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.

#14 - EPICAC, Eyebem, and Mimicry

EPICAC was my favorite short story that we read during this unit. I found it weird how EPICAC was a machine designed to solve complex problems and how it ended up having human-like feelings. This made me ask myself "As scientists start programing robots to become smarter, is this going to eventually lead to them acting and feeling like we do?" It seems like a very far-off idea right now but I think that it could be very possible in the future.

In Eyebem, I found it weird how the robot seemed t think it was superior to humans. I also found it strange how they were sending robots out into the wild. To me, when I think of the wild I usually don't connect it to be inhabited by robots. In the end of this short story I found it ironic how he was the one who was struggling to survive instead of Mark. You sense the jealousy that Eyebem has towards Mark and his ability to adapt to nature.

Even though Mimicry isn't a traditional frankenstein complex story, it still follows a lot of the same elements of the genre. The main character Fen, becomes uneasy of the robotic servant that her father created to replace her when she married Frank. She becomes aware of its desire to mimic and become her. The robot starts to desire a life as the main character and uses a spell to transform herself into a human. This story kind of scared me because it brought up the idea of the robot having feelings of jealousy that ultimately made the robot try and ruin it's master's life.

Blog #13--Post-Modern Prometheus X-Files

In this episode of x-files a creature called "The Great Mutato" was created by Dr. Pollidori. His father saved this creation and attempted to raise the creature himself. It seemed as though the doctor discarded him because he saw him as a failure and didn't know the potential that he held. I think this connects with humans because sometimes we fail and we immediately try to get rid of this failure because we don't see it as something to use as a positive opportunity. I think the doctor was also very afraid of his creation. This also connects with the Frankenstein complex because we are sometimes afraid of our own power and knowledge. I thought it was kind of neat how the father took in "The Great Mutato" and raised him instead of being afraid. I think this shows how it is in some people's character to be confident in themselves and in their actions and make the most out of everything. In general, I actually liked this episode of X-files. I liked how it was very comical at times.