Technology Advances in Hopes of Reaching Singularity

      Singularity is a concept in which people say that technology will advance exponentially reaching the limits of infinity. There are theories that people will merge themselves with technology to try to reach immortality or even try to become all-knowing and creating artificial intelligent beings. They believe at this point technology would improve itself to curve the advancements. Many people refute these ideas for reason such as they believe it is immoral or that we could cause our own extinction. Author also believe that merging or becoming computers makes us lose our sense of humanity.

    Raymond Kurzweil has been a figurehead for Singularity, he could even be said to be a prophet when it comes to technological advances. Kurzweil created a computer that could write music in 1965 at the age of seventeen. It is easy to see why people could see Kurzweil as an able prophet due to this accomplishment. Kurzweil wants to have technology be able to help humans look for ways of elongating our life spans and even wants to go so far as keep ourselves immortal. He also wants to bring his father, who had died early due to heart problems, back to life. That seems innocent enough but if we have the ability to do that then we would have another reign of dictators responsible for wars.

        In Lev Grossman's Time magazine article "2045:The Year Man Becomes Immortal," Grossman writes about Singularity and background information such as Kruzveil's background, and the new advancements towards singularity. Grossman talks of how humans have created Intelligent computers but they are not completely intelligent, they lack something that we can associate them as humans. Grossman questions if by merging ourselves to computers are we stll human. With the question "If I can scan my consciousness into a computer, am I still me?" In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Bernard Marx, a major character, questions his society and better yet himself. He lives in a mechanical world where humans are slaves to pleasure, and more yet a drug called soma. Bernard refuses to take soma because he does feel like himself. Bernard wants to be "more on [his] own, not so completely part of something else" (Huxley 90). Bernard fights against what he sees as a chaotic society, just so he can be more human.

I will digress for a little, video games are often fictional works, in one case the games Portal and Portal 2 have an AI that pursuits "science." The game started as a puzzle based game where the player uses a gun that uses portals to solve each puzzle. The company running the test with the portals is Aperture Science Laboratories. The by an AI known as GlaDOS who seems like a human. In the game you end up fighting the AI and end up "killing" it. In Portal 2 you learn more of Aperture and learn of a man known as Cave Johnson the founder of Aperture. His ideas are not exactly sane much less what we call science but he has his ways before he dies. The games are surrounded by AI constructs, the second one especially, each turret has a personality and even has a device to simulate pain. In the second one you travel with a core that contains an AI construct that acts like a human. Point is the game surrounds you with "humans" or rather artificial humans, some may argue that is what they are because they feel and have emotions.

      So what makes a person a human, in in Huxley's novel there are plenty of humans, its their rights their beliefs and most of all their soul. But in Brave New World they all have that, all except a freedom that we have in our society. We possess a fighting will to live and a will to exists for ourselves not for some social body, we choose who we want to be or we at least have that right.

My essay analysis

            What makes great essays is there a format that students can follow or does writing essays have to come naturally? Is a narrative hook required so that we may grab the attention of our audience or are essays supposed to grab the attention of any unsuspecting bystander?  Many teachers “encourage” students to follow the Jane Shaffer format and say it is an excellent way to write essays when really they force their students to write in that format and can limit the writing potential of students.  “Hell Hath No Fury: The Relationship Between Greece's Medusa and Egypt's Wadjet” by Elizabeth R. Casto does not follow the Jane Shaffer format it is not a bad essay however.  Casto uses appeals to emotions to grab the audience’s attention particularly women’s feelings even though it does not seem to follow any format. 

The essay is about a relationship between Medusa and Wadjet, as it is obviously stated in the title of the essay. The two are powerful women of myth in which Casto points out the many similarities of the two myths. Her essay title does not cover give us any idea that it is a feminist piece and she seems unaware of it.  The essay does seems as if it should be centered more towards feminism because Casto talks of how in earlier eras powerful women could not exist.  Casto does say that “men will destroy [powerful women] or own them eventually.  The thesis for this essay is “fierce women make for interesting myths and an insight on forbidden strengths in women” yet she concludes her essay by saying that men do not like to be owned by women.  Her title and thesis do not match which in turn means that her essay does not follow either or and becomes incoherent. 

The incoherence really may be bad but the essay has more to it than its subject.  AS mentioned earlier Casto’s essay does not follow Jane Shaffer’s format.  Her paragraphs for example vary in size with paragraphs as small as three sentences or bigger than eight sentences long.  Her sentences also vary in size; they all do not take up two lines in the page.  Her quotations fit naturally with the host sentence, they are not awkwardly placed.  She switches from paraphrasing and direct quotations throughout the essay.  She may not have two commentary sentences for every concrete detail, but she does have enough of her own commentary in the essay.  Her language is formal, it does not have any slang and she does not try to impress her audience with her diction.  Her use of evidence is balanced in that it is mostly her commentary rather than allowing the facts to overrun the essay.  Her use of “in conclusion” is an acceptable way to start the beginning of the closing, but there are other ways to start the conclusion. 

To say that Elizabeth R. Casto ‘s essay is mediocre has some truth but there are some elements that put it above most essays.  Her subject, a rather interesting one, may naturally give her some help because of the feministic subject in her essay but the mediocrity comes from her incoherence.  The title may mislead any potential persons from reading something they may actually enjoy or agree but the subject in itself can retain those that would normally avoid feminist pieces. This essay is a great example of an essay that is independent of Jane Shaffer’s format for great essays.