final Blog POSt :P

this cluster was a wonderful experinece to learn a lot of things, I improve my writing and research skills! also I met a lot of wonderful people and made a lot of friends! It is a lot hard work, but it helped me to become more responsible and to organize my time properly! ENG 101 was a wonderful class which gave me the opportunity to share my opinions about different issues! the classmates were amazing ! funy and so helpful with each other!!! which I recomend to the people that will take this cluster in the future is just to enjoy it! :) and to work so hard!!!
thanks to all my classmates and the profesor Dragan! thanks for all you patience with us and for teaching us a lot of interesting things that will be so useful for the rest of our college careers!!!! take care every one!

critical Thinking Blog -Assigment #5***

    The Brains, Minds and Consciousness cluster has been a great opportunity for me to learn a lot of things as a student and as a person. Our ENG 101 class represented since the beginning a big challenge for me since English is not my first language and there is not such a long time since I arrived to this country. Every single day in this class was new opportunity to improve my writing and speaking skills. The readings on the course pack were really interesting and easy to understand; also our discussions in class helped me a lot to know which were the main points of each reading and the correct way to use them in my essays and blogs. We had so many important discussions on very controversial issues in our society today like robotics and human cloning which gave to me and my classmates the chance to share our different opinions and differentiate our selves as a humanities or science person. In this class we also used a lot of videos and scenes of movies to make connections with the readings in our course pack and in our research paper projects; which was really useful to learn how to write based on a film.

   One of the readings that was really interesting to me was the essay of Ray Kurzweil The Singularity is Near. This reading talked about robotics, human cloning and genetics and made really good connections between those topics. Thanks to this reading I learn a lot about all the benefits of human and animal cloning the author writes "cloning technologies even offer a possible solution for world hunger: creating meat and other protein sources in a factory without animals by cloning animal tissue" (Kurzweil 124). This means that by ussing this type of cloning we will have the chance to find less expensinve food and to eliminate all the suffering that animals have to go through in the slaughter houses. On the other hand I learn about robotics and artificial intelligence, and how its influence on the development of our society is growing more and more each time. The author says "once strong AI is achieved, it can readily be advanced and its powers, multiplied, as that is the fundamental nature of machine abilities" (Kurzweil 140). This means that the development of AI and its influence in our every day life will get to a point to be unstopable. Over all Kurzweil is very positive about coexistence between humans and robots, how we will help and get alone with each other like with other human beings. He also beliefs that with the development of strong AI  we are going to live longer or been immortal!.

   With the essays that we have been writing I learned to extend my vocabulary and to have better grammar. The reading of the play "A Number" was really useful for me to learn how to find key ideas and to know how to describe a character in formal writing. This play was also useful to study a different point of view about human cloning, a more humanistic view. For example in one of the conversations the clone B2 say to his father "you called them things, I think we'll find out they're people" (Churchill 148). There are a lot of issues that are discussed in this play and that make us think about what is the value of life. Using this play I learned how to write an essay using counterargument sources, how to locate this information on the first body and to defend later on my thesis statement. A Number make us wonder how we would feel if we find out that our life, our dreams and the people that we love has been taked away by someone alse; by a copy of our selves. The author writes "about you sent me away and has this other one made from some part of my body some" (Churchill 162). In this part  of the play B1 is showing all his disconfort and frustration to his father; he felt that his personality and his uniqueness has been taked away but also he felt that the he had lost the love of his father and that's the sadness things of all.

   One of the big challenges for me in this class was the reading about Temple Grandin "The Anthropolist on Mars". It was more formal writing which gave some difficulty to understand some of the words. With this reading I learned a lot about autism. The author writes "autism is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year" (Sacks 2). Temple Grandin showed us that if you believe in your self any thing you dream to do in life is possible. Her work with the slaughter houses show her humanistic side; everything she does is just amazing. She's a scientist and holds a Ph.D, which is not so common for people in her conditions. In general her story is an example to all of us, inviting people to work hard and to be persistent in their beliefs. Writing the essay #1 ussing this source was a very big challenge since I didn't new anything about autism before, but at the same time it was a great opportunity to gain more knowledge about the human mind and its different conditions.

   In conclusion, all of this readings in ENG 101 teached me something. From autism to technology, from human cloning to evolution and altruism. In general it was a wonderful experience with a great profesor and very nice classmates; which made my learning environment much useful and interesting. I learned to identify key points in essays, books, movies and plays but the most important I learned  to make connections between those and my personal experience, which I believe is crucial at the time of realize any kind of writing. THANKS PROF. DRAGAN AND THANKS TO EVERY ONE, IT WAS A GREAT SEMESTER ! I WISH THE BEST TO ALL OF YOU :)

changes for the final draft of the research paper!!!

*I will need to change my thesis statement so it will fit with my evidendence
* I will need to find some counterargument evidence against Kurzweil (I need help with this!!!!)
* I will need to fix some grammar mistakes
-----> to cite the especific scenes I'm working on for the movie I Robot, I will need to find the "pictures of the scenes (I need help with this too!!!!)

Critical Thinking Blog -Assigment #4***

    Cloning in general has been a great achievement in the history of science; giving benefitial results on genetics, biology and other fields. The play "A Number" by Caryl Churchill presents the idea of "human cloning" and all the consecuences that it would bring to the society including a dramatic change in its definition of uniqueness, individuality and the value of life. Human cloning is a very controversial issue, people wonder on whether or not it would be ethical to clone a person giving part of his identity to someone alse. This play tells the story of a man call Salter who made a lot of mistakes with his wife and his son; wich resulted with her wife comiting suicide and his son been cloned and sent away. Salter's desire was to have a second chance with his son and the beginning of a new life, but unfortunatelly things didn't went as planned and this father ended loosing his son not only once or twice but three times!.

    The opening scene on the play is an argument between B2, one of the clones and his father Salter. There is a lot of tension and we can see how the father and the clon have very different opinions about the other  clones. B2 have a more humanistic view about the situation while he is arguing with his father. The author writes "you called them things. I think we'll find they're people" (Churchill 148). While the clon wants an explanation of the father's actions, the father is completely decided to sue and get money for the illegal creation of the other clones. As the play goes on Salter confronts the reallity of the damage that he had caused to his son B1, the original. Wich together with B2 started to hate the father, judging him for his foolfish decision that as a consecuence destroyed completely the life of B1; making him a very frustrated and agressive person.

    This play address a lot of issues, one of them is the questioning of whether or not human cloning should be considered ethical. In the second part of the play we see an argument between the original son and his father; in which B1 asks for an explanation of the actions of his father. The author writes "you sent me away and had this other one made from some bit of my body some" (Churchill 162). We can see all the frustration that the original son felt when he finds out that his father was loving more a copy or clon of him than him self. Eventhough the father treated well B2 he wasn't sincere at any time about all this tragic situation. He invented that his wife and the first son had died in a car accident, when the truth was that the mother had commited suicide and the other son had been sent away. There is enough prove to realize that human cloning is not an ethical procedure at all, because it occasionated not only the suffering of B1 but the frustration of B2 when he finded out who his father really was.

    A second issue or question that this interesting play wants us to think about is whether or not killing somebody or in this case killing the clone B2 was the solution to all the abuse that B1 had come through. Because of all the desperation that B1 felt to see his life taked away by somebody alse; he decided to kill his "brother-clone" B2 to make his father pay some how for everything that he did to him. When the father finds out he was very sad because he loved B2 much than his original son. The author say "your son dies you want his body, you want to know where his body last when he was alive, you can't help" (Churchill 185). We can see the rejection of the father for the action of B1, he needed to know where the body of his son B2 was. The father was sure that this act of B1 was because of jealousy and hate to B2; there was no hate for the other clones "he is the only yo hated because I loved him, I don't love the others" (Churchill 187). Eventhough B1 has got some kind of revenge for all the suffering he went through, he couldn't continue living  seeing all the other clones and remembering all the things that his father did. B1 ended commiting suicide. We can assume that killing B2 wasn't the right thing to do; it just made everything worse, making B1's life more miserable leaving him with the only choice to killing him self.

    At the end of the play the author is very frustrated and sad because he had lost his son B2. He realized how bad was everything that he did and all the danger that he caused. At the last part of the play he had the chance to meet one of the other clones call Michael, and what he found out was a very big surprise. This clone had a very wonderful life, a wife and a kid. He wasn't bothered at all that he had more clones of him self. The author writes "and you're happy you say are you? you like your life? I do yes, sorry" (Churchill 199). We can see how this clone was completely happy and sucessful in his life, wich some how make salter feel very sad and depressed. He was really sorry for what had happen to his other two sons "I miss him so much, I miss them both" (Churchill 199). We can conclude that the father was whishing that things had ended differently, he wanted to change his actions and the most important he wanted his son back.

    In conclusion, this play help us to understand that science and technology can not replace the live of a human being or erase all the bad things that we did in our lifes. Human cloning is just a threat to the uniqueness and singularity that exists in every human being; which made them who they are. Scientists and researchers have to realize that technological advances should not be put over feelings and ethical principles because as the same of the play the consecuences may be the ending of the life of one or more human beings.

    

Critical Thinking Blog -Assigment #3***

    We can define Human Cloning as the making or creation of a exact copy of a human being ("Human Cloning"). Both scientists and humanists had been debating for a long time on whether or not human cloning would be ethical and possible to realize. There are two types of human cloning "therapeutic cloning" and "reproductive cloning". Therapeutic cloning is about using cloning of adult cells for medicine and reproductive cloning is involved in making cloned humans ("Human Cloning"). Even though we are now able to create clons from animals, there had been both succesess and failures on these procedures. One example is Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned mammal; she got very sick and eventually died. "Improvements in cloning technology have enabled researches to generate mouse, cattle, goat, pig, deer, rabbit, cat,mule, and horse clones" ("Stem Cell Research"). Using one essay "The singularity is Near" from our couse pack by Ray Kurzweil, the play "A Number" by Carly Churchil and several videos related to human cloning from our LIB 110 class I will discuss the different opinions related to the future benefits and  harms of the introduction of human cloning to our every day life.


   In the excerpt of the book, The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzwiel is presented a very optimistic view about human cloning and how it will be very benefitial for medical purposes. Even though the author thinks that it is too soon to assure that human cloning can be done with out any mistake, he is sure that this will happen some day. The author suggest that "Once technology is perfected in terms of safety, the ethical barriers will be feeble if they exist at all" (Kurzweil 122). Ray Kurzweil makes very important assumptions, explaining that cloning in general will be very productive for the development of our future societies. With cloning is possible to get animals with desirable sets of genetic traits (Kurzweil 122). It also will be useful for pharmaceutical production. Cloning will also be useful to bring back extinct species and to protect those which are in danger. The author basically is completelly positive about the use of not only human cloning but the use of these technique for different purposes. The author writes "cloning technologies even offer a possible solution for world hunger: creating meat and other protein sources in a factory with out animals by cloning animal muscle tissue (Kurzweil 124). This means that by allowing the cloning features be a part of our scientific aproaches with out criticize it as not ethical or harmful to us, we will get a lot of benefits like less expensive food.


   The play A Number by Carly Churchill present to us a very different point of view about human cloning. The author shows the story of a person who decided to clon his son and sent the original away; but what he didn't know was that not only one clon was made, there was lots of them; which at the end generated a lot of conflicts. The father whose name is Salter was very agressive, a bad father and a bad husband too. Which is why her wife killed her self. Since there was a lot of conflicts between he and his son Bernard, he took a drastic decision, to clon his son and forget completelly about him. Salter was a very good father with the clon B2, he treated him very well; but he started to question all the things that happen with the original son, so he found a lot of terrible things. Thanks to the actions of the father the original son grew up been agressive and negative about life; he hated his father and the other son too. B1 some how believed that B2 took his life away and that the father was loving B2 more than him. All the cloning stuff generated feelings of hate and frustration on B1 so he decided to kill B2 and eventually kill him self. With this play we can realize how frustrated will some persons feel knowing that they have been cloned. Some of them would suppose that their lifes and their own selves had been taked away; pushing them to do dangerous things or taking wrong decisions.


   In our LIB 110  seminar, we saw some parts of the movie The 6th Day; which shows the story of a man who finds out that he has been cloned and that some how his life has been taked away. This movie shows that some how people are seen as material things, like a cell phone which you can replace with a new one at any time. Humans will eventually be replaced with a clon. The main character in this movie finds out that his family, his wife and children are with a clone of him self doing all the usual things that they use to do with him!. He tried to do a lot of things to get his life back. This movie has a especial connection with the play A Number, because both of them show all the bad things that cloning humans could bring. They also show how cloning a person means taking away his identity and his life. Both the director of this movie and the author of this play portray cloning in a bad way; they think that it affects the person cloned in his personality and social interactions for the rest of their lifes.


    In conclusion, I believe that we will never arrive to an argument strong enough to support or criticize the idea on whether or not human cloning should be realized. Also it is important to realize that other types of cloning can also bring benefits like a less expensive kind of meat giving us economic benefits. Human cloning would maybe gave us the opportunity to extend our life or make us immortal; it also can bring animals back from extiction or protect those in danger. On the other hand it can take away the opportunity for us as induviduals of be unique; making us in extreme situations take dangerous decisions like maybe killing somebody or our ourselves.

my research paper status!

* I have allmost all my sources, but I need the movie reviews for I-Robot... can any one plz help me how to find them.... aslo I would like to find more information on AI..

Critical Thinking Blog- Assignment #2 ^.^

     Technological devices are making a very big influence  in our today's society. Now we use technology for almost everything. Devices like computers and cellphones are used every day for thousands of people around the world. They are used to solve even the most simple tasks, and to communicate with others. In the actuality scientists and researchers are working in even a more advanced type of technology, Artificial Intelligence. This type of technology is defined as the science of making machines that can do the kinds of things that humans can do ("Artificial Intelligence"). I think that is very excited and interesting at the same time to have in our near future machines or "robots" specially, doing the same kind of activities that we do, and maybe been friendly and close to us like a "human" friend. 

    In the book "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil we see a very optimistic point of view about AI. The author of this book try by a lot of different ways to show us how robots and technology will be very benefitial for the development of our society and future generations. The author says, "a super intelligence could give us indefinite life span, either by stopping and reversing the aging process though the use of nanomedicine, or by offering us the option to upload our selves" (Kurzweil, 137). This means that AI will not only gave us the opportunity to interact with robots like with other human beings but it will make us live longer or for ever. The development of artificial intelligence would change the way in which we think and share information with one another; having robots around would help us to live a less stressful life, because we can use them to realize any kind of job or task we want. I believe that the idea that some where in the future we will be able to create robots with consciousness like us, is just evidence of the amazing capacities of the human mind.


    The essay "Dream- Logic, the Internet and Artificial thought" by David Gelenter gave us a more realistic view about AI. The author says, "expecting intelligence to emerge on the Internet is like expecting a car to move when you floor the accelerator, even though it has no motor" (Gelenter, 207). This means that no matter how hard scientists and researchers try to generate consciousness in machines and robots it will be impossible to generate; since they lack the basic element of consciousness, the brain or mind. David Gelenter gaves a lot of value to the human intelligence. He is completelly sure that computers and machines will never be able to act and behave like us. He gave a lot of reasons to support his view, some of them are that computers lack a lot of characteristics that will enable them to be consciouss. Like free-association, hallucinations, and stimulations. Basically David Galender believes we will have in the future very strong machines but never with consciousness. Instead we will have "zombies", super intelligent machines that will sound and behave intelligently but with no consciousness at all.


    In our LIB 101 we saw a video call "Waseda Face Robot- ROBORAMA"; in this video a robot is presented simulating all types of human face expressions. This video is very helpful for us to understand how advanced is the ideal of AI so far. The robot in this video has a lot of human abilities; he reacts when someone speaks or hits him; he can hold an apple without damage it. He can say hi and bye and so on. This robot show us that it may be possible to create a machine that will act and think just like humans. This video relates to the ideals in the book by Ray Kurzweil, which I metioned in my second paragraph. They both agree that to generate consciouss in machines is very possible and that it will happen in a very near future.


    In conclussion, I think that AI will be possible in a near future. I'm pretty sure that there is nothing we can do to stop it from happening. I also believe that it will bring with it both benefits and harm; even though robots will be very useful for us and will make our lifes much easier. There is the possibility for them to take over and use us maybe in a extreme case as their "pets or their food"...