The Computational Universe

         Unfortunately Will Smith plays a Science Fiction role in this particular movie. I enjoyed the cinematic adventure thoroughly and was completely enveloped by the idea of artificial intelligence until the credits began to roll. After this point I came back down to earth into the real world. I believe Brooks is still watching the credits or maybe he is a huge Will Smith fan.

I do not have much knowledge of machines or of the process in which they are built. I am also not hugely religious so my expectation of future technologies is not limited by these beliefs. However I do strongly feel that we are all individuals. The word “machine” to me broadcasts a huge sense of homogeneity and un-uniqueness. Brooks says that we are manufactured by society to have emotions and feelings. Surely this means that we have evolved throughout our lifetime to adapt to certain situations in the ways that current machines could not possibly ever hope to do. It is also my understanding that machines have to be programmed so that their reactions are equal to the stimulus that they are given and so surely this alone sets us apart from machines. We are given advice and rules on how we should behave and react in life however we can equally reject the advice and rules in favor of our own. It seems that there is something inherent in the nature of programming that prevents a machine from deviating from the orders that it is given and even if it does this must too be programmed.

In his critique of Searle he almost reduces his views to ridicule (which he himself criticizes as a form of critique) by using phrases such as “absurdly concludes” and “less sophisticated”. As we discussed in class this puts the reader in a position of severe distrust and doubt. Also as I agreed with Searle in his article and particularly his Chinese room argument I am inclined to disagree with Brooks.

I did however enjoy Brooks’ small entry on how we are special. I had not previously thought of how we classify the respect that we give to different animals in relation to their biological make-up. There is of course no rational reasoning for this but it is in fact human nature. Again I think that human nature is something we cannot re-produce without a sense of programming. Fear is something inherent in humans, not something that is programmed within us and I think it is important to make this distinction. Unless we think of ourselves as programmed from our initial conception I do not believe that Brooks has an argument. This notion is believe is “absurd”.

Living across the atlantic ocean from my family, I take the internet for granted as a form of communication with them. Without applications such as instant messenger and Skype readily available I would have to spend hundreds of dollars on overseas phone calls. Obviously the internet’s uses far exceed those I have mentioned I learned on April 5^th that the man responsible for these is Tim Berners Lee. Not only was he smart and intellectual, he managed to lighten the lecture for us laymen with his intermittent jokes and jests.  I would not say that the lecture was in any way light in material however. His use of technical terms far exceeded my knowledge of the World Wide Web. I am using the terms world wide web and internet rather inter-changeably. However we learnt in Sir Tim’s lecture that actually these two terms are quite different. The internet is a connection of networks, connecting millions of computers world wide. The World Wide Web however is a medium through which users can access information on the internet.
 

The advantages and repercussions of the internet and World Wide Web are unfathomable. However Sir Tim did bring up an interesting point about human interaction in relation to the internet. Personally, I would much prefer a letter in someone’s hand-writing rather than a sterile email on a screen. We are also forced to reply instantly and make decisions on a whim rather than thinking carefully about our future. This constant reliance upon instantaneous communication may have some-what numbed our senses as a result but as I said the advantages, in my opinion, far outweigh the disadvantages

I found programming the scribbler in our first lab pretty straightforward as the software is very user friendly and not much previous knowledge of computers is required. The scribbler seemed to follow the actions that were programmed into it fairly accurately and I was pretty impressed with what $100 can buy you until our second lab. Trying to program the scribbler to draw a square proved to be much harder than it sounded as the movement was very jerky and inaccurate and these inaccuracies piled up to alter the angles and distances quite drastically. Also when I used a friend’s scribbler, namely Walter Hopkins, I found his to run far more smoothly and accurately when an identical code was programmed into it. This leads me to believe that that either I have been abusing my scribbler (which I would never do..) or that the manufacturing process is not as thorough as I was lead to believe upon the original reception of Scribizzle (he’s a rogue scribbler). Of course these complications were even more apparent in the construction of a star and a circle. It seems, from reading other blogs that I was not the only one who experienced this problem.

From our reading of “Flesh and machines” by Rodney A. Brooks we notice that W.Grey Walter’s tortoises are very early forms of the scribbler. They have the capability to move forward and backwards, detect objects around them and detect light. In some respects these robots are almost more advanced than the scribbler as they are a lot more autonomous and they’re movement is a lot harder to predict. There is no predefined program within these tortoises as is in the Scribbler, just circuits and motors that respond to certain stimuli. However the scribbler would be a lot more apt for excavation and recon as it is possible to “control” it to a certain extent.

Hi my name is James Cochran and im taking this course to improve my incompetance in the computer department. I also, along with many others, need an ST and this class definitely looked like the most interesting one that wasn’t too hard on the math. I’m a sophomore am planning to become and economics major with maybe a hint of italian.  I was originally in the ORFE department but soon realised that i did not have the mathematic ability to deal with some of the classes.

Im originally from London and went to Westminster School, the likes of which the esteemed Dido attended. I play club soccer here and tennis and golf from time to time. I also have recently been admitted into Ivy  where i am pshyched to finally eat good food at this school! My favorite films are resevoir dogs, fight club and pulp fiction, each of which i must have seen 10 times. I am planning to work in New York after i graduate, hopefully in the finance area, after which i wanna go to business school. I have a great interest in ethics and moral values, particularly on issues involving terrorists and their treatment while in captivity. I recommend taking WWS301 if any of you are still signing up for classes on score.

Well see y’all on tuesday

Jimmy

P.S. i use a DEll latitude along with everyone else