Articles Response and Questions
In The Brain on Trial, David Eagleman discusses the differences of the minds between "normal people" and people that have mental issues. He also discusses the biology and decision-making of people. He believes that there is no way to separate biology from decision-making in a person.
In Mind vs. Machine, Brian Christian converses about his experience in competing against a machine to prove that humans can "act more human" than an artificially intelligent machine. His article debates whether or not computers can actually "act human" in the first place.
Within the article Brain Gain, by Margaret Talbot, neuroenhancing drugs are discussed passionately. The two sides to the argument about neuroenhancing drugs (whether they should be permitted or not and what effect they will have on our society) are equally discussed in order to let the readers come to a conclusion by themselves.
In his article The Pursuit of Happiness, Clifton B. Parker explores just what happiness means to people and how people can achieve happiness within their lives.
Throughout the article Man Has No Nature, Jose Ortega tells his readers that humanity is a hard thing to define but that we are, more than anything, defined by our past.
Of all of these articles, the one that I interacted with the most was "Mind vs. Machine". I found the artificial intelligence of robots to be very fascinating and it caused me to ask many questions.
My main question is how can a machine "be human"? Before we can answer this question, we must ask what it means to be human. Each of the articles discussed, in some way, what it means to be human. Humans each have their own distinct personality, which we feel is our true self, and live everyday in the moment that has been given to them. "Man has to make his own existence at every single moment. Man is the entity that makes itself, but more than that, man has to decide what he is going to be. Man is the novelist of himself. Man is what happened to him, what he has done...Man lives in view of the past" (Ortega 157). Could robots have personalities that are distinctly their own, one that they decide to have? Could they look back on their past in order to be better prepared for their future?
Humans push themselves to become smarter (which is why many people take neuroenhancers). Could robots someday learn everything that we teach them? Could they learn more than us and, thus, become our teachers? Could we ever know everything and, therefore, stop learning?
It is hard to answer the first question without answering countless other questions about humanity itself. It is difficult to define humanity because it is constantly changing. Each individual has their own definition of what it means to be human. The question, then, is could humans develop a machine that is "more human" than any living human? One that could fool any person into believing that it is a human instead of a machine? And if so, what would that mean for our future? Would we be extremely smart for inventing such a sophisticated piece of machinery? Or would we be extremely stupid for doing so?
In Mind vs. Machine, Brian Christian converses about his experience in competing against a machine to prove that humans can "act more human" than an artificially intelligent machine. His article debates whether or not computers can actually "act human" in the first place.
Within the article Brain Gain, by Margaret Talbot, neuroenhancing drugs are discussed passionately. The two sides to the argument about neuroenhancing drugs (whether they should be permitted or not and what effect they will have on our society) are equally discussed in order to let the readers come to a conclusion by themselves.
In his article The Pursuit of Happiness, Clifton B. Parker explores just what happiness means to people and how people can achieve happiness within their lives.
Throughout the article Man Has No Nature, Jose Ortega tells his readers that humanity is a hard thing to define but that we are, more than anything, defined by our past.
Of all of these articles, the one that I interacted with the most was "Mind vs. Machine". I found the artificial intelligence of robots to be very fascinating and it caused me to ask many questions.
My main question is how can a machine "be human"? Before we can answer this question, we must ask what it means to be human. Each of the articles discussed, in some way, what it means to be human. Humans each have their own distinct personality, which we feel is our true self, and live everyday in the moment that has been given to them. "Man has to make his own existence at every single moment. Man is the entity that makes itself, but more than that, man has to decide what he is going to be. Man is the novelist of himself. Man is what happened to him, what he has done...Man lives in view of the past" (Ortega 157). Could robots have personalities that are distinctly their own, one that they decide to have? Could they look back on their past in order to be better prepared for their future?
Humans push themselves to become smarter (which is why many people take neuroenhancers). Could robots someday learn everything that we teach them? Could they learn more than us and, thus, become our teachers? Could we ever know everything and, therefore, stop learning?
It is hard to answer the first question without answering countless other questions about humanity itself. It is difficult to define humanity because it is constantly changing. Each individual has their own definition of what it means to be human. The question, then, is could humans develop a machine that is "more human" than any living human? One that could fool any person into believing that it is a human instead of a machine? And if so, what would that mean for our future? Would we be extremely smart for inventing such a sophisticated piece of machinery? Or would we be extremely stupid for doing so?