Sunday, September 25, 2011

2nd blog post

          I feel that the reason that Bernard is different than the rest of this so called human society in "Brave New World" is that he believes what humanity truly means. In the article "The Year Man Becomes Immortal", Grossman explains the beliefs of Kurzweil in which that "we can scan our consciousnesses into computers and enter a virtual existence or swap our bodies for immortal robots and light out the edges or space as intergalactic godlings. Within a matter of centuries, human intelligence will have re-engineered and saturated all the matter in the universe.". I feel that the use of the words "Human Intelligence" should not be used in this quote for the reasons being that to be human is to be with in the "natural" human guidelines. Otherwise we as a society will have to create a whole new meaning of the word "humanity". To be paired with robot intelligence in order to aid ours, is to re-define what is "humanly" possible. In chapter six of "Brave New World" Bernard tries to show Linina what a relationship actually means, ""Id thought we'd be more... more together here- with nothing but the sea and moon. More together than in that crowd, or even in my rooms. "". Its almost like Bernard is the last remaining person who truly understands what humanity should be like. On the other hand Linina is the complete opposite, because she is so caught up in the new society. I feel that Bernard is being romantic, but at the same time I feel that he is on to something. Its hard to tell if we are in danger of the progression of technology. I feel that there would be many positives to gain, but at the same time I feel that we would be loosing our human (sense) just like the people in "Brave New World" did. They eliminated their human ability to be unique and different from one another, which could happen to our society if were not careful.
     

Monday, September 5, 2011

Analysis of Marina A. Kenney's "Ahab's Devolution in Moby Dick"

Marina A. Kinneys article on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was purposely written to discuss captain Ahab's devotion towards catching Moby Dick who is a long time menace in that he consumed captain Ahab's leg. Kinneys makes connections to her audience through connecting Ahab's troubles with theirs. As Ahab is so caught up in revenge he looses touch with the outside world around him and devotes himself to finding the monster whale. This is very much relevant to the modern day person. If a person is so caught up with one thing in their life whether it be work school or something that has happened to them, they forget what life has to offer. The overall main point of the article is to express the change that took place in Ahab as he let revenge overcome him and control his life. In Kenneys article, she used many quotes and commentary to help express her main idea. As I read this article I found it to have lots of elevated language. In the article words like microcosms and monomaniacal were used to show her elevated style of writing. Through out the her writing she used many clear examples of comparisons and contrasts, which served mostly to facilitate her main topic. Through the large of concrete details and commentaries she proved to have established a large authority over the subject.
         In doing this assignment I feel that I have a long way to go in being comfortable with this type of writing. Through the past years I have been so use to writing in a specific format. It was weird knowing that you don't really have any guidelines to follow like specific placement of a thesis or structuring a body paragraph to have a certain number of cd's and cm's. I expected it to be very easy, but i picked a article that was kind of difficult to comprehend. Its a very simple style of writing if you understand what you are reading. There for the next assignment like this I will probably pick an article more suitable for me.