Jin's EDC blog » week one

Review of week one

jdarling — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:51:59 +0000

I remember watching the film about memory, and the one with the robots in the car, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the third video! My memory is unreliable; I do rely on technology to remember things – calendars / tasks. This week, I have been trialling a Livescribe Echo pen which has been recording meetings for me, word for word, but in a way that I can instantly access (remember) a particular part. Already I am missing the pen and my enhanced memory after having only used it for a few days.

But in a few years time, we will be able to do so much more. Jason Sosa (2014, 7m50s) demonstrates that technology has now reached a point where our memories can be reconstructed, erased and/or implanted by artificial means; potentially useful in treatments for post traumatic stress, alzheimers or dementia. He also demonstrates images that have been reconstructed using MRI scans of brain activity – we can actually see what another person is experiencing / thinking. Imagine if we could record these on a memory stick? We would never have to take notes in a lecture / meeting again. We would have perfect recall.

This week has also introduced me to concepts new to me, transhumanism and posthumanism, and I am looking forward to examining these in more depth. I am particularly fascinated by the ethical dilemmas surrounding the introduction of new technologies and how they are integrated into our society.

Spooky happenings – just published this blog and checked in on Twitter to find that Google have patented an AR device using some very odd gender stereotypes (O’Kane, 2015).

O’Kane, S. (2015) See the beautiful, nightmarish patent illustrations for a Google-funded augmented reality device. Available from: http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/1/17/7559473/google-magic-leap-patents-drawings [Accessed 18 January 2015].

Sosa, J. (2014) The coming transhuman era. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ugo2KEV2XQ#t=478 [Accessed 16 January 2015].

Could a machine or an AI ever feel human-like emotions ?

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:47:09 +0000

Could a machine or an AI ever feel human-like emotions ? http://t.co/E3R7oPFZNP #mscedc

Initial thoughts on critical posthumanism

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:18:19 +0000

The concept/philosophy shares many similarities with transhumanism. However, it also acknowledges that humans have a cultural history that informs their future development, and that this history will continue to have import.

The critical posthuman is not the endstage in human evolution. It is an acknowledgement that we have expanded our conscious minds to account for more than humans. We are not anthropocentric, we are biocentric. In Hayles (1999) opinion, we are already posthuman.

To be continued as my cognitive posthuman schema evolves…

Hayles, K.N. (1999) Towards embodied virtuality. In: How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cyernetics, literature and informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. pp. 293–297.

See invisible motion, hear silent sounds

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:39:41 +0000

TED Talk Michael Rubinstein (link to Livescribe pdf notes)

Hand Fixing Hand, A Sci-Fi Homage to M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:37:09 +0000

Hand Fixing Hand, A Sci-Fi Homage to M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands http://t.co/GajFnGbwAE via @LaughingSquid #mscedc

The real cyborgs: forget wearable tech, these people are implanting technology in to their bodies and brains

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 10:26:50 +0000

The real cyborgs: forget wearable tech, these people are implanting technology in to their bodies and brains http://t.co/h3ZqUX5Ak7 #mscedc

Interview with Stefan Herbrechter, author of Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis

jdarling — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:17:08 +0000

Interview with Stefan Herbrechter, author of Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis http://t.co/QdePCvor4D #mscedc

Transhumanism v posthumanism

jdarling — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:29:37 +0000

Google fight recorded by jindarling

So much more difficult to get a clear picture of posthumanism. Struggling to understand the differences, I get that it is a philosophical thing but philosophy and humanism are not stuff that I have studied before so a steep learning curve ahead of me. Still I have a couple of weeks, no need to do it all in one day!

How Drugs Helped Invent the Internet & The Singularity: Jason Silva on “Turning Into Gods”

jdarling — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:25:06 +0000

The coming transhuman era: Jason Sosa at TEDxGrandRapids

jdarling — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:41:04 +0000