fiction novels would become a reality in the near future. However, the government created laws that restricted what could and could not be cloned. In Canada, human cloning is banned. I think with time, the government will step in to enforce regulations on what scientist can and cannot do. People will voice their opinions regarding new technology and the ethical concerns that follow it.

I just wanted to share this video which is a parody of the “I am Canadian” commercial. This commercial is about a Quebecois who does not consider himself Canadian. I thought it was reflective of what we were discussing in class today in regards to the Quebec separatist movement and how Quebec has their own form of national identity and culture which is humorously presented in this video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1-XbZL7Lns

The Economist Feb 23rd:
The deed is done. On February 17th Kosovo finally declared its independence, becoming the seventh state to emerge from the Yugoslavia that self-destructed in the early 1990's. Had it been a republic of the Yugoslax federation, like Croatia or Slovenia, it would no doubt have been independent long ago. Buut it was a province of Serbia and that difference means Kosovo, for the forseable future will not be a "state" like the others.
Me:
Is the difference that the mention more that geographical lines? Are they talking about cultural identities that separate a nation from each other in a way that separate states are more recognize than other?
The Economist:
"Kososvo is done" says Migjen Kelmendi, editor of a newspaper called Java. Praphrasing a remark that followed the creation of Albania in 1912. " Now we need to create Kosovars." He means that Kosovo needs to have its own distinct national and cultura identity, and not to be swamped as is happening now, by imports and influence from Albania.
Me:
Is the separation between 'us' and 'them' pivotal for the formation of a state?
How are peaceful and not extremist ways in which Kosovo can gain its sovereignty over the land, people and culture of the newly formed state?
what do you think?

Here are some videos of the amazing abilities of current robots. With the ability of some computer programs to "learn" from their mistakes, and later correct them (sometimes with human help i.e. voice recognition software that improves with each use). Maybe the thought of fully functional robots capable of "evolving" and developing a mind of their own isn't so much of a stretch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091ugdiojEM&feature=related
this video fittingly came from horror.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l882xbFywho

When Professor Kalmar was describing his idea of the faceless horde, I thought of a possible similarity in cultures today. First I think I should clarify that my thought is not at all meant to offend anyone, and it is merely a strange analogy to the class content.
I was thinking about how people from a particular ethnicity think that the people of other ethnic groups look the same. For example, I have heard that some Asian people who have immigrated to Canada find that all white people look the same (or quite similar), and this is true in the opposite sense, for white people who have not lived in a culturally diverse area (they find it difficult to distinguish between Asian peoples, or perhaps Native American, Indian, and other ethnicities as well - whomever they are not familiar with). This can actually be quite an issue in eye witness testimony, as someone who is not familiar with another ethnic group could accuse the wrong individual of committing a crime, just because they look too similar (in the eye witness’s mind) to the actual criminal.
Anyway, my point is that, perhaps, the filmmakers of sci-fi movies (I, Robot, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc) that include these “faceless hordes” of enemies (robots, clones, monsters, etc) could have based this concept on the supposed innate capacity in each race to over-generalise the appearance of other ethnicities. Perhaps this way of thinking worked a long, long time ago, before exploration and immigration, when different countries were ethnically homogenous and had to defend their land from other races. They viewed the “enemy” as one large mass of indistinguishable foreign features, just as the humans in the movies view the robots, clones, monsters, etc.
Obviously, this behaviour is not applicable to the world we live in today, as we all know to co-exist and treat each other as equals!

The lecture by Dr. Uri Sagman was a great glimpse into the potential of the human race to accomplish amazing tasks, particularly in the field of medicine. But as comments in class and tutorial show, there are also serious questions regarding this new field of technology. Although I cannot remember everyone who brought up these questions, some of the points raised were "who is controlling its development and who is benefiting from it?", "how can we be sure it is not used for the wrong ends?" and related to this, someone mentioned that the U.S. military has usually been at the forefront of new technology such as this.
Dr. Sagman's consistent response seemed to be that all new technologies have benefited mankind in some way or another, after initial defects are worked out and social adjustments are made. However, the fact that he cited nuclear energy as a case in point did not convince me. Even if we overlook the reality that nuclear energy was developed as a weapon in the second world war, it still presents a threat to humankind, as I am sure the inhabitants of Chernobyl will attest. Sagman also mentioned that nanotechnology could increase the average human lifespan by 10-20 years. I believe it was Anna in tutorial who mentioned that this is meaningless if you don't take into account whether human happiness improves. Marshall McLuhan pointed out that we come to serve technologies that we rely on (like the car). Are we happier now that we have to spend time commuting in our automobiles everywhere?
If I had to place a bet, I'd say Big Business and governments are dictating the nanotechnology industry. Perhaps governments should regulate it, but should corporations concerned with profit as their bottom line be entrusted to develop these technologies that, as Sagman himself said, could be used for more efficient surveillance of human beings? He brought up Bill Gates as an example of an altruistic billionaire who can be entrusted to do good for humankind, citing the charitable work he has done in developing countries. But how much of his fortune, proportionately, does Gates spend on charity? There are many detractors of Gates and his empire. According to David Shenk, the U.S. Justice Department held federal hearings in 1998 over the question of whether Microsoft (Gates' company) "engaged in anticompetitive tactics to establish what amounts to a monopoly over various sectors of the software industry" (http://davidshenk.com/webimages/THENEWREPUBLIC.PDF, 1998).
One last criticism, which directly ties into our fear of clones. Dr. Sagman said "biology as a system is really not that different from other systems of information." That would imply, for example, that the brain is not that different from a computer. And it is no coincidence that Bill Gates has been quoted as saying "I don't think there's anything particularly unique about human intelligence." I asked Dr. Sagman after class what he would say to a humanist who is afraid that we will completely explain away what it is to be human. He said that he could not address consciousness - it was far too complicated and not part of his field.

While I was looking over the reading for Zizek in the course reader, I came across the section entitled "The 'Thirteenth Floor' of the Fantasy Space", which described the disproportion between inside and outside. While reading the little excerpt from The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag where the characters roll down the window of the car that they're driving and find that the "grey and formless mist" was slowly drifting inside the car, I was reminded of this Stephen King story I read called The Mist (which was recently turned into a motion picture), where this mist overtakes this town and is hiding something sinister (monsters that threaten the safety of the people in the town). The mist in this story traps everyone, and whoever ventures out is attacked by the monsters and is never seen again. (For a better synopsis, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist) Both mists in the stories represents the "unreal" that the people in the car are separated from, but once they come into contact with the mist, there is the potential that they'll be subjected to something beyond their reality. I might be getting it confused, but I just wanted to put it out there. :D

The discussion about clones on Tuesday got me thinking about the cartoon show - Clone High that use to appear on Teletoon before it got cancelled in Canada. The show is set in an American high school and the students that attend the school are clones of famous historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Ghandi. I thought it was a humorous take at clones which rarely surfaces in pop culture since Hollywood generally depicts clones as the enemy (ex. Star Wars: Attack of the Clone and I-Robot) The humour of the show comes from the concept that the clones are not reflective of their historical descendants instead their personalities are completely contrasted. Here's a character synopsis I found on IMDb:

Abe Lincoln: A naïve yet nice guy, forever wrestling with the legacy of his clonefather, Abraham Lincoln.

Joan of Arc: A cynical, regretful, and angst-ridden goth clone of Joan of Arc with a crush on her best friend, Abe.

Gandhi: Buckling under the pressure of being a clone of Mahatma Gandhi, he has become a non-stop party machine instead, probably in an attempt not to think about it so much.

Cleopatra: A sharp, sultry, seductive, cruel and manipulative clone of Cleopatra.

JFK: A pretty boy, sex-obsessed captain of the football team and soccer team who believes he is doing a pretty good job of living up to John F. Kennedy, whom he calls, "A macho, womanizing stud who conquered the MOON!!"

You can check out episodes of Clone High on Youtube!

A linear timeline cannot change the past (strictly philosophically-speaking). Going back to change the past, you will inevitably fail because of the paradox of killing your grandfather. So it would also mean that going to the future, you will also inevitably fail in changing the future. Which means your future is set, your actions are preset and your future predetermined.
In my opinion, it seems to make more sense if time branches into all available possibilities. For example, today, I either have the choice of going home, or going to rob a store. In the timeline, there are the two possibilities (and possibly even more possibilities) that branch off from our timeline. I have the choice of which act to follow. If I decide to go home, then I take that particular branch of the timeline. Then what follows will be further branches of future possible outcomes/decisions I can make. Or I can decide to rob a store. What follows will be a different series of decisions to be made than from the branch of merely going home, since robbing a store is a different branch of the timeline. So it allows the past to be changed, since there are now possibilities rather than being stuck with only one timeline. Mind you, travelling back in time may even produce new branches for the “past self.” However, I haven’t really figured out how travelling to the future works. Which branch do you end up going to, if there are so many branches of possibilities? Do you just end up in the branch which has the highest chance to occur?

So why do we perceive time as linear? Is it another cultural construct? It may be due to our conception of people. We tend to perceive people as having fixed personality traits. This is reflected in our justice system. People are punished for their bad deeds, and we perceive them as innately bad, has having personality traits that makes them commit crimes. Once found guilty, the crime follows them around in their “permanent record,” and they are stigmatized. The linear timeline reflects this ideal of crime and punishment. Because you have done a bad deed, you deserve be punished. This reduces the agency a person has, as his actions are controlled by his biology. This also reflects our faith on biology and science. It also allow us to look back on his history as being inevitable, as there is only one timeline, to which it would seem to be unchangeable.

A timeline with branches would not work so well in our society. It undermines science and biology, as it increases and emphasizes on human agency to choose their own course of actions. It goes against the notion of fixed personalities, as there is the possibility that your personality can turn out very different because it can be shaped by your experiences, rather than being born with it. Which leads to the idea of actions performed as due to context rather than personality traits. I had learned in another course that laws were originally created by the powerful to protect themselves and to control and subjugate the less powerful. If the context is emphasized rather than personality traits, then it leads to the understanding of actions due to responses to society. It can point out to social injustice and inequalities of society. Timeline with branches does not support the “blame the victim” scheme of our society, and I think it may be why our society views timeline as a singular, linear line.
Does anybody have anything to add or anything to refute? I am still exploring this idea, and I am not really sure if what I say even makes sense.

As Prof. Karmar suggested, we can't change the present by changing the past. This is illustrated well in the 2002 remake of "The Time Machine" based on a novel by H.G Wells.

Near the begining of the movie, the protagonist's fiancé is killed, and in order to save her life he invents a time machince to travel back in time to prevent her death. Although he succeeds saving her from being shot, to his dismay she is killed yet again a mere few hours later. No matter how many times he tries to alter the past, the ultimate consequence is of his fiancé dying (even though the cause of death is different).

I just thought this as a good example to what the professor was talking about. Although, I am curious as to how nothing else changed in the present when the past was altered, because we are lead to belive that if one thing changes in the past, the present might be completely different. In this plot, nothing else changes except for the way she dies.
This also leads me to another question. The time machine was invented because of the fiancé's death, and if she had lived it would have never existed. So how is it possible for the protagonist to use the time machine to go back in time to save her, and then use it right after to return to his present? The minute he saves her in the past, the time machine should have become non-existent, restricting him from travelling back to his original time. This then leads to the matter of there being 2 clones in the past (since he would've been stuck in that time period). If anyone has seen this movie, and has an explanation or if I'm wrong about the plot or sequence of events, I would love to hear it.

The idea of idolatry always nagged at me because it seems as if something is missing. The idea of idolatry seems like a circular reasoning, at least in the religious sense. The basic idea is that the creation of an image to represent something such as god is degrading because the image is then idolized as god himself. It also degrades the all-powerfulness of god through the impossible task of representing the powers of god into something less than perfect. But this idea seems to me as a faulty argument. In order for the image to be idolatrous, isn’t it necessary to assume that the image is a representation of god and all his power? The image becomes idolatrous because this assumption is made. So for the taboo of creating images to represent god, this taboo in itself establishes the relationship between images and idolatry.

It seems to me that the more focus is placed on images as being idolatrous, the more the images become idolatrous. Why can an image of god not simply be a vehicle that aids in the practice of a religion? Why not preach this idea rather than ban all images? Are human minds innately susceptible in viewing images as living representations of whatever it is thought to portray, or is it just due to our own creation of the symbolic system, one that has led to the rise of culture? If so, then is it the rise of culture that has given us the ability to commit idolatry? I am not quite sure what to make of this. However, my personal opinion is that by banning images due possible idolizing, it creates blind adherence to the symbolic, tying us into hyperreality due to the assumption of images as being more than simply a symbol. To break from this (or at least understand the world as symbolic), we must remove the ban in order to understand the truth of the images as simply a vehicle of the symbolic as opposed to being the “truth.”

(Note: I know the topics I'll be mentioning are a bit old, but I never got around to posting this.)

Do places have "aura"? Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, and I'm one of those people who fall helplessly in love with a foreign place despite not having physically been there before. The past winter break, I had my first trip to Europe.

Upon arriving at my first destination of Rome, the initial excitement of finally being able to visit the EU after many years of desiring, but not attaining, died down rather quickly, and the little annoyances of travelling started to get the best of me. The graffiti-laden walls that lined the streets, the traffic that didn't have much regard for pedestrians, the endless cobblestone streets that looked amazing but killed my feet due to the unevenness -- everything just seemed exacerbated. I even started to question why I couldn't bring myself to feel more absorbed in the experience.

Maybe it was just the sheer amount of tourists everywhere I went that made everything less appealing. On Christmas day, I visited the Basilica di San Pietro in Vatican City, and the number of people there for service was minimal, while it was hard to penetrate the crowd to take a look at Michelangelo's Pietà. To most of the people there, the church has probably lost its original meaning, and is a museum exhibiting arcitecture and artwork from centuries ago.

In my opinion, tourists can be divided into two general groups: people who snap photos endlessly trying to get perfect shots of their surroundings, or people who take a couple of photos before enjoying the scenery with their eyes and not the camera lens. I would say I'm part of the former group, and as a photography fanatic, I take pictures of everything -- food, street signs, buildings, floors... There isn't anything that wouldn't make a perfect subject of a photograph.

It's as if I just want to take everything home. But it's impossible to capture everything, no matter how many photos you take. Something is always missing. It could be the three-dimensionality imposed onto a two-dimensional piece of paper or everything that is beyond the edges and can't be seen anymore. Just "something." Maybe it isn't even the photo itself, but the fact that I may have spent too much time with my photos, and not with the "moment," if there actually was one. How do people know they've spent enough time at a tourist attraction anyway?

Looking at the photos again, like one with me standing among the sea of people in front of the Château de Versailles, there isn't really a concrete sense that I was there. All I have to go by is that one photo. Transportation is so convenient these days and people have many choices of when and where to go or to settle. As a tourist, I already started to miss the space I was standing in while I was standing there, because I knew that I wouldn't be there the next day.