Writing is thinking, so here are my thoughts :)

I for one have to say that Tuesday’s class was probably the most enjoyable and thought provoking class to date. At times it was a little chaotic to the point that I had so many different thoughts I didn’t know what to do with them; however, I did manage to really sink my mind into a few. It was mentioned in class about how we are not born free and through some recently articles I have read, I would have to agree 100%. We are determined by our culture, environment, but in particular, our communication structures. It seems hard to believe that symbols and sounds we use to interact have such a huge impact on us. Let’s just say for a second that we were actually born free. Would that mean we could free our imagination from suppression? It would seem that way. But as we discussed in class, our imagination is funneled by our experience. So really, isn’t our imagination born from our experiences?

Something else I thought about during our discussion of artificial intelligence was the need for reason. I find it very difficult to fathom the idea that we will be able to create true artificial intelligence. Chris shared with us about his summer job, one of which I definitely would not have been able to do. I have enough problems reminded myself to blink when working on my computer at my own pace. Anyway, I don’t see how someone could replace his position. Our society will constantly be changing in what we deem vulgar or unacceptable and no inhuman thing, I believe, will be able to develop the needed reason. I guess I am therefore disagreeing with Licklider’s hope for the man-computer symbiosis. I know there is more to come in technological innovations, but I still can’t grasp the idea of artificial intelligence.

Finally, I was really intrigued with the idea of “bringing back the body”. We got into a pretty interesting conversation about gratification through video games. I am one to say that I find their addictive qualities detrimental; however, I was enlightened because I never really thought of how the gratification in a video game could very well be the same as in real or “body” life. My sister for one is addicted to gaming and it drives me nuts how much of life she neglects. Actually, as we speak she’s engaged in her virtual world with who knows all over the country. So in class it hit me. Who is to say that the gratification of a video game isn’t valuable? I’m sure there have been tests to calculate brains waves and the sort and I bet they show a sense of gratification. So there must be a reason we all don’t just play in our virtual worlds without pain (well I guess there is defeat and I’ve heard my sister many a times yelling at her group). The reason I came up with is the fact that no matter what we do, we can’t escape our bodies. Maybe when we die that happens, but as long as our body is alive, “we” are a part of it. And this body needs things in order to survive. So maybe the gamers have it right, but they still have to leave their virtual worlds in order to provide for their “containers”.