@hallacious
Eric wrote a new post, Shakespeare Vocalized 2 years, 1 month ago
What play did you choose? What act, scene and line numbers did you choose? What character did you play?
I read a soliloquy by Iago in the tragedy Othello, Act 3 Scene 3 lines 268-278.
What did you
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Eric wrote a new post, Othello Close Read II 2 years, 1 month ago
Shakespeare’s play Othello is a masterpiece of trickery and tragedy driven by the villain, Iago. Early on in the play, it is revealed that Desdemona, the wife of Othello (the Moor and the play’s namesake), m
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Eric commented on the post, Humans need to consume less meat for the environment and also for their health 2 years, 3 months ago
Niki,
I figured I should send you a comment because your post is blank… I would be very interested to read your post if it weren’t, though!
From the title alone, you have a very interesting argument at hand. I’ve heard about the waste products from bovine industries ruining the world before — but never ruining our health (at least not…[Read more] -
Eric wrote a new post, Human-Based Determinism 2 years, 3 months ago
Determinism has been a topic in Western religious debates for as long as theology has been a field of study. The argument stems from the paradox between an omniscient (all-knowing) higher being, generally termed
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Eric wrote a new post, Gale Research 2 years, 3 months ago
Sadly, Gale does not seem to have the most current scientific journals, which have only recently begun publishing research that would further my thesis. However, I did find one (see reference below) that
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Eric commented on the post, "Everyone" is watching you… 2 years, 3 months ago
Kevin,
Orwell’s 1984 is definitely an incredible book, on many levels. Your post on the emotions the protagonist, Winston, goes through is certainly a fascinating take on his message. The idea of instantiating a “false consciousness” throughout the citizens of Oceania had not occurred to me before, so thanks!
Eric
—————-big book…[Read more] -
Eric commented on the post, "You are only worth 213" 2 years, 3 months ago
Raymond, I just read through your source and article. This is all a very fascinating and worrisome move towards the dystopia depicted in 1984 by George Orwell. If I didn’t know you’ve read the book already, that would be my recommendation, but since you have, please make do with looking through…[Read more]
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Eric wrote a new post, Blogging a Research Paper! 2 years, 3 months ago
For this essay, I am choosing to recycle and dig deeper into one of my past posts, on freedom of choice or lack thereof. While doing some research for my argumentative essay, I came upon an article by Wired
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Hey Eric,
I think the topic your writing about is absolutely fascinating! I found an article https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/melding-mind-and-machine-how-close-are-we/ that examines a similar topic. It discusses the possibility that our minds and machines will one day come to work together. When reading your to essays in conjunction, I think of a world where we can use those machines that predict us to use in everyday situations, pushing human progress to a brand new level.
Awesome job!
Tony
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Eric commented on the post, Let Me Open Your Eyes 2 years, 4 months ago
Ethan, your linking of the story The Hate U Give to the real events it is intended to bring to the forefront and criticize is impressive. I could feel your emotion as you wrote the essay! I’m impressed that you spent the time to dig into some of the police brutality cases and find examples to back up the message in the book. I’m curious: do you…[Read more]
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Eric commented on the post, Should self-driving vehicles be allowed to drive on public roads in the us? 2 years, 4 months ago
This is a fascinating subject, one I posted on myself a little while ago! The legal, legislative, and moral imperatives surrounding autonomous vehicles are, as you said, unclear at best. For my part, I believe there won’t be any issue with the current law (no express authorization or regulation) and neither with the general public until someone…[Read more]
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Eric wrote a new post, Welcome to Tribalism 2 years, 4 months ago
Everyone forms little “tribes” that they identify with, tribes that help them cope with life or just form a stronger identity. In Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, Robert Willie (a death row inmate for
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I never thought about this issue this way, it can be tied with people tastes in music especially, for example I listen to Metal and everyone who doesn’t know me personally but does know I listen to metal think and or believe im a satanist ( definitely am not one). And i’ll admit to thinking that people that listen to more modern music like pop and rap are beneath me and both sides cant meet in the middle and agree with something.
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Eric commented on the post, Trump: a Great Man 2 years, 5 months ago
Aryan,
Although I am inclined to agree with your complaints about the personality of our president, Donald Trump, continuing to bash him will not help the country. Instead of debating his personality and the validity of sensationalism media surrounding him, I would recommend we discuss how to best help him help our country.
Because of some of…[Read more]
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Eric commented on the post, Are we too caught up in the trivial things in life? 2 years, 5 months ago
Olivia,
Your claim in the first paragraph is very interesting, and I would like to examine some other sides to what you said: “We think more about how other people perceive us than how we treat others or ourselves”. Firstly, how people perceive us is, at least in part, affected by how we treat other people. Of course, that can be positive or…[Read more] -
Eric wrote a new post, Does us think lesser because internet? 2 years, 5 months ago
Every second, the internet transfers over 51 thousand gigabytes of data, and each day Google processes over 3.5 billion searches. These are mind-boggling statistics from this internet statistics website, but what
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Hi Eric,
I found this post to be interesting, it really got me thinking on how the internet might influence us and our thinking. We spend so much time on the internet reading articles, and social media and so on. I agree with your last paragraph, it is our responsibility to keep thinking and challenging our brain.
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Eric commented on the post, Perseverance and Our American Creed 2 years, 6 months ago
Eli,
Your essay is quite powerful; especially with the anecdote about your grandfather. It is a sort of challenge, a me vs. myself, and I thank you for clearing up the perversions of the American Dream from a purely consuming force to one of capability and potential. We must persevere, because if we cannot persevere, what can we accomplish? -
Eric wrote a new post, What Is Education to a Democracy? 2 years, 6 months ago
Economic regulation is always a hot button topic in politics; one of those topics that nearly everyone disagrees on. In my opinion, a democratic nation would not be sustainable without economic regulation for a
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Eric commented on the post, It Is So About Race 2 years, 7 months ago
Your point on this case is very clear and well-written: We, including (and maybe especially) football players have a right to protest. You utilize examples to defend your case very well, from the Constitution to Veterans’ twitter accounts, and your counter-example, Darryl Strawberry, is used to effectively further your position. After a little…[Read more]
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Eric commented on the post, Destination: Unknown, or is it? 2 years, 7 months ago
Your question is fascinating: how much of your life is determined for you? Does free will exist, or is it but an illusion of our internal narrative? As you mentioned, religious denominations (including Calvinism – see https://carm.org/what-is-calvinism) take the omniscient, timeless God as to mean everything is preset. On the other hand, Catholics…[Read more]
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Eric wrote a new post, Ethics of Metal, Glass, and Plastic 2 years, 7 months ago
A little while ago, I visited the Moral Machines website. It’s a study put out by MIT to see how people would respond to a machine having to choose between lives. Turns out, I prefer hoomans a lot more than p
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Eric, I find your topic concerning the ethical responsibilities of artificial intelligence intriguing, and I would like to help you further your research. After digging around a little bit, I came across this website that holds five basic principals of robotics, similar to those you have already presented:
“Robots should not be designed as weapons, except for national security reasons.
Robots should be designed and operated to comply with existing law, including privacy.
Robots are products: as with other products, they should be designed to be safe and secure.
Robots are manufactured artefacts: the illusion of emotions and intent should not be used to exploit vulnerable users.
It should be possible to find out who is responsible for any robot.”I feel as though you can do a lot more with this topic, and I would like to see what research you will present in the future. Thank you for sharing.
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Eric, your post is interesting. It strikes at the fundamental role of AI within our society, and how it will continue to develop. To what extent will humans implement AI into our everyday lives? Will AI come to dominate everyday life to the extent where our lives will become dictated, or reliant on AI? Regarding Moral Machines, I believe the AI will place emphasis, if AI were to ever come into this situation, on the productivity of the groups in question. However, resolving the issue will require humans to actively acknowledge that we are relinquishing a part of humanity. We are empirically defining one life as more valuable than another, and implementing our beliefs into the computer. Here’s a link to the future of ethics that I found interesting:
Towards a Code of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence with Paula Boddington
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Eric commented on the post, What is the fastest that humans will ever go? 2 years, 8 months ago
Hunter, the concept of ultra-fast travel has fascinated science and sci-fi alike for years. Imagine, in all the time we’ve spent writing and dreaming about this topic, we could have gotten, well, a bit outside our solar system. You should take a look at the Alcubierre Drive — why move through space when you can make space move you? I’m interested…[Read more]
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Eric,
I am glad to find that someone else shares my interest in the matter of determinism. I find this topic incredibly fascinating, and the way you include the human’s capacity or potential to read someone’s mind to influence a predestined path for them is very thought provoking. I encourage you to read my post of determinism as well. You can find it all the way at the bottom of my page, it should be the first post. One website that may intrigue you and a website that helped my research on this topic is, https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/schooler/jonathan/sites/labs.psych.ucsb.edu.schooler.jonathan/files/pubs/what_science_tell_us.pdf. Thank you for your post.
-Thomas K.
The easy resolution is the realization that predictions are not incompatible with free will. Such a claim is ridiculous. If I can predict the way a congressman will vote based on his party affiliation, is he suddenly some nonhuman agent with no will of his own?
The natural conclusion of deterministic arguments always comes down to self-defeating, incoherent assertions like the above.
Fundamentally, making accurate predictions is not the same as stripping someone of the choice to make those predictions. Most importantly, one must understand that the future is merely a logical construction. The future does not exist. It has no material presence. Thus, making a claim about it does not have any material consequence. Thus, prediction does not strip people of free will.