My goal for this final project is to expand my interest of science to this class. I want to delve deeper into Lyotard’s essay. Lyotard mentions that philosophers are wasting their time discussing answerless questions (if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound), where philosophers should be focusing on the advancement and continuation of human thought. As of now we have some ideas in artificial intelligence, but we are very far away form creating a continuation of human thought after our sun’s nova. I want to discuss where we are at with AI (i.e. robots, sensors implanted in brains that can give direction to a robot arm), the forces that we will need to overcome (i.e. how powerful the nova will be etc) and what kinds of super materials are known now (various carbon cables, metal alloys etc.).
A counter argument could be that looking for a way to advance and or continue human thought is hogwash because we will never be able to pursue it. Or, these answerless questions are baby steps in the learning how to think at such a level where this idea of continuation could be plausible. Also, with the invention radio and television, we have been broadcasting our thoughts and ideas throughout the universe, so we already have the technology to continue human thought, even though itself (radio/tv waves) will never evolve or anything.
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My goal for this final project is to expand my interest of science to this class. I want to delve deeper into Lyotard’s essay. Lyotard mentions that philosophers are wasting their time discussing answerless questions (if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound), where philosophers should be focusing on the advancement and continuation of human thought. As of now we have some ideas in artificial intelligence, but we are very far away form creating a continuation of human thought after our sun’s nova.
Trial Thesis: In his essay, Lyotard mentions that we need to quit focusing our attention on minute details and answerless questions and focus on the inevitable problem of surviving our sun’s death. To do this, we will have to examine what thought is, how far along we are with artificial intelligence, and what sort of ways humans or their thinking machines will be able to survive the sun’s death.
First of all, what is thought? Lyotard discusses many angles in thinking of thought. As we have already experienced in reading Lyotard, it can be very confusing. So the beginning section of my essay will be to simplify Lyotard’s ideas on thought and bring in some other philosophers’ ideas of thought as well (Lyotard mentions Freudian Dercharbeitung (I don’t know if that is a philosopher or an idea of Freud’s)).
Next, I will discuss where we are at with artificial intelligence. 60 minutes just aired a special, maybe two weeks ago, wires, or some sort of hat that can read the signals the brain is sending and translate them so a monkey can move a robotic arm (this research being done here at Pitt) or a quadriplegic can control a computer by her thoughts via thinking in her head where she wants the mouse arrow on the screen to go. More research will need to be done on this topic.
Finally, I will discuss the forces that we will need to overcome and possible ways to overcome them or escape them. When the sun dies, it will expand past the orbit of earth and then implode (again, its been about two years since I studied astronomy so I will need to brush up on my star phases via my textbooks). Now, during the implosion, if the release of energy is great, then we better be long gone via a spaceship, or have some sort of material that is protecting us some other colonized planet. Either way, I will research the possible existing plans of colonization (mars in 2020ish or something), and other kinds of materials such as the carbon nano tube.
A counter argument could be that looking for a way to advance and or continue human thought is hogwash because we will never be able to pursue it. Or, these answerless questions are baby steps in the learning how to think at such a level where this idea of continuation could be plausible. Also, with the invention radio and television, we have been broadcasting our thoughts and ideas throughout the universe, so we already have the technology to continue human thought, even though itself (radio/tv waves) will never evolve or anything.
Should we include the counter argument in our essay?
This is a good proposal, and I have no particular complaints about it. I do think that your research will need to be carefully focused - obviously you can spend a lifetime trying to understand the current state of robotics and/or AI technology; your job needs to be to provide a brief and focused exploration of the relevant technology/science in a way that relates to *your* take on Lyotard. That's not a criticism, just a caution. Stay focused, and don't get completely lost in your research, which is bound to be very interesting.
As far as counterarguments go, the point of asking for them is to make sure that you're choosing the sort of challenging, interesting topic that an intelligent person might take either side on. *Ideally* counterarguments do get included in the paper, as a way of recognizing and dealing with alternative points of view. There are certainly times, for instance, when an A paper is distinguished from a B paper because the former shows a fluid understanding of and response to alternative views.
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