#edcmooc
Week 4 is focused on aspects of the posthuman and looks at “perspectives which focus on how technology works to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education”.
To recapitulate what is "human" discussed in Week 3, the human element described by Dr. Dean W. Zimmerman resonates with me: “Some parts of living bodies have more or less natural boundaries: they fall under biological or functional kinds, such as heart, cell, nervous system, brain, cerebrum, cerebral hemisphere, complete organism (that ‘part’ that includes every other). Call the ‘likely candidates’ for being human persons those objects with natural boundaries that include all the parts upon which our ability to think most immediately depends.”
[ Dean W. Zimmerman (2003). Material People. In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Persons and the Natural Mind Part VI Chapter 16 P. 492 ]
Moving on to the posthuman--my reflections on the films:
Popular cultures
The film setting of Robbie is 6000 years in the future, the robot called Robbie "charts the existential reflections of an aging robot drifting alone through space on the last of his battery life.” The emotions Robbie is capable of experiencing such as loneliness, happiness, faith and friendship come from the mind given by the NASA scientists who create an advanced artificial intelligence within a mechanical form. Perhaps in 6000 years from now, the definitions of human would evolve along with incredibly advanced artificial intelligence. At this point, Robbie is not a human to me because it or he is manufactured in the lab instead of being born with flesh and blood from a human womb. Also, Robbie doesn't have the valuable experiences of the whole spectrum of human lifespan. Moreover, he is a machine that relies on batter life instead of being nurtured by food or sleep.
In the comic film Gumdrop, a vacuum-cleaning robot named Gumdrop auditions to be a movie actress. She has the embeddedness in the human world, but it/she still is not a human with fresh and blood to me. Comparing to “Robbie”, it is a utopic vision of a posthuman future.
The characters in True Skin portraits the merging bodies of human with synthetic organs –they have “synthetic hearts with a lifetime guarantee … blood is obsolete.” This science fiction casts a questionable shadow on the foreseeable future—the world will be extremely crowded if everyone/everything lives forever . . .
The human mind with sensory experiences, conation and thoughts cannot be reproduced or copied by the rigid digital memory backup.
Avatar Days shows the merging of virtual and real life. The players use their World of Warcraft game avatars as escapists from real life into the world of fantasy.
Week 4 is focused on aspects of the posthuman and looks at “perspectives which focus on how technology works to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education”.
To recapitulate what is "human" discussed in Week 3, the human element described by Dr. Dean W. Zimmerman resonates with me: “Some parts of living bodies have more or less natural boundaries: they fall under biological or functional kinds, such as heart, cell, nervous system, brain, cerebrum, cerebral hemisphere, complete organism (that ‘part’ that includes every other). Call the ‘likely candidates’ for being human persons those objects with natural boundaries that include all the parts upon which our ability to think most immediately depends.”
[ Dean W. Zimmerman (2003). Material People. In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Persons and the Natural Mind Part VI Chapter 16 P. 492 ]
Moving on to the posthuman--my reflections on the films:
Popular cultures
The film setting of Robbie is 6000 years in the future, the robot called Robbie "charts the existential reflections of an aging robot drifting alone through space on the last of his battery life.” The emotions Robbie is capable of experiencing such as loneliness, happiness, faith and friendship come from the mind given by the NASA scientists who create an advanced artificial intelligence within a mechanical form. Perhaps in 6000 years from now, the definitions of human would evolve along with incredibly advanced artificial intelligence. At this point, Robbie is not a human to me because it or he is manufactured in the lab instead of being born with flesh and blood from a human womb. Also, Robbie doesn't have the valuable experiences of the whole spectrum of human lifespan. Moreover, he is a machine that relies on batter life instead of being nurtured by food or sleep.
In the comic film Gumdrop, a vacuum-cleaning robot named Gumdrop auditions to be a movie actress. She has the embeddedness in the human world, but it/she still is not a human with fresh and blood to me. Comparing to “Robbie”, it is a utopic vision of a posthuman future.
The characters in True Skin portraits the merging bodies of human with synthetic organs –they have “synthetic hearts with a lifetime guarantee … blood is obsolete.” This science fiction casts a questionable shadow on the foreseeable future—the world will be extremely crowded if everyone/everything lives forever . . .
The human mind with sensory experiences, conation and thoughts cannot be reproduced or copied by the rigid digital memory backup.
Avatar Days shows the merging of virtual and real life. The players use their World of Warcraft game avatars as escapists from real life into the world of fantasy.