Author: ellryan

In “Marjorie Prime” the concept is very interesting, imagine being able to have a replication of a deceased partner? A digital reboot clone of Marjorie’s deceased husband Walter. He learns to become more human by interacting with humans.   He’s the Walter who Marjorie knew when she was the younger woman being courted, and eventually proposed to. It is hard for her daughter to understand the memory of him because she was so young. The Primes learn and improve as the people they’re designed for get steadily worse. Marjorie herself says as much to Walter before she dies, complaining, “You said I’d get better, but you’re the one getting better.” Hologram Walter is there for Marjorie to help her remember her past.  As a hard reminder also of Alzheimer’s disease and affecting memory. During the first hour and 38 minutes of the movie there is a slow and sad conversations involving painful memories of the death of their first child. Subjective memory is one’s perceived memory ability, independent of objective standards or performance. Subjective memory reflects one’s perception about his or her personal memory functioning. As we learned about this in lecture it changes up the theory a bit.  How can she know if she cannot remember?  She may have episodes of Episodic memory of remembering bits and pieces.  Maybe it is better because the hologram is having her remember the good times and not when the marriage began to fall apart. The good ole days.

In Star Trek  “Measure of man” similar to Marjorie Prime where these prototype’s that are not actually living and breathing.. are they capable of the same human capacities? Do they have memory.  In one scene Captain  Louvois exclaims” It sits there looking at me; and I don’t know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics – with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent nor qualified to answer those. But I’ve got to make a ruling, to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul?”

The question is will this happen in our future? It is a possibility there can be prototypes of living deceased relatives but they will not be able to have what humans do and those are emotions and memories.

While we watched inside out Riley remembered a happy memory but realized there was sadness attached.  We can feel a happy part of the memory and then it makes us feel differently after when we remember it differently. As we spoke about in lecture When we recall a memory, we retrieve specific details about it: where, when, with whom. But we often also experience a vivid feeling of remembering the event, sometimes almost reliving it. Memory researchers call these processes objective and subjective memory. You remember the joy later on and it can change over time. How you remember something can be influenced! I thought it was interesting in lecture how we spoke about the Mandela affect.  I had done further research and  false memory occurs when people incorrectly remember the same thing.  Many people had thought Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980’s. However he passed in the early 2000’s.  Widespread incorrect information can influence individual memories! crazy! so for the longest time everyone knew the saying in star wars as “Luke, I am your father.” It is actually “No, I am your father.” I actually took a poll with friends and ALL of them thought the incorrect saying was actually in the movie! *mind blown*.

Our memories are changing as we get older! what we remember as a child is different as we age!  I remember less details the older I am getting from what I remembered in my 20’s.  My emotions feel differently with certain situations tied to the memories! Just like Riley!  To this day it is important that I write out my shopping list or I will not remember what I need at the grocery store. Human beings are so interesting, aren’t we?

As we learned in lecture, emotions have subjective different views from different psychologists and philosophers. In the Film inside out, much of the film takes place in the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, with five emotions such as Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Her overall goal is to make sure that Riley is always happy. But by the end of the film, Riley, and the audience learns that there is much, much more to being happy than just the thought of only positivity. Toward the end of the film,  Joy seems to take control to some of her fellow emotions, particularly Sadness, Riley seems to achieve a deeper form of happiness. I think that this film shows adults and children a deeper meaning on emotion. As part of being human, Riley allows herself to feel sadness, in addition to fear and anger. This show us at the time when she thinks of running away from home. she decides not to go through with her plan. This choice reunites Riley with her family, giving her a deeper sense of happiness and contentment in the comfort she gets from her parents, even though it’s mixed with sadness and fear.

In Star Trek episode “Man of the People” As an ambassador mediates peace talks to end a fierce civil war, Deanna Troi begins to act emotional after spending some time with him. Troi begins aging rapidly and the crew must then race against the clock to figure out what Alkar has done to her, before she dies. Turns out Alkar is using Troi as a “receptacle” to telepathically shunt off all the negative emotions that he experiences during his negotiations. This episode seems to show them being emotionally innate more so than the “Inside out” view on emotions.During out lecture we spoke about Plato.  The great philosopher.Plato as we spoke about, believed emotions typically include both pleasant and unpleasant aspects! however, Aristole believed that emotions are an original and integral part of  ethics. Emotions are an inherent part of our moral reasoning and being, and therefore they should be an inherent part of any moral deliberation.

“Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation.” – Paul Ekman, PhD

As we learned he described them they describe people to have seven basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sad, contempt, disgust, and surprise!

Is it innate or is it due to a stimulus? I think it is subjective to each person. As the professor taught us… different emotions can happen differently depending on the individual!

Language is argued to be the key to thought.  The theory is that linguistics and  maybe an alien language, can think differently than us. Language comes from what we are taught and know.  If aliens speak differently and derived from elsewhere then maybe they think differently as well. “Arrival” makes you question this theory.  They hire Louise who studied languages and symbols dating back to Mayans.  The Heptapods we learn, the written and spoken do not correlate to each other the same way as human language.  Throughout the film she is trying to communicate with these Heptapods.  The scene where Louise is placed in this army tent just piecing together this language.  Although she is intelligent and it is a movie I have an argument. I feel that it would be needed to be solved within maybe months or years and not so quickly.  Her knowledge in the movie makes her the protagonist. We can determine that there can be consequences without having clear communication.  What I found interesting as well was when we see the bird used by scientists to test the shells.  Humans will often use an animal for testing to see if there are harmful gasses inside to explore it.  If the bird dies then there was probably toxins inside.  We can assume that we believe aliens are more intelligent than humans.  Our brains as humans are curious about the unknown and cautious. Overall great Scifi film!

In the episode entitled “Darmok,” the Enterprise is on-route to the El-Adrel system to make contact with a race called the Children of Tama. They realize the do not know the language making it difficult to communicate.  On the bridge Picard asks the offices “But are they truly incomprehensible? In my experience, communication is a matter of patience, imagination. I would like to believe that these are qualities that we have in sufficient measure.” The constant struggle leads them to almost destroying eachother because they cannot understand eachother. They come to a moment of clarity when the Tamarian captain see Picard cold that night on El-Adrel  surface. Seeing him struggle he gives Picard a branch and lights it for warmth. As a peace offering he says “Temba, his arms wide.” figuring out that it can be give and take and there is no war.

The important lesson I learned was how important understanding others and language really are.  Maybe we can stop and actually listen and understand what others say before jumping to conclusions.  Maybe there would be more peace in the world!

The mind can be manipulated by others. When watching the ending of possesor Girder the boss, grooms and  Manipulates Vos.  A person can slowly groom you into doing what they want you to do.  The human mind can be manipulated. If you are told long enough you are  A Sociopath, you begin to believe it.  You begin to believe it is the right thing to do. This begins Tasya Vos’s descent into becoming a sociopath. She lacks empathy when she begins to remember a butterfly she killed as a child. To have true empathy for others requires remorse. Scientifically Sociopaths lack empathy for others and do not see them as an individual.  They do not feel sorry for harming them.   Tasya Vos was trained to kill for the agency to take out clients as business but what is interesting in the human mind is to not want to kill and to view others as human beings as ourselves. “Tate” says, “Pull me out,” revealing Michael’s killer to actually be Vos, who once again struggles to “self-terminate” and exit her host.  Vos seems to be struggling most of all with this particular instance which makes the audience believe she has empathy deep down. Tate also uses her own mind against her to gain control back.  This is a perfect example of how the human brain can be manipulated and one can lose themselves easily. Never underestimate the powers humans can have on each other’s minds. This film gave the perfect example to Embodied Cognition.  The mind is more connected than we think.  Our cognition can be determined by our experiences with others.

In the episode of Futurama “I second that Emotion” Bender the Robot seems to be extremely selfish and lack empathy.  The scene where they take the pet named Nibbler to the vet and he is standing there angry with his arms folded.  He does not seem to care as fry and Leela are worried for his tooth.  He says to the doctor “oh put him to sleep.” Then when they go back to the house to throw nibbler a birthday party Bender cheats at pin the tail by using his target. Further proving he does things for personal gain and popularity. He seems to always be making it about himself. The scene where you can see real emotion is when Layla is crying around her friends about bender flushing nibbler down the toilet.  He is watching tears stream down her face and he has his feet up smoking a cigar.  He seems to lack any empathy about what he has done. Leela even points out to him that he has no sympathy for anyone else. She says ” I wouldn’t feel so bad if bender knew the pain he caused me.” The whole gang watches as Bender is laughing at the TV about a man dying and tragedies of a rocket crash and the death toll rising. The others just can’t wrap their head around him not having basic “humanoid
emotions.  The empathy chip would force him to feel basic human emotions.   I think this was actually a great concept if we could do this in real life.  There may be more people out there who can feel what others feel and have empathy.  Maybe we would have less cold killers in the world.

Episodes blog #2

In Altered carbon Out of the past Takeshi Kovacs wakes up resurrected 250 years after he had died.  What it is interesting is the body is referred to as a sleeve. The scene in the beginning where there is a body floating in a dark fluid and then you see the body breathing heavily as he rises to the surface. You see a shadow of a nude body. The woman he is with is seen cleaning and stacking cortical stacks they have collected. A cortical stack is basically people’s minds downloaded into these.  The mind can be put into any “sleeve” or body. Takeshi was sent into the future to solve his own murder.  Showing the mind and his sixth sense is a very powerful thing. To compare this to what we have learned it is like Cartesian Dualism: The mind body split.  It is said that the mind is separated from the elevated above the body.  Plato believed the mind and soul were imprisoned in the body. I think this episode seems to metaphorically stand for the mind is thought as a computer with software and the body is the hardware. The body is the vessel transporting important information from the brain.

In Star Trek Return to Tomorrow The starship meet Sargon who has telepathic powers and tells them to arrive at his planet where he and two others are the last surviving of their kind.  Their minds have been stored in spheres.  In need of human bodies Sargon transfers his mind in Kirk’s body and then kirks mind into this sphere. The bodies again comparing to the first episode are just vessels and the mind is the power.  The transferring into the bodies can be exhausting.   Henoch begins to prepare a serum as kirks body becomes weaker, he requires this serum. This is almost like the brain in the vat thought experiment.  Neuro activation.  Like a mad scientist, our professor users an example as phantom limb, through neuroactivational.  The brain plays an important role in our perception.

“The Day the Earth Stood Stupid.”                                                                                                   
Futurama

Is a play on human and alien life.  This show is a comedy and the part of the episode, Nibbler uses telepathically That he is an ambassador sent to observe humans.   Brains then starts sending beams toward buildings and fry discovers all the citizen of New York have are now “stupid”. A brain spawn was sent to invade earth and wipe it out.  Everyone is powerless against the stupidity of brain spawn.  Since Fry was the only one not stupid, she is the only one who can defeat it.  The part in the scene where they pin the information to her shirt was funny because once she entered back into the earth atmosphere, she would be too stupid and would not remember.

One common theme between all three episodes is the body seems like it is treated as just a vessel.  We can interchange the body, but the mind is what makes us who and what we are. In embodied cognition, this believes are bodies are just as important as our minds. “Cognition is not limited to the brain, rather we think through and with our bodies.” The interpretation in these episodes that the brain is strong and there can be powers beyond with mind control.  The future could be where we can upload our brain into other bodies.  We must take care of our minds and our bodies.  We have to make sure we take care of these vessels for the brain to work as well.

Hi everyone! My name is Elizabeth! She/Her. I currently live in Huntington with my Husband Dave and our chocolate lab mix Bella.  Bella is 4 years old, and we adopted her at 4 months.  She is our baby before the babies. My husband and I love to travel and have been fortunate enough to visit many places around the world.  We have a huge trip planned next year to visit parts of Italy, France, and Spain.  Here is just a preview of some cool spots we have been back in 2018! I look forward to exploring the views and trying new foods!

this is a picture of Bella snuggled up on the couch where we spend a lot of our time together. She is such a loveable girl and how can you not love that face! hehe

These pictures were from Italy in 2018 and the sites were beautiful and the food just amazing! yum yum!

aside from traveling and eating, I love spending time with friends either going to concerts or hanging at the beach.  Fishing is also a past time I enjoy in the summer months. Sitting back listening to the waves crash on the shore is the most amazing sound to me.  Recently we went to the Atlantic city beer festival with friends and got to see a couple bands we enjoy New found Glory and Alkaline trio. Also an emo girl at heart!

My passion was science, but I have always been interested in English. English has always been my favorite subject. Making the switch is new and exciting and I plan on trading in my scrubs for a profession in English. I would love to one day teach at a high school or college level.  Maybe even go into higher education! who knows where the wind will take me!

I look forward to meeting all my fellow peers! 🙂