Professor Belli–Fall 2020–City Tech
Thanks for all the amazing responses to See You Yesterday!
I know voting is on everyone’s mind this week (with the looming Presidential election!), and it’s time for one more vote …
Now’s the time to choose for your People’s Choice post, so get your votes in (complete with your chosen post–author/title/link, an excerpt from it + rationale for choosing it). This time around, comments are due by Sun 11/1. As always, looking forward to seeing your choices 🙂
Time travel has always been one of those subject that no one truly knows how to handle, because of how difficult it is to comprehend. Travelling through time, if even only by a couple minutes can lead to all sorts of unforeseen consequences. One minor change in the timeline could lead to a catastrophic shift in the original timeline, and here we see that deliberately changing something can always lead to something else going wrong.
See You Yesterday is a Sci-Fi film that depicts the struggle of young girl desperately trying to do something that seems impossible. It all starts with the unjust shooting of her older brother. At first what seemed like a massive scientific achievement was turned and twisted into a grueling journey of two teens trying to change an unavoidable event.
Watching See You Yesterday made me question the possibility of what Science could and couldn’t fix. Even with all the power of a time machine at their disposal, Claudette and Sebastian couldn’t stop the death of Claudette’s brother no matter how many times they tried. It begs the question of if these events that happen in life are fated to play out a certain way.
A question that doesn’t cross Claudette’s mind throughout the movie. There has to be some way she can save him, or at least that’s what she thinks. Here we see the general conflict of Person vs Fate. Claudette refuses to believe that there’s nothing she can do to prevent the unjust murder of her brother by the hands of the police. So she repeatedly goes back to try and stop it, despite the grave consequences of her failures that always appear in each jump.
But Claudette isn’t the only one to notice these failures, which further reinforces the strange unavoidability of her brother’s death. During one of the jumps, the past version of her best friend and Companion Sebastian get shot by a pair of robbers. Upon this happening, the present version of Sebastian dies and everything shifted from her brother being killed to Sebastian being killed.
This was obviously a drastic change, so drastic that Claudette’s brother Calvin, who was now alive and well, felt like he should’ve been the one to die. Even the past version of Calvin, from when Sebastian is saved, starts acting off and feeling different because of how many times the day has come and he has been killed in the shooting.
Science is a dangerous concept that all of humanity has explored one way or another. It has cured things, and it has helped plan for things, but there is always the question of how far Science can go in terms of otherworldly things like Time Travel or interfering with time. Can science really fix any problem that humans have? Will Claudette ever find a true way to save her brother without sacrificing someone?
Was her brother’s fate sealed the day it happened, or is this thing we call fate unavoidable with every action we take?
The world may never know.
Time for this week’s People’s Choice, on Destroyer reading responses. Get your votes in (complete with your chosen post–author/title/link, an excerpt from it + rationale for choosing it). This time around, comments are due by Sun 10/25. As always, looking forward to seeing your choices 🙂
Victor LaValle’s “Destroyer” is a graphic novel, that takes the original story of Frankenstein, and puts a modern spin on it. The story stars Frankenstein’s Monster and Dr. Josephine Baker, a descendant of Victor Frankenstein and a scientist who revives her dead son. There are a lot of parallels in “The Destroyer”, such as how Dr. Baker revives her son Akai vs how Dr. Frankenstein creates the Monster, by combining body parts and in the case of Akai, using nanotech to create parts of his body. One thing I found interesting is that in the afterword, LaValle mention’s how Frankenstein’s author, Mary Shelley, had her deceased husband’s heart in her desk. In the first chapter, we see that Dr. Baker has (what I presume to be) Akai’s heart, and uses that as a starting point for his revival.
“The Destroyer” touches on the topic of artificial life and race. Dr. Baker talks about how artificial life will be what comes after humanity falls and that Akai is the start, partially organic, and artificial will eventually evolve to be that of purely non-organic life and machine. This evolution reminds me of a concept I recently heard about called Theseus’s Ship. It’s an old Greek story about a hero and a ship, where throughout the story parts of the ship get destroyed and have to be replaced, and by the end of the story, no part of the ship is the same as when it first left the harbor. The philosophical question then becomes is the ship the same ship as the one that originally set out since everything has been changed. In “The Destroyer” the majority of Akai’s body has been replaced, much like Theseus’s ship. Dr. Baker tells Akai that “You’re something entirely… new. Even the monster, in the end, is only human. You’re an entirely new life form”. Plier’s, Akai’s dad, also has had his body merge with The Bride, a big robot, and Dr. Baker herself becomes just a consciousness stored digitally within Akai. All these characters change and become something different than what they originally started as, though their personality, mostly, stays the same.
The one character that seems to change the most is Dr, Baker. Throughout the story, we’re shown flashbacks of Dr. Baker and how she met Pliers. She originally is shown to be fairly quiet but enthusiastic about her work at The Lab, but after she has to quit her job at The Lab and after the death of her son due to, police brutality, she turns to vengeance against a racist society that has failed her, her son, and other Black people. This, in the story, parallels the Monster who is also vengeful and holds hatred towards society. Akai’s death also seems to be an allusion to the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy, like Akai, who was shot, within two seconds, by police in 2014. Other points that LaValle covered in the story are how Black people are discredited for their work and their inventions were stolen, as shown when Dr. Baker mentions how The Lab took The Bride from her and they even used it against her. Also, when Dr. Baker talks about artificial life being humanity’s next step, and how they will judge and fear those who are artificial and in comparison to the beginning of the story where the Monster is watching a video that talks about how humans are on the verge of wielding power over life and death; I find it interesting that humans can even think about artificial life when there still racial inequality. Humanity is thinking far into the future before facing present-day issues.
The discussion of power over life and death in “The Destroyer” and other Frankenstein related works, make me think about a recent quote I heard from a game I play called Destiny 2; the quote being, “Life and Death are liars’ tools. Weave your own lie.” Victor Frankenstein and Dr, Baker have both surpassed the limitations of normal human life expectancy, both through their work and in Dr. Baker’s case, her consciousness. Both can be seen as starting points to human immortality, which was something that Dr. Baker was working on when she was at the Lab. In real life, there are some ways scientists are looking into this such as the use of cryonics to freeze human bodies and preserve for years, to then unfreeze sometime in the future. This also raises a few questions such as would some of us even want to be immortal? In what ways can we achieve immortality? And what would it look like if every human on the planet was immortal? One answer to the last question, I believe, can be shown in a text we read earlier his semester; Issac Asimov’s “The Last Question”, and how the human’s in his story achieved immortality and needed more space in the universe for the ever-growing population. Victor LaValle’s “Destroyer” was a very interesting and enjoyable reading, that covers a lot of topics, and raises a lot of questions.
It’s that time again! Read through your classmates’ reading response blogs on the first episode of the HBO series, Westworld, and choose your favorite post. You can choose a post for any reason, but you always must clearly articulate your rationale for choosing it (e.g., why did you find it interesting, compelling, likeable, provocative, etc.?). This rationale can refer to content, style, creativity, etc. If, after reading everyone’s posts, you strongly feel that your post is your “favorite,” you can always vote for yourself, but you need to provide a rationale for doing so.
In order to register your vote for this week’s “People’s Choice,” “leave a reply” to this post, and in your comment, provide your chosen post, an excerpt from it + rationale for choosing it. Provide the title and author of the chosen post, along with a link to the post you are citing (please provide the link in the same comment: don’t make a separate one with just the link). Citing is really important (in this case, citing your classmate!), and this is a way of giving credit to other sources and putting yourself in dialogue with them.
Comments/votes are mandatory, should be made no later than Th 10/8 by 9am. The person with the most votes will earn the coveted “People’s Choice” honor for this round of posts! I’m looking forward to seeing what you choose, and why.
I had heard about Westworld before and never decided to look at it, now I can say I regret that decision.
Westworld is a weird mix of Sci-fi and Western in a way that makes it feel like the two worlds were meant to go hand in hand with each other. Where people with fat wallets can indulge in a Western fantasy story unlike any other. One where the people and the experiences are all predetermined and scripted much like that of a video game.
One of the things that I found disturbing about Westworld was the realness of it all. The fact that the Hosts as they were called were so real and life like that they could be passed off as Human as long as you interact with them the way they’re meant to interact.
The concept of Androids being too Human to distinguish has always been explored in the media in which they’re engaged. Westworld took it’s own turn with this and made it so that the Hosts we see are all Human like yet identified by the source codes they’re set to follow.
It’s harrowing to see their reactions and their personalities show through but it’s even more worrying to know that it’s all a fabrication by their creators. The Hosts feel like Human beings until they react in a way that no Human can, and still they seem more like people than the actual people in Westworld.
The Programmers and the people overseeing the project feel more robotic and detached than the Hosts themselves. Whenever they’re on screen there’s always talk about some sort of issue with the Hosts being too life-like but some believe that it’s normal for them to feel and to remember and dwell on prior experiences.
Westworld, to Me, is a story where there are no real Humans. There are people and there are Hosts. Neither of which could be considered Human because of how they behave. As said by Dolores’ Father Mr. Abernathy at 46: 21 “Hell is empty and all the Devils are here.” In this weird balance of People and Hosts, the Hosts are the ones that feel more like people. They change and grow and shift in personalities, and the biggest example of this is Dolores.
She starts out in the beginning as someone who would never harm a living creature, a picture of what the ideal Host would look and act like. She doesn’t deviate from her scripts, she doesn’t react in ways that seem off, and she lives the life set and scripted for her. Even when Mr. Abernathy begins to deviate after seeing the strange photograph, she replies with the repeated lines “Doesn’t look like anything to me.” and “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what you mean.” However, at the end of it all when things have begun to change and the project is becoming more unstable, Dolores does something entirely unscripted.
She swats at a fly and kills it. A Human action that directly contradicts her character of someone who’d never harm a living creature.
Westworld is a world where the Humans are machines and the Machines are made Human, and I really enjoyed that twist it presented with the shift of Dolores’ character and the eeriness of her deviating from her preset algorithm.
HBO’s Westworld created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, based off the 1973 film of the same name by Michael Crichton takes place in Western themed amusement park (A technological advanced one), that is run by hosts (androids) that must cater to the needs of the high paying individuals who come to the park. Whatever those needs may be. The first episode of season 1 titled “Original”, finds us in the West with a woman named Delores, who is living with her father Peter. She is traveling to a town called Sweetwater for some things that she needs and ends up meeting an ex lover, Teddy. He joins her on her way back to her farm, in which they discover that Two bandits have attacked her father stating they also killed and raped his wife. Teddy kills both bandits, but can not kill a third man, The Man in Black. This is because all host are programmed to not be able to kill humans (guest) and also can not feel things like flies on skin. The MIB kills Teddy and (technically) kidnaps Delores but it seems that he knows who she is.
What happens next is that an update is given to the host in the park by the creator Dr. Robert Ford, however it causes the host to act up. At first it was ignored, but then an incident causes all host that have ben updated to be taken for a check up.
Peter finds a guest photo the next morning, which is a picture of the regular world and confuses him. This is because the androids technically don’t know about life, since it is not their programming. Peter warns Delores in a cryptic message, which is discovered after the head of security asks Delores some questions. All host but Peter, and the Sheriff Walter who was the first to malfunction are cleared. However, the host are asked questions multiple times, one of which is can Delores harm a human being, to which she answers no.
The next day, Peter is replaced (Delores does not realize this) and a scene of Delores killing a fly on her neck is shown.
This last scene is the most important part of the episode for me. We see how regular people treat the park simply because those in it are simply androids that technically are not real people, but by having the Man in Black know who Delores is, represent that maybe there is something deeper. Also, an entire amusement park with androids who have some type of human capabilities is very high tech. But to show what may or may not be an android actually ‘feel’ despite this being something that should not happen. This is even hidden by the fact that when asked by the head of security can she harm a human, she says no. These contradicting actions already paint a picture for what may happen in the show. Maybe the androids will develop actual personalities and become self aware, or maybe people can be programmed with technology.
It’s that time again! Read through your classmates’ reading response blogs on “The Last Question” and choose your favorite post. You can choose a post for any reason, but you always must clearly articulate your rationale for choosing it (e.g., why did you find it interesting, compelling, likeable, provocative, etc.?). This rationale can refer to content, style, creativity, etc. If, after reading everyone’s posts, you strongly feel that your post is your “favorite,” you can always vote for yourself, but you need to provide a rationale for doing so.
In order to register your vote for this week’s “People’s Choice,” “leave a reply” to this post, and in your comment, provide your chosen post, an excerpt from it + rationale for choosing it. Provide the title and author of the chosen post, along with a link to the post you are citing (please provide the link in the same comment: don’t make a separate one with just the link). Citing is really important (in this case, citing your classmate!), and this is a way of giving credit to other sources and putting yourself in dialogue with them.
Comments/votes are mandatory, should be made no later than Su 10/4. The person with the most votes will earn the coveted “People’s Choice” honor for this round of posts! I’m looking forward to seeing what you choose, and why.
Entropy. Merriam-Webster defines it as: a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system’s disorder. However, when it comes to Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question”, I find that the third definition: CHAOS, DISORGANIZATION, RANDOMNESS, fits a lot better in that case.
The story is something I’ve honestly never heard of before, in a world somewhere in a distant galaxy, thermodynamic power was adapted all across the universe for everyone to use instead of normal power systems such as coal or nuclear fission. In this world, we see a collection of different points in time all syncing up to tackle the same problem: The worry of when and how the energy they are using will burn out.
The characters all fear the same thing, and in the end they all start posing the question of “Is Entropy real and can it be reversed?”. The question is posed because of how the thoughts of everything coming to an abrupt end whenever the stars decide to die, even though that isn’t going to happen for several hundreds of thousands of years, are too much for them to handle.
The Last Question felt more like an existential horror story than your average Sci-Fi story, and I honestly couldn’t tell where it was going to go half the time. Everyone in the story eventually comes to the realization that the stars are going to die and that it’s only a matter of time before their system fails. This is inevitable. But the other factor that is inevitable is someone will eventually ask how to reverse it.
What interested me the most was the fact that the first time the Last Question is asked was done as a joke “You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”. The joke not only starts the debate that’ll continue throughout the story, but it leaves us wondering more.Â
What I liked about the story was that fact that despite technology’s advancements throughout the ages, the answer took decades to discover. It starts with the Multivac and gradually expands to the Microvac, The Galaxy AC, and the Universe AC. However, despite the machine constantly advancing, it’ll only ever be as smart and as capable as the people who contributed to it’s creation.
The line “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGUL ANSWER” means a lot more in this context, because of how despite it being powered by Thermodynamic energy, The AC’s will always be man-made machines that can’t answer questions that we as people can’t answer ourselves. Yet, the characters seem to forget this, seeing as how thousands of years pass and the AC’s consistently improve to process greater questions. Yet after all the questions have been answered, and all the data that could be collected has been, there is still no answer to The Last Question.
“A timeless interval was spent in doing that. And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy. But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.”Â
Chaos is a concept that can’t be understood or accounted for by normal means. It’s complete disorder and confusion, something that can’t be withheld or prepared for. The concept of Entropy in “The Last Question” was handled wonderfully in my opinion because in the end, there is no conceivable answer to a question regarding chaos. In the end, there is only a demonstration that couldn’t be witnessed or accounted for, there was only a result.
I read “The Last Question” By Isaac Asimov a story that tackles the concepts of progress, entropy, the meaning of finite vs infinite, and it honestly has a more melancholic introspective about life. The story starts out with this machine whose sole purpose was to answer any question, but when the resources started to run low humanity switched to the power of the stars. All was good until two guys talked about how to with the power of the start’s humanity can keep progressing forever and never run out of power. However, one of them explains that while will have the power for billions of years it’s technically not infinite and the entropy of the universe will reach its peak. The other skeptical of how thing decides to ask the mechanic if there was a way to reverse the entropy of the universe and it responds, “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”  As time went on the cycle continues, humanity evolves, the machine gets better and better, a pair of people bring up the question of “how can we reverse the entropy of the universe? ” and every time the machine response with, “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”  Until the end where the universe’s entropy is maxing out, humanity melded together and eventually died, and all that remained was the machine advanced to a point beyond comprehension is still trying to solve the question. In the machine’s last moments, it solves the problem and creates a new universe.
What I found interesting about it was how much humanity evolved as a species but could not solve the question until after they passed. Technology in the story goes from building large computers that eventually get smaller and smarter, to society exploring the galaxy and harnessing the power of the stars. But it’s also sad because of that rapid evolution, in part 3 (page 5) one of the characters says “Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we will have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?” with humanity expanding in this way it becomes a question of what are we even still progressing for? If we know that the entropy of the universe will max out and we currently reverse, it then why keeps going. There even moments were some tries creating new stars from the remnants of older ones, but it usually took tones of stars to die to make one new one. In the end, it can basically be summed up to three things humanity will never stop progressing, entropy can’t be reversed, and all good the things must come to an end. This story really makes you seem small n the grand scale of the universe
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
