Blog #21 - The Time Macine

In the film The Time Machine, the theme of time travel was present. It made me question the place of time travel in our society. In the case of this movie the main character used the machine to go and see what the future holds and what lessons he might learn so he can pass on the knowledge. He also used it to go back and help the people rebuild their society. I think that in our society we would use it for negative and selfish reasons. I don't even think that we should have any business going into the future and past even to learn from it because I believe that everything happens for a reason and we shouldn't be altering history to make it to our liking. I thought that the storyline of this movie was very clever in the way that it went in a loop and then went back into the future. Besides that I thought that it was a pretty decent movie. The monsters that lived underground were creepy and freaked me out.

Blog #20 - Final Blog

i think that the most important thing I learned in your class had to do with the Frankenstein complex. During this unit we discussed that to have this complex meant that you were afraid of what you create or the possibility/knowledge of what you could create. I realized that in life sometimes this fear holds us back from things that could bring us further along in life or give you a life lesson. Then it made me think of all of the missed opportunities that I have passed.

I came into this class with the thought that all science fiction was about aliens and time traveling. I have learned about all of the different elements that come into play in science fiction. I learned of Extrapolation and the possibility of all of the cool gadgets that could come into play. I also learned about xenophobia and frankenstein complex and how these fears control our actions and how it plays into the storyline of science fiction stories.

My favorite unit this semester was the Frankenstein complex unit. I liked this unit the most because I enjoyed all of the short storied that we read during this time. I also really liked the episode of X-Files that we viewed during class. In general I loved watching the episodes and movies that you picked out because I feel like they complimented what we learned in class nicely.

Blog #19 - City on the Edge of Forever / Carl Sagan

                In City on the Edge of Forever, a point is brought up about our impact on the timeline of history if we were ever able to travel forwards or backwards in time. This episode of Star Trek shows how one action might change the entire history. In some cases, interaction with one person might have no effect but in some it might change an entire outcome. Another issue that was brought up was the notion that when we travel in time, we cannot be in two places at once. In this episode, the main characters are only gone from the others for a couple of seconds, but for those seconds they only existed  in one place at a time.

                In the article Carl Sagan brings up the point that all of us are time travelers in some sort of way because we are all going further into the future with every day we live. I don’t think that people really think of this concept because we don’t normally think of living our everyday lives as time traveling. I agree with Sagan’s thoughts about time traveling in the past. I don’t think it’s something to be messed with because it might mess with our own existence and fate/destiny wouldn’t be present. I also believe that we cannot simply go back in time to kill our grandfather’s. If we were somehow able to do this I think that somehow the universe would prevent it because there always has to be a root of a cause.

Blog #18 - Sound of Thunder / All You Zombies / Into the Universe with Steven Hawking

In Into the Universe with Steven Hawking, a question about whether or not time travel is actually possible arises. In my opinion, I think it will eventually become possible due to our constant discoveries and inventions in the field of science. But, if it does become possible in the future I think that there would be a major downfall. For example, being stuck wherever you are dropped off by the time machine.

In the short story All You Zombies, It raises up the point of if will we be able to see ourselves if we were able to travel backwards and forwards in the future. I think that if we could go backwards in the future that there would be a possibility of seeing ourselves because it would be apart of an event that already happened. But in contrast, I believe that if we were to travel into the future we wouldn't be able to see ourselves because we haven't been through that part of our life yet.

In A Sound of Thunder, it implies that time travel is a very risky thing and shouldn't be messed with. I totally agree with this concept because I believe that everything happens for a reason and we shouldn't be messing with what has happened and what is going to happen the future. If we had the choice to go and change something that we didn't like I don't think it would be with it because then we wouldn't learn from it.

I really enjoyed watching the film and reading A sound of Thunder. I didn't like reading All you Zombies because it was kind of hard to follow.

Blog #17 - I Borg

This episode of Star Trek raises up many questions about our relationship with robots. The first one is 'What makes a human a human and what makes a robot a robot?' In the movie we see a young Borg transform into an individual named Hugh. At first most of the crew saw him as strictly a robot but as time went on they came to the realization that he had thoughts and feelings just like humans. Like them, I believe this is the aspect that defines someting as a living thing. Individuality in Hugh was first seen as a bad thing by the ship's crew. They all become too attached to Hugh. This brings up another question 'What can robots do to weaken our strrength?' In this episode the crew's weakness was becoming aware of Hugh's emotions and sympathizing with him. I don't think that this would have happened as soon as it did if he was in any other form. His human-like apparence made them want to help heal him so he could return to the ship. I thought that a great point was given when two of the shipmates were having a fencing match. It shoed how being concerned with others emotions might end up hurting you in the end. Good thing it was the opposite in the episode. The last question I want to bring forth is 'Do robots deserve to have the same rights as we do?' In the case of hugh I believe that we should accept his wants and needs because of his developed feelings. I totally agreed with the crew for letting Hugh keep his memory because it wouldn't be fair to take all of that away from him. My favorite part of this episode was at the very end when Hugh was about to leave when he looked over. It shoed that the Borg population did have hope in becomeing more like Hugh.

Blog #16 - Reason, Isaac Asimov

Reason by Issac Asimov, is a classic example of frankenstein complex. In the story, Cutie a robot made and proggramed to take over the starship Takes Powell and Donovan out of power. He claims that he is superior to the humans and starts claiming to be "the prophet". He doesn't let the two men touch the controls and this makes them fear that the robot became disfunctional. I think that this was scary part of the story because it showed the possibility of robots programmed to have higher thinking to have the notion that they are more intelligent and superior to us and that they should be in charge. The other scary part was that the men couldn't even control the beam in order to keep Earth safe. The story also brought up the idea of faith and how we blindly follow what we read in books, instead of going by personal experience. I thought that the story came to a good ending. It suprised me that even though it may have seemed that the robot wasn't following the three rules of robotics; he had good intentions and saved Earth and the ship. I didn't really like this short story compared to the others, it seemed too slow-moving to me.

Blog #15 - Star Trek: The Next Generation Measure of a Man

In this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation of a Man, Data and the crew explore the idea of what characteristics define and separate humans from robots. When the man comes and tries to take Data away, almost everybody opposes. Data is very similar to humans. He has the same emotions, actions, and he was even made to loook like a human. But, why would man make a robot in the image of themselves? I think it would stir up a bunch of contraversy . Would we give the robots the same rights as us? I hope we don't get to this point. It would fear me to see them taking over our job market when we hardly have any jobs to distribute for ourselves. If we do make a robot that has human-like emotions I think it would be the result of an experiment gone bad. Unlike all of the short stories that we read in class, this episode is kind of the opposite of what we would expect in a frankenstein complex story. In this episode, data is not feared by his crew mates; he is looked upon as a key member of the starship. I think one of the main messages of this episode was to have an open mind to the advancements we are making in the terms of technology. Overall, I liked watching Star Trek. I thought it was a very well thought out episode.