Inquiry Study

This week we basically just wrapped up our 2nd third of the Inquiry project, and to do so, we had to write an essay on the second book we read and how it related to our driving question. Below are two excerpts from my essay that I believe summarize my new perspective based off my second book (Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence) and our driving question.

Recently I read Jeff Hawkins’ On Intelligence with the intention of answering the driving question: “How does consciousness define the way we perceive the world, and how will this change as our technology advances and we explore alternate states of consciousness?” I chose to study this particular question because personally I am very interested in how the human mind functions, and after hearing about Dr. Kurzweil’s theories on the future merger between biological and technological evolution, I wanted to learn for myself and form my own opinions on what consciousness truly is and how it may be altered by future advancements.

...I have extrapolated that the advance of reverse brain-engineering will not alter our consciousness, but how we perceive the world by allowing us to maximize the potential of our mental capacity, the specifics of which will unfold as the advance comes to fruition. And, in essence, if we are to be able to reconstruct the human brain and maximize its potential we must do so with the guiding concept of using inductive thought as a foundation, rather than computational sequences. As for my perspective on my driving question, I do believe that Consciousness is and will always remain as that which experiences the world, through emotions, experiences, and impressions made upon it. However, as we move toward the point where our perception of reality is drastically enhanced, I do believe that we may be able experience consciousness in a more pure manner that we are not yet able to comprehend, without the constant impressions of the outside world.

Wheels Keep Turning

This week, as you may have guessed, we continued to study Twelfth Night, which was again, fun interesting, and slightly repetitive. I am looking forward though to making a voice acted play version of a scene from twelfth night, I think it'd be really fun to have to portray that much character through only voices. I've also been reading more of Jeff Hawkin's On Intelligence, and to be honest, I'm really enjoying his extreme lack of formality, but I am getting excited for his thoughts to play out as he delineates the core structure of the book.

I feel like second semester senior year is honestly slowing down to a crawl in all our classes, except for calculus. I find it almost fatiguing to endure endless hours of Twelfth Night, not say I don't like the underlying reason we're studying, its just the lack of productivity that leaves me feeling, lack luster I suppose.

Love & Neuroscience

This week all we did was act out scenes from Twelfth Night. I suppose we're learning about love, and different perspectives on it across time and gender. I enjoy what we're learning, but frankly, the play, and having to read and act it out everyday is getting a bit old. I don't have a whole lot to say about it, but, I finally got On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins (my second book, about reverse brain engineering), and I'm very excited to start it. It should be an interesting exploration into how the human brain differs from our computers today, and how we are trying to create artificial thought.