Month: April 2017

In class we discussed the topic of ethics and different theories which relate to its meaning. One concept mentioned was rationalism. Rationalism is a belief that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious beliefs. Evidence, costs, and benefits are all examples of rationalism. Another concept we discussed was subjectivism. Subjectivism states that knowledge is simply subjective and there is no objective truth. Subjectivism simply implies that knowledge is based on personal feelings and opinions and not fact. Subjectivism can be related to the Radical Anxiety Termination in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. The RAT Institute created slaves by limiting their anxiety. By removing anxiety from slaves, the process allows them to do anything for their masters and only believe that their own opinions are correct. The last theory we discussed which can also relate to Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is relativism. Relativism is a doctrine which states that knowledge exists in relation to culture and society. Sexuality in the novel is practiced in different ways on different planets. For example the understanding of sex is different between the cultures of Rhyonon and Velm. On Rhyonon, individuals of the same size are allowed to have sex. Anything which deviates from this practice is unacceptable. On Velm, sex between humans and evelm, six-legged creatures, is permitted.

French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, developed four fundamental types of discourses. He created four discourses which he named, Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst and believed they all relate to one another. According to Lacan, a discourse refers to a point where speech and language intersect. The four discourses portray the four possible combinations of a network which social bonds could take. These bonds can be represented by four different positions:the agent, the other, the product, and the truth. One discourse he developed was titled Discourse of the Master. This concept analyzed the struggle for mastery, domination, and penetration dealing with a master and his slaves. In this discourse, the master is expressed as S1, the master signifier. The master confronts the slave which is expressed as S2. The slave is what the discourse is addressed to. In the lower right stands desire. Desire is what the discourse has created. Masters desire obedience, duty, and sexual obedience from their slaves. Finally, the product of the discourse is placed in the lower left. The product is what the discourse attempted to express. In this case, the discourse was meant to express a gathering of money. The slaves work for the master. Whatever products the slaves make are sold on the market. The master gains profit from products sold on the market.

In the novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney, Rat Korga is a 19 year -old member Rhyonon’s criminal underclass. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that Korga’s sexuality has brought about his miserable life on the planet. On Rhyonon, small physical size is  considered a prerequisite for physical beauty. Sexual relations between people of different sizes on the planet is considered taboo. Rat Korga, who is seven feet tall, is attracted to small men. His attraction of different sizes rather than his sexuality is the issue. Korga goes on to volunteer for RAT which stands for Radical Anxiety Termination. This process involves destroying a number of brain cells in order to remove the part of his personality which includes his volume for creativity and initiative. After Korga undergoes the therapy, he feels content with himself. He is then forced to live a horrible life as being a slave for different institutions. Eventually, the planet of Rhyonon is destroyed due to a large fire across worlds causes by aliens known as the XLV. Rat Korga is the sole survivor of this conflagration on Rhyonon and soon becomes a celebrity.

Although I had to miss class on Tuesday my friend told me that what we did in class was watch an episode of Black Mirror. I decided to watch it in order to be prepare for class on Thursday and also because it sounded really interesting. The episode “the entire history of you” shocked me. While watching it I couldn’t help but think that in some way, that is our society today—relying in pictures and videos in order to remember moments with family and friends. The episode itself shows the value that memory plays in the built of trust and relationships. It was so sad to see how their family was destroyed just because he could prove through the wife’s recorded moments that she cheated on him. I can help but wonder how that nowadays would affect so many friendships and relationships, because although I don’t condone lying and cheating, this would not only affect gf/bf relationships but people would never be able to forgive and forget, rebuilt trust if it was broken before, or even invest in a friendship or relationship that fell apart if they had records of why it didn’t work out in the first place. It would be strange to have a system like that implemented in our society because I feel like having the ability to never forget and always have access to every moment in your life and every encounter with people would just fuel the fire and cause more problems than solutions to the situations we face nowadays.

Likewise, while reading The Buried Giant it is interesting how the story is based on a population completely forgetting its past and relying on kind of this “short-memory” system that allows them to get by through the day. People remember they have to wake up in the morning and do their daily shores, yet somehow no one can figure out the past—Axl and Beatrice cannot remember their child or why he is not with them anymore. It is devastating to read how Beatrice can’t remember how he looks like, what is he like personality wise, where is he situated yet can feel it and calls it a “motherly feature” that reassures her that although she can’t remember him, she has a son, that he exists. I am very interested in what will happen in the next few chapters of the book and figure out what happened to the society that essentially erased their “hard drive” making them forget everything from their past. I think this book instills in readers the importance memory plays in our daily lives and how it affects who we are.

This week we listened to the various poster presentations and it was very interesting to see what other people decided to talk about for their poster presentations and how everyone found a fun way to incorporate everything we have learned in class through out the semester. My group decided to focus on the comparison between humans and robots and the many different characteristics that throughout evolutionary periods has allowed us to identify as humans. We start with the physical aspects of what makes us humans such as the evolutionary traits of bipedalism, ability to communicate, use of tools for hunting, and cognitive capacity. We also talked about the emotional characteristics and how that differentiates us from robots because robots cannot understand the causation of emotions. We then focused in the societal views on robotics and the perception that society has on considering robots humanoids or not if they will ultimately one day be able to completely imitate our movements and way of reasoning. Lastly, we focused our research on the philosophical aspects relating to the comparison of humans and robots. I think this will be a very insightful topic to present on because technological advancements are already developing robots with cognitive capacities that allows them to imitate human behaviors as well as become more autonomous so it will be really interesting to see where people stand on this topic.