Twelfth Night

This week, our class did an in-depth analysis and acted out Twelfth Night.  We've been through Act 1, and are moving on to Act 2 next week.  I already have seen the play a few times, so I know what happens and how it works.  I like acting it out, though that takes a long time.  I feel that this helps us understand the workings of the play more.

For my inquiry project, I am going to read Future Shock as soon as it arrives to Borders (the 28th or so).

Singularity Essay

As promised, here is my essay on what Ray Kurzweil thinks will occur in the future through his book, The Singularity is Near.

Gustavo Guerrero
Feburary 14, 2011
Stephanie Lytle
English 4

Guiding Question:  What do Kurzweil (and other futurists) predict about our future?

The future has always been speculated by humans.  In the 50’s, many people envisioned a future where there would be jetpacks, hovercars, and a lot of nuclear energy.  Others took a more pessimistic view, with government taking over like in George Orwell’s distopian novel 1984.  These claims were made, in general, with little idea of what would actually happen.  With Raymond Kurzweil’s The Singularity is  Near, Kurzweil outlines what he believes will happen with the future of humanity.  He predicts the “singularity” (where technology will advance in fantastic ways, so much that it’s impossible to predict) is coming, and going to arrive by 2045.  By using extensive data and reasoning, he presents what he thinks will occur with, among an innumerable amount of other things, what will happen with energy, the human body, and humanity as a whole.

Energy today is in dire straits.  Oil prices are fluctuating wildly, threatening to top $100 a barrel, skyrocketing gasoline prices to previously-unknown levels.  At the moment, almost all of our power comes from non-renewable sources.  Looking at the energy situation without taking into consideration the future, it seems that we will run out of oil and have a massive energy crisis.  Thankfully, humanity is not limited to this narrow view.  According to Kurzweil, solar power will become a predominant form of energy in the future.  He says that at the time of writing (in 2005), humans produce 14 trillion watts of power to power the world.  A whopping 78% of this comes from oil, coal, and gas, while nuclear makes up 7%, hydroelectric makes up 15%, and 0.5% comes from renewable sources (Kurzweil 243).  Thankfully, this dire prognosis is soon to be remedied, according to Kurzweil.  Referencing earlier graphs in his book that address the increasing power in technology while the price is rapidly dropping, Kurzweil predicts that “By 2030, the price-performance of computation and communication will increase by a factor of ten to one hundred million compared to today....Energy requirements will grow far more slowly than the capacity of technologies, however, because of greatly increased efficiencies in the use of energy” (Kurzweil 243).  He goes on to discuss how nanotechnology will revolutionize the energy industry, by capturing waste from factories, in the form of heat and other emissions.  The future holds these great advances not only for energy, but for our own bodies.

    It seems that although technology is rapidly advancing every day, the human body is unchanging.  While technology has been developed to augment the body, in the form of hearing aids, prosthetics, pacemakers, and other such medical devices, there have not been implants that can dramatically change the life expectancy of humans.  According to Kurzweil, however, this will change, very drastically.  In the near future, a few decades, nanotechnology will not only become extremely viable, but very inexpensive.  Kurzweil goes all-out in his ideas about the future of the human body, his ideas pretty much make humans become cyborgs.  The first idea he presents is that our current way of eating will become radically different, as the digestive system would be “redesigned”.  He proposes that “nanobots in the digestive tract and bloodstream will intelligently extract the precise nutrients we need, order additional nutrients and supplements...” (Kurzweil 303).  Kurzweil’s proposal is for an intermediate phase, before we completely flush out the need to eat at all.  Kurzweil goes past this small part of the body, explaining how we can program blood, and goes into one of the most fragile parts of the human body - the heart.  Kurzweil shows examples of scientists who have proposed replacing the heart completely, replacing everything with nanobots.  Kurzweil seems to become aware of the arguments against all of these radical changes, saying that we will pretty much become cyborgs, and he accepts this, as it will advance humanity even further.  After all of this, Kurzweil addresses the overarching question that arises while reading The Singularity - what becomes of humanity?   
           Kurzweil addresses what becomes of humanity as a whole in The Singularity.  Our population will grow at its current rate for at least another decade or so.  After that, the technological singularity begins to kick in and rev humanity into high gear.  By the time the singularity hits around 2045, humanity’s population will have stabilized, with advances in technology, we will be able to conduct space travel.  Come 2045, technology will become exponentially more intelligent, with artificial intelligence (AI) becoming prevalent in our culture.  Humans will become immortal, in a sense.  Thanks to advances in medical technology, death by old age, disease, and other natural causes will be eradicated.  People will still die from accidents, war, etc., but for the most part, people will be able to live for a very long time and be able to reverse the effects of aging.  “Human life expectancy is itself growing steadily and will accelerate rapidly, now that we are in the early stages of reverse engineering the information processes underlying life and disease” (Kurzweil 323).A lot of this hinges on the success of nanotechnology - if nanobots become as prevalent as Kurzweil predicts, the world will be a much different, and ultimately, better place.
    The future is bright, if Kurzweil is right.  His predictions of the future seem extremely well-grounded, he backs up his claims with countless sources.  The future of energy doesn't seem as bleak anymore, as does dying.  In fact, by the time I’m in 2045, I could live forever.  This is what one man believes will occur in our future, and after reading his book, I have significant reason to believe a lot of what he says.  The only problem about these kinds of books is that there is no way to tell, except to wait until the fabled year 2045.
   

Emma and Finishing the Singularity

This week, my grade went and saw the musical Emma at the Old Globe Theater in Balboa Park.  It was an very enjoyable performance, although the story's conclusion was easy to figure out.  The audience was really into it, which was enjoyable to see.  Later in the week, I read more of The Singularity, which I am almost done writing.  When I am, I will post my essay concerning The Singularity on this blog, so stay tuned!

Retell, Respond, Relate: Pages 1-100 of The Singularity is Near

This week, I read The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil, and wrote two Read, Retell, and Respond works about it.  You can find them below.

Pages 1-50 of The Singularity is Near:

Retell:  In the first 50 pages of The Singularity is Near, Raymond Kurzweil begins by explaining his back story and how he came to become an inventor and develop his ideas about the Singularity.  He then compares the magic in the book series Harry Potter to how in the future, we will be able to duplicate this.  In the first 50 pages he speaks about how technology is accelerating at an exponential pace, backing up his claims with various graphs showing the current slope of technological growth.  He also outlines the six epochs before we reach The Singularity, where technology becomes more advanced than the human brain.  At that point, technology will expand explosively, eventually allowing us to reach into space.

Respond:  The first 50 pages of this book are dense, I will not deny that it is an extremely dense and a bit dry of a read.  When he explains the Six Epochs, it’s very interesting to see what Kurzweil predicts will occur over the next thirty-some years.  Overall, I think this first part needs to be dry, because it gives the reader a very solid foundation for understanding the rest of his book.

Relate:  I can relate to these first 50 pages because it serves as an introduction to the whole concept of The Singularity.  While it is hard to read, the graphs are easy to understand and his explanations, while long, make logical sense.  I hope that later on, he does not go into the extremely long explanations.  All in all, I liked this part a lot.

Pages 50- 100 of The Singularity is Near:

Retell:  In the second 50 pages of Kurzweil’s book, Kurzweil goes more into the actual data backing up his claims.  Where the first 50 pages he outlines what he’s will speak about, the second 50 pages is where he brings several different graphs full of information into play.  The first of these is a series of graphs where it shows technology doubling in power while halving in price, starting in the 70’s or so and continuing to the time of writing and beyond.  He also shows an immensely interesting graph of how close computers are to having more computing power than the brain by the year 2020, with computers being more powerful than all human brains by the year 2040-2050.

Respond:  These 50 pages are much easier to understand than the first 50, since instead of a wall of text, it is a paragraph or two, backed up by a nice graph which he explains.  I learned a lot from these pages, especially on how, specifically, technology is going to grown in the next few decades.  It’s extremely interesting to see Kurzweil’s predictions about how computers will, within the next 50 years be more powerful than a human brain.

Relate:  These 50 pages are easy to relate to because they show trends that I have already noticed, such as the adoption of the cell phone and of the Internet.  I can also relate to several other graphs inside of this,  such as the halfving of technology price and the doubling of power

Reflections on "The Singularity is Near"

I was sick most of this short week (I only came in Monday), and didn't get to do much work in English.  I did, however, do a lot of reading, and during that time I got to read more of "The Singularity is Near", by Raymond Kurzweil.  It's an extremely interesting read, if a bit dense.  I am really enjoying it, although I'm not exactly sure how to structure my essay just yet.   

In Class Essay - Should we be saving the world's languages?

 Here's the in-class essay that I wrote today, responding to an article that I read in the past week about language.

Should We Be Saving The World’s Languages?

Language is one of the things that make us human.  No other creature on this planet has such an extensive range of communication as we do.  Even beyond that, humans have a multitude of different languages that are used around the world every second.  From the two major dialects of Chinese in China (Mandarin and Cantonese) to Italian in Italy and English in America, the world is a hotbed of different languages.  There are, unfortunately, languages that have not been able to stand the test of time and have died out, becoming “extinct” languages.  The most prominent of these extinct languages is Latin, which is no longer used conversationally anymore, learned mostly for scholarly practices.  There are hundreds of other languages that have died out as globalization has spread, most of these being small languages known only to a specific tribe or region.  Some languages are on the brink of extinction, and a lot of these can be found in New York City, where researchers are trying to preserve the languages.  We should take steps to preserve dying languages, but ultimately, let them follow their natural course and go “extinct” from human speech.

            These languages need to be preserved in one way or another, most probably through audio recordings and some examples of the writing, if there is any, for a multitude of reasons.  Language is intimately connected to culture – without a culture for it to rest on, or vice-versa, the other generally dies out.  By documenting these dying languages, we can revisit the roots of more commonly spoken languages.  In the article Listening to (and saving) the world’s languages, a speaker of the dying language Garifuna says that “Here, I teach [my children] their history…The fact that they’re speaking it is empowerment in itself” (Roberts).  This man is teaching his children their culture through their language, which shows that language is tied to culture, and the bond is very powerful.

            However, this heartwarming story is part of a losing battle.  Experts worldwide predict that this hotbed of languages will die out anytime from 20 to 30 years from now.  No matter what resources are put into this, these languages are inevitably going to go out of use.  The teacher of the language will die, the students will marry others who do not share this language, disallowing it to be passed on to the next generation.  A linguist expert, Juliette Blevins, says that this extinction is “the inevitable consequence of globalization”, while the United Nations agrees that “a language will probably disappear…if the population of native speakers is too small and in decline” (Roberts).  Sadly, this is exactly what’s happening – the populations are isolated and in massive decline, with almost no hope of growth. 

            The sad truth is that these languages are going to die out from speaking existence.  In a hundred years at the most, the languages mentioned in the article, such as Garifuna and Mamuju will have no speakers left.  A descendant may know a couple of phrases or words picked up from their parents, but that will be the extent of it.  Instead of pretending the inevitable death of these languages is not going to occur, there needs to be an effort to preserve them while we can, for cultural purposes. An example of this would be a museum exhibit, showing the origins of these defunct languages and how they died out.  Languages have a life expectancy, just like humans, only longer.  English has only been around for a little while, relatively, who knows, English could become an extinct language as well. 

Beowulf and the Singularity

This week, we read the epic poem Beowulf, analyzing it and seeing what culture it came from.  This was extremely interesting, learning how old mythology combined with the new Christian faith in this story.  In addition, we compared the original epic to the movie, and learned that the movie mostly kept to the poem - except for a little part about a 50-year gap in the story.  Overall, I liked the poem quite a bit.


On the other side of class, my group and I have been working on a proposal for our independent study project - focusing on the future, by reading books such as The Singularity is Coming.