Stephane’s Comments (group member since Apr 21, 2013)

Stephane’s comments from the EDCMOOC group.

Just finished to watch the anime serie "Serial Experiments Lain". It seems connected to me to "The last question" as it interrogates the concept of God and the connection of conscious in a wired system : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_E... and for the episodes : http://www.goodanime.net/category/ser...

Here are some suggestions for later. Feel free to correct, adjust them if it seems a bit clumsy.

Rick brings the first question for our discussion :
1. How does the difference between « God » as a machine vs the traditional view of God as a being affect you ? Which one is more appealing ?

Here we can discuss Anne's idea :
2. Does the reliance on technology have some similarities with the traditionnal relation on some higher order ?

Ping and Kirstie have noted various different themes in this story. Maybe this next questions have some resonance with them :

3. Can we always expect that a satisfying technological solution could answer the deferral of our responsabilities in terms of management of ressources ?

4. Which qualitative perception of our environnement and of our self (conscience, spirituality) can bring the interconnection of humanity ? (I was although thinking about the term of noosphere)

5. In your opinion, is space colonization ineluctable ? What are the reasons that should lead to this ?

Less than one week to go before discussing the novel.

As I finished it, I came to an article from h+, the transhumanism magazine, called "religion in the age of Cyborgs". It's maybe not totally related, but could give some inspiration for discussion.

Have you already read it and found some interesting themes ?

Yesterday was the free comic book day - and there is a great adaptation of 6 novels from Cony Doctorow for comic book that can be downloaded from here : https://archive.org/details/CoryDocto...

One theme could be about the disinhibtion effects of media concerning violence or other offensive behavior. We see it with the television in the Hunger games, how is it different with the internet ?

Kc wrote: "A few ideas for topics...
"

Ahoj!
I've only read the first half so far but I like your second topic with the hypothesis of the Traveller. Could the state of a perfect security (social and material with technology) lead to a decline in intelligence of humanity ?

"The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence."

The novel reminds me of "Pumzi", a short dystopian movie from Kenya : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlR7l_...
One of the questions I see there, is how spirituality and science are bound together to forge the future.

already a lot of questions !
Mine could be (in a proper English :) - When can we estimate that we are serving the Machine rather than it's serving us ?