Final blog post

This class ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be. The research paper was a little challenging but it wasn't too hard. What I wish that I should've done was start the paper a little earlier then I did. But the 5 milestones that we had to do for the paper helped me out a lot because I got feedback on each of them which helped me make my paper better at the end. Using JSTOR and LexisNexis helps me out a lot because I got some reliable sources that I used for my research. Overall, most of the things we did in this class to write a good research paper helped me out.

Critical Thinking Blog Post #5

My thoughts about human cloning and robotics have not really changed from all the readings and writings we have done for this class. From the begining my opinion on cloning has stayed the same, although cloning things other then humans can be useful to the world, human cloning is not the right thing to do. My opinion on robots has not changed either. Indeed, they are going to greatly advance in the future but they will not be able to have consciousness like humans do. I agree with what David Gelernter states about robots and conscouness. He states that "Here is an unfortunate truth: today's mainstream ideas about humans and artifical intelligence thought lead nowhere" (202). I do agree with that because there is no way that robots can gain conciousness like humans have.

In the Eng101 class, I have learned how to improve my writing a little. I have also learned some new things about Artifical Intelligence and cloning that I have not known before.

Final draft update

After recieveing my preliminary draft feedback, I am going to fix my introduction paragraph to make it more clear and make it flow better. I am also going to add more body paragraphs so that I can prove my argument with more details and evidence and add a conclusion. I would like to add another two or three pages to my paper to make it better. Also, I am going to add about two or three more sources including a book. Other then this I am confident that I am going in the right direction with writing this research paper.

Critical Thinking Blog Post #4

There have been many different opinions on the topic of human cloning and there have been expressed in many ways. One of the ways someone expressed their views about this topic is through a play. Caryl Churchill wrote a play called The Number about human cloning. This play shows the conflicts that can come along with human cloning. In the play a father, Salter, clones his son Bernard for many different reasons. But instead of just having one clone of Bernard there ends up being about 20 clones of him. In the play Salter stated "but i didn't know, that wasnt part of the deal. They were meant to make one of you not a whole number, they stole that, we'll deal with, it's something for lawyers. But you're what I wanted, you're the one" (Churchill 158). Salter bascially address his concern that there was not supposed to be more then 1 clone of Bernard but he is happy that he got what he wanted. The clone of Bernard has a big problem with the fact that he was cloned. Bernard #2 states "I'm just a copy. I'm not the real one" (Churchill 158). You can see here that B2 does not like the fact that he is just a copu of a son that Salter had but he wants to make it up to this clone by being a better father. This play shows the complexities of cloning in the sesnse that Salter only cloned his son Bernard because he wanted to make up for being a bad father to him when he was younger. Due to this, things did not go as they were planned and everything ends up tragically.
Two questions which this play addresses are, What is more important, nature or nurture? and also Is it alright to do cloning to satisfy someone's desire forsomething?
I think that Churchill does take sides on the topic of human cloning because it can be seen throughout the play that cloning Bernard has gone terribly wrong and not one thing went right with any part of the process. If she would have left it up to the reader to decide whether or not cloning was wrong or right then there would be some benefits of the Bernards cloning, which is not seen in the play.
Stories, or plays, like this can gives us different perspectives on the different topics such as human cloning. This is because authors that are humanisits can give us a more moral or ethical view on the subject. Churchill does this because she addresses the fact that cloning is a wrong thing to do as can be seen throughout the cloning of Bernard.

Critical Thinking Blog Post #3

Human cloning has quickly become a contorversial issue. Therer are many views on this subject, many might argue that cloning is a great thing to do and can offer solutions to a lot of problems in the world while others might argue that cloning will never work out and is not too safe. Ray Kurzweil states that "Cloning will be a key technology- not for cloning actual humans but for life-extension purposes, in the form of 'therapeutic cloning' " (121). Here Kurzweil points out his argument that cloning is not a good thing for human purposes, but it can solve the problems of life-extension, such as extinction of animals, world hunger, and other problems. In Kurzweil's article he presents a solution for a problem due to cloning, he states "Cloning technologies even offer a possible solution for world hunger; creating meat and other protein sources in a factory without animals by cloning animal muscle tissue" (124). Cloning can be used to stop the killing of animals for food which leads to a decrease of extension and a solution for world hunger. On the other hand Caryl Churchill express how she feels in she play A Number. In the play a character,Salter, states "but i didn't know, that wasnt part of the deal. They were meant to make one of you not a while number, they stole that,we'll deal with, it's something for lawyers. But you're what I wanted, you're the one" (158). This shows that cloning can come with problems whereas Kurzweil states that cloning will be a benefit.
In a youtube video called Top 15 Famous Animal Clonings! there are many animals cloned for benefits, such as an animal that was cloned to save the species from endangerment. Another animal that was cloned was a pig that would help save human lifes with organs. This video helps prove Kurzweil's arguement that cloning is a benefit and can help solve many problems in the world.

My Research Paper Status

So far for my draft I have finished my introduction paragraph and I have gathered all the information I need to to write the body paragraphs and conclusion. I have several good sources that will help me back up my thesis statement. I am going to start writing the rest of my research paper this week.

Critical Thinking Blog Post #2

Artifical Intelligence (AI) has advanced and is continuing to advance throughout the years. Robots have improved immensely from the creation of the first robot. They have been created to walk and talk better, and they also now are being developed to have human features such as human faces and being able to show emotions. They are doing things that we never imagined they would do. In LIB110 we saw a video of a robot now being able to show emotions through facial expressions. It can show any type of emotion from happy to angry to confused and so on. There is talk that soon robots might even be able to have consiousness like humans. However there are many arguments for and against this. In David Gelernter's essay Dream-Logic, The Internet and Artifical Thought he addresses his point of view about what is being  said about conciousness in robotics. He states "Here is an unfortunate truth: today's mainstream ideas about humans and artifical intelligence thought lead nowhere" (Gelernter 202). Here Gelernter states how he feels about AI, he says that he thinks that thought in robots is not going to happen. Gelernter also states that a machine will not be able to think without free-association which humans so in fact have. Free-association is when one can let their mind wander, in a way like day dreaming. He states they machines will not be able to do that therefore they cannot be build to have a conciouness (Gelernter 202). On the other hand in Ray Kurzweil's essay "The Singularity is Near" he has a somewhat different view on artifical intelligence then Gelernter. He argues that "Artifical Intelligence at human levels will necessarily greatly exceed human intelligence for several reasons" ( Kurzweil 138). Kurzweil definately thinks that AI will be smarter and a huge advantage to the world then humans are and will be. He states many reasons to this, one which is that humans are able to only develop their skills in ways that have been encouraged by evolution whereas AI can advance further then the ways humans can (Kurzweil 138).
There are many opinions and arguments to AI advancement and whether AI can be created with conciouness which humans already possess or not. My opinion on this is that AI cannot have conciousness like we do, and they will never be created with it. There might be some creations that might come close to devleoping conciousness in AI but robots will never be able to think exactly like humans do. This is because robots will never be able to posses a mind like we do and in that case they will never be able to have conciousness.