BLOG ASSIGNMENT #8

To many of us this was our first semester at LaGuardia Community College. Our cluster topic for this semester was about our Brains, Mind, and Consciousness. This was incorporated in all of our classes which were ENG 101, EN1G103, SSY101, HUP101, and were all brought together by LIB110. When this semester started I had no idea of what to expect from these cluster classes. I didn’t even know I was going to be part of it until I began school, and it was explained to me throughout the first day of college by my teachers. Nonetheless I was very motivated to learn about everything it had to offer me. I was also very curious about the different ideas each class had and how they saw and explained things from their perspective. Thinking about sciences like human cloning, robotics, and other types of technology was something I never really thought about or paid attention to. However in ENG101 Professor Dragan made sure to make us aware of all these topics and helped us explore all the negative effects as well as their positive. Throughout this semester I’ve learned to appreciate science and technology a lot more than before. In addition I’ve learned how to become a better writer when it comes to using sources like books, movie, articles, encyclopedias, and etc. Although at some point throughout the semester I did struggle a lot with writing essays and my research paper because I wasn’t use to writing continuously and specially putting my words down into a paper. So in conclusion it was a great experience for me because I benefited a lot from ENG101/103 because now I don’t struggle as much to write papers and I’m more fluent when it comes to writing.

PLANNING FOR YOUR FINAL DRAFT

For my final draft i got a B and im a little bit upset but the feedback that Proff. Dragan gave back to me was really helpful. For my final draft i have to cite my sources much better because that seemed to be the main problem. Another problem that he was pointed out was how i used the cititions, i guess i have to connected better to my paper.

BLOG ASSIGNMENT # 7

The imaginative text I’ve chosen for this blog post is the play A Number by Caryl Churhill. This play to me doesn’t necessarily give you facts or legit information on how cloning could affect humans and how cloning could really be like if it were to happen. However it does portray a different scenario that could be shocking and scary if you come to think of it. In the play a there is three characters Salter, Bernard 1, and Bernard 2. This play tells a story of a man that wanted to fix the past that he himself created. Bernard had many regrets because of the life style he put his son Bernard 1 through. He was raised in a bad environment due to abuse by his father and at a young age he became corrupted. As for Bernard2 he was the opposite of everything B1 was because Salter realized what he did to his first son and refused to let it happen again and created a second chance by creating clones. Nevertheless the plan Salter planned ended with a terrible tragedy that took the life of his first son as well as the clone that he learned to love. In the end Churchill’s play does leave the reader asking questions like could it really be like this if cloning were to happen?, could people become this immoral and insensitive towards other human beings, but it also tells you how cloning couldn’t be a problem by showing you how one of the clones Michael has such a successful life. Furthermore Churchill doesn’t really take a side on cloning she argues that nurture is more important than nature. Perspectives from movie I believe are very interesting to watch because it shows you certain possibilities that things can lead to and that could help us progress in the future.

BLOG ASSIGNMENT #6

As we all know Ray Kurzweil is very optimistic about the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it will affect us in the future. In his book The Singularity Is Near he expresses his thought of what human are capable of doing and how we can better from machines rather than thinking negatively about them. The author says “Human skills are able to develop only in ways that have been evolutionary encouraged. Those skills, which are primarily based on massively parallel patterns recognition, provide proficiency for certain task, such as distinguishing face, identifying objects, and recognizing language sounds. But they’re not suited for many others, such as determining patterns in financial data. Once we fully master pattern-recognition paradigms, machines methods can apply these techniques to any type of patter” (Kurzweil 139). What this quote is stating is that once we figure out how create machines that are able to have human skills it will benefit us more in the future. We as humans have many advantages because we are able to have patterns of recognition which is something machines are go good at, but once we discover away to apply this to machines there will be a very positive outcome.  I believe AI in machines will grow and one day it’ll have a great amount of intelligence but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will hurt us, but help us a lot in the long run. In response to Ray Kurzweil, David Gelernter a computer pioneer expresses his point of views and its limitations of the way machines will one day operate in Dream-Logic, The Internet and Artificial Thought. He expresses his views in more if a realist way of thinking for example “as far as we know, there is no way to achieve consciousness on a computer or any collection of computers…..the computer would have no inner mental world; would in fact be unconscious” (Gelernter 207). Here he explains his views and states that although machine could have all the intelligence programed in them, they will never be like humans because they will never have consciousness, which the main thing that differs us from machines in general.

BLOG # 5 !!

In our ENG 101 course packet an article The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (excerpt) by Ray Kurzweil explains all the optimistic views on robotics. After reading this passage and from my prior ideas on technology I agree with Ray Kurzweil. I think I’m a very optimistic person when it comes to technology and how much it has improved. I believe that technology is what gotten us this far in science and different type of inventions are what helped us evolve and make our world better. The author says “it says "people want better medical drugs; relief for humans from the need to perform boring and dangerous jobs" (Kurzweil 137) in this quote we see how technology is such an important aspect of our lives because it also helps us advances in medicine. For people with disabilities and some that might be disabled technology have helped us create robotic hands and legs that make the people’s lives a lot easier. In this Article Kurzweil explains all the helpful aspect to technology and he makes a lot of valid points. Technology should be something were afraid of because it helps us in ways that humans can’t. An example would be war there are many machines made for things human cannot do. I think of robots more as our friends than our enemy, some people think they’re going to take away jobs but what I believe it will be jobs that we can’t do. Technology is what has basically gotten us all of our electronic now and days and that’s something people nowadays can’t live without.

ENG 103 Research Plan #1

My topic for this research paper is portrying Temple Grandin's mind through film, i will argue that the film Temple Grandin portrays her mind in the movie very well. Despite all her problems and getting through life with autism as well as having problems showing emotion and other things that might affect her life socially. Temple Grandin was very unfortunate she made the best of it and we can all see her accomplishments through her inventions. She also had the ability to think visually which gave her more opportunities throughout her carreer.

BLOG POST #4

In the present day people have their own opinions on how technology has affected our mind. To be more specific the internet has become a huge problem because of the way it’s taking over our attention spans and reading habits. Instead of looking for way to legitimately search for information people tend to use the internet because it’s a faster more convenient way. Moreover what the internet has basically done is replace the idea of doing research through books and actually reading instead of skimming through text. I believe that the internet is damaging our attention spans and reading habits by making everything easier to find. What it really causes us to do is loose interest in actually picking up a book and reading it. Due to the internet having everything already summed up. I believe that the internet has a great impacted on how we currently see the world. Although the internet is faster way to go about things its consequences   are negative. Nicholas Carr says “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article use to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. My concentration often starts to drift after two or three page” (19). The negative effect that we all now experience is being able to read long book without any difficulties. In conclusion I believe that the internet has affected our attention spans and reading habits due to technology over powering sources that once you to be more valuable.

SHARING A RESEARCH SOURCE

The sources i will be using for my milestone #2 will be
"Thinkin In Pictures My Life With Autism" by Temple Grandin (with foreword by Oliversacks)
My second source will be "Animals Make Us Human" by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson.
My third source for the will be the movie Temple Grandin 2010.

My Thesis Statement

The portrayal of autism through Temple Grandins mind is shown in the movie Temple Grandin. I will argue that the Temple Grandins successful career as a designer of humane slaughterhouse system is based on her unique abilities as an autistic. Autism was not a disability for Temple Grandin and in the end she worked through it and found ways to overcome it.

BLOG POST #3

I believe Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene” was more pessimistic about finding altruism towards other humans. It explains how the driving force in evolution does not function at the level of a species or at an individual but instead at the level of a specific gene. Genes are the prime players in evolution. Richard Dawkins also explains that our bodies are simply on a vessel for the genes we have in us and that our genes create temporary alliances so they later reproduce. I believe the way Richard Dawkins tries to explain his beliefs come out as selfish acts of genes. Olivia Judson in the other hand I think explained that altruism was the tendency to do self-sacrificial acts to do for another person which was behavior caused by a gene. Olivia Judson explains altruism is a genetic trait. In the article they compare animal acts with human actions and the traits the animals don’t have but humans do are to believe that those are the traits that make us different and helped humans survive. The writer that made me uncomfortable to understand was Richard Dawkins because I felt no connection to the book he explained it in more if a scientific than Olivia Judson did. Olivia Judson’s tones of voice in her essay made it more interesting and easy to read. I felt like she was talking directly to me so therefore I connected with her way of writing a lot more because of the way she put her ideas together also explained her ideas of altruism more deeply and it made me want to keep on reading.

FREE WRITE

Im writting on Temple Granding and protraying her mind through film i will foccusing on how she overcame austims and how she became successful. I still havent watched the Temple Grandin movie but i will soon and i also need to get some books to use in my research paper

BLOG POST #2

Throughout my essay I will use quotes that state how her autism affected her and how she overcame her disability. In my essay I tried to use the most important quotes I could find and one that caught my eye was “when she was younger, she was hardly able to interpret even the simplest expression of emotion; she learned to “decode” them later without necessarily feeling them” (Sacks, 10). In this quote you can see how strong Temple Grandin is and how determined she is to not let her autism affect her way of life. I think that quote says a lot because it also shows how strong minded she is in addition you can see it throughout the Oliver Sacks interview. Another good quote from the text “Anthropologist on mars” was when Oliver Sacks quotes Temple Grandin “I find a very high correlation” she said, “between the way animals are treated and the handicapped” (13) later she also states “she feels tenderness, a compassion for them that is akin to love” (14). Temple Grandin finds a connection between animals and handicapped in terms of how they are treated. It makes sense because animals are guided throughout their everyday lives just as a handicapped person would in need guidance or some type of assistance.  That showed me how much she progressed and achieved from when she was younger because she slightly has the abilities to have feelings towards cattle something autistic people have difficulties with are emotions. I believe these quotes proves my thesis because Temple Grandin is a living example that people don’t necessarily need to have feelings towards animals or human beings to act morally.

RESEARCH PAPER FREE WRITE

Im still unsure of what to write for this research paper, as i looked through my sheet two topics caught my eye. #4 - portraying human minds in film and #5-partraying robots (or human clones) in film. Of course the film i would use for #4 would either be the movie on Temple Grandin or The Notebook. Ive seen the Notebook numerous times and i've enjoyed it a lot. The Temple Grandin movie also interest me ever since i seen the short clips in class.

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i changed my mind im doing my paper on Ms.Grandin

ENG101 Assignment #1 Brainstorming

For essay#1 I will be writing on " Internet technologies are changing the human mind in unpredictable ways and are damaging our memories and attention spans." I one hundred percent agree with this statement because now in days our everyday life revolves around technology.  People now tend to depend more on online research because its a faster way to access your information, and forget that there are other types of sources that may be more time consuming but in the end more useful.

ENG 101 Blog Post #1

Hello to everyone that’s reading this, for those who don’t know my name my name is Denisse Paredes. I’m clearly a student at LaGuardia Community College and my major at the moment is Liberal Arts. My educational plans are to study and graduate at LaGuardia and then later on go to another college and major in nursing, I’m still not sure which college I would like to attend. If I had to choose between science and humanities I would most definitely choose science. Science is the reason why we’ve come so far in life and without it we wouldn’t have found the cure too many diseases that half the times are fatal. Without it we wouldn’t have medicine for when we catch colds and we wouldn’t even have electricity which is such an important thing in our everyday lives. If science didn’t exist we wouldn’t have the answer to many of our questions. I think scientist and a humanist would have meaningful things to say to each other. They both have an incredible way of looking at life and I’m pretty sure they can they can both exchange and learn different ideas from each other. In today’s world I don’t think a lot of people think scientific, it’s a little more of about emotions and what they feel is right and never really look deep into it a situation. In this cluster class I’m really looking forward to listening to other people’s ideas and opening up my mind to them as well. I’m also hoping to learn more about how the human mind works and why.