Prof. Kjar on Natural Changes

("Roger, Keith, Pete and John." Here. Flickr. 28 March, 2010)

Prof. Kjar's lecture about evolution was a curious talk on how things change and the wording to what it means to change and why. Prof. Kjar's own love of ants seemed to fuel much of his lecture as he went on to touch upon the change in rats and other earlier creatures of the earth. I found it interesting that the common rat ones sees is in fact rather young genetically compared to others in the same family. As for the history of natural selection and the fight for evolution, prof. Kjar took an interesting view point by taking into account the factor of a dead specie. Should a creature be powerful enough to create a planet and all of the creatures on it, how could creatures made by such a being be wiped out over time? Along with other examples of evolution vs. religion, prof. Kjar was able to paint a fairly clear picture of why the two are at odds with one another.
Evolution has been a part of my beliefs for as long as religion has, so many of the areas that debates between the two start do not hold much sway for me. Perhaps it was my own love of Jurassic Park as a kid, but dinosuars and creation seemed to fit when I was younger. My father being the deeply rooted man of science told me of all the different animals and bugs the earth had seen that no longer can be found other than in the earth. My mother came from a more religious family and thus instilled the teachings of Christ and religion in me. That childish mind of mine just kind of took the two and made one lump sum of Jesus walking along side T-rex. It wasn't until I was in my teens that religion and science began to show signs of their warring pasts. Prof. Kjar's lecture was a wonderful learning experience to me as I am still kind of teaching my inner child.

Blade Runner

("Robby the Robot #1." Here. Flickr. 28 March, 2010.)

Q:Blade Runner is best known for its cyberpunk mise en scene (design aspects of the film): the incredibly dense texture of its shots. Watch very carefully and describe the 2020 culture the movie suggests visually.
R:I believe the dense cyberpunk like background shown throughout the movie is to give the viewer a sense of how close everything has become. Cities are normally cramped yet the future city given in Blade Runner is a kind of closeness unseen in the modern day. Beside the overly close nature of the future, there is a sense of darkness unnatural as the buildings creating it. The sun is rarely ever seen in the movie and onlt when above the streets and high in the sky. Rain is one of the greatest elements when it comes to weather. It is a wonder the city wasn't washed away by the possibly man made floods from above. As for the cyberpunk side of the backround, there was a great deal of (or perhaps I should say lack of) future buildings. Evenything has wires and pipes wrapping it in a futureistic shell missing any real kind of creativity when built. The metal coloured walls warped by time, have whole pieces missing. The ceilings look to be ready to drop at any moment as cracks begin at the floor and crawl like vines up to the roof itself. If any building were to look as such in any age, it's owner would be a poor soul indeed.

Q:A moral message of the movie is that it was wrong to enslave the replicants and use them as forced labor since they were so human-like in both appearance and thought process. What would need to be different about replicants in order for us to feel that it was OK to use them for labor?
R:In order for mankind to be able to "enslave" the replicants, the replicants would have to be something not human; something overly lessened. The replicants are refered to as "more human than human" as they not only look like humans, but can over time learn and form emotions just as a true human has. The replicants in simplest form are still human and there for not enslave-able. A mule is a creature to be enslaved in the right that it is lessened from man far enough. Is enslavement the right word to use? Perhaps not. Would it not be more fitting then to look at a metal monster closer to the replicants such as the robotic fleets we have today? No emotion, no thought other than given. These are what the replicants were before the future took hold and although science has jumped great bounds, moral ideals seem to be far in the dust. As the replicants took on emotions and thoughts of their own, humans seem to not have given the replicants any real thought. They are seen by humans still as simple tools which work much like a car or computer; the problems of rebeling replicants similar to a failure of the car's gears or the computer's main frame. If ever the replicants were to be truely enslaved, they would have to thoughtless, emotionless and most of all soulless. The replicants of Blade Runner will never remain enslaved much like Roy and the other's.

Dr. Kapasula's 'Single Ladies'

(Esty. "Vintage 50's Junior Cotton Pin Pleat Dress". October 22, 2009. Flickr March 2009.)

Dr. Kapasula's lecture can be summed into one word. Passion. She was one of the most passionate speakers EC has proved us with so far, not to say that the other lectures lacked just that Dr. Kapasula's raised the bar to a new level of energy. I must say however that her energy sometimes lost me as she talked about the feminist views of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' more. Personally I thought the lecture's points were somewhat different then my own opinion which caused me to have to focus more on Kapasula's points and reasons. Originally I had simply thought that Beyonce's song was just something with a beat and a silly dance to go with it. As far as the meaning to it, I assumed that it was a positive one for women as Beyonce talked about how much stronger she had become after leaving her last relationship; or so I had thought. Quickly the topic of 'Single Ladies' became how it was negative to women as they make it seem like they need someone and need a ring which can be taken as a symbol of old-world male rule. She also went into problems within the structure of marriage and gave examples of other forms of wedding bonds.
An orderly idea such as marriage can give way to chaos to those under unequal pressures. Similarly, a chaotic outlook of non-boarded social agreement to the shared rights of two individuals can cause a break down of personal and societal meaning. As for The Burial at Thebes, The tension between the genders can be seen in Antigone and Creon. Creon being the order of man over woman and Antigone (although a symbolist of individual over state) is the women who defies man and ultimately dies.

Lemak's lecture

Each individual is a body of its own. Not simply the body seen as flesh and bones, but a working system of debating moral and logical mind stances. No two people ever see a topic exactly the same and have differing judgments and views concerning just about anything. Even now, after reading the word "anything" our minds are going down different roads of what "anything" entails.
Social justice is a collection of different views among the society that are taken into account and the most popular being chosen as their version of justice. Now in society with leaders, there can be a differing of opinions that can be between to leading figures or the leading figure(s) and the society as a whole. An extreme example would be a society where the majority of people believe it justified to kill another human in order to save one's own life. The government however believes that killing in any means is unmoral and thus is not tolerated at all. The government represents moral authority while the people represent social justice. Neither is correct or incorrect over the other. A compromise would need to be met in order for the group to continue on without major conflict.
The issue between Antigone and Creon is more of a personal debate. Creon is some what of the moral authority while Antigone is more of the social justice. Creon's rule allows him to control, but his views on moral authority leads him to believe that his moral belief should out way public opinion. Antigone's wish to bury her brother is in line with the social norm of the Thebes, but she is prevented and cast into her stone tomb. Creon loses control once those around him begin to take action in favor of social justice; Creon's son taking his own life followed shortly by Creon's wife. Perhaps Athens' own way of proving public opinion important.
For justice's relationship to power, power is needed for justice (whether it is perceived as such) to be executed at all. Should a just cause or idea have no ability to support it's claim, then it can not be effective. Power does not have to be a ruler or strength, but merely a support by those that it would be affecting. Power's relation to freedom can be a double edged sword however. Power can free as quickly as it can cage. Should any examples be needed to prove power's capability to trap, look at those that have lead in the past and the rules they must follow.
The idea of justice is in some ways order. A common rule that can properly protect and punish. Justice being founded in a set of moral codes and beliefs. Justice however in a world of imperfection is chaotic in some nature. What justice maybe to one is injustice to another, and justice can fail, be misled, or be avoided. This irregularity causes a sense of chaos in justice, the only protection against which is question. By questioning what is justice, as Professor Lemak suggests we should, then the possibility of justice failing is lessened.

(minifig, page, September 16, 2006. flickr March 7 2010)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/The Self

(Eric."Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." 22 October, 2008. Online image. Yahoo Creative Commons. 21 February, 2010.)

The self can be such a fluid creature that many different ideas and opinions can be drawn up about this supposed single entity. How can a person of preferred mental health seem to have differing thoughts? Why do we question ourselves before our thoughts have chance to be proven wrong? Some like Sigmund Freud explain it by arguing in favor of different levels of the self within one person.
One idea cultivated by Mr. Freud was that the self is in three different pieces and each has a different function. This model being called the “Iceberg Theory” claims that the self comes in a faze of three different parts, each acting together and separately. The uppers most part would be the tip of the iceberg or identity. The identity of a person tends to be the part of a being that is known to others because of basic wants, ideals, and actions.
The second part would be called the middle of the iceberg or the ego. The ego would be the driving reasons behind why a person would commit to the actions, beliefs, and wants that they have. The bottom part of the iceberg in Sigmund’s theory would be the super ego, or the unconscious.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind questions the importance of an event in a person’s life, both good and bad. In the film the main character, Joel, is laden with the grief of his past relationship with had lasted a good deal of time but ended rather painfully. He later learns that the main female character, Clementine, had a medical procedure done to cause her to forget everything that related to Joel as well as Joel himself. Joel then deems that he wants the operation done as well to rid himself of his painful memories.
As Joel has his memories erased, he finds that forgetting all about his time with Clementine is not what he wants. The main conflict then becomes Joel against the forces driving his memories of Clementine away after he battles with himself, coming to the revelation that he does not want to forget. The most important scenes I believe of the movie are the scenes’ showing his realization that forgetting is not the answer. One such scene is when he is under bed covers with Clementine, this being one of his favorite memories as he calls out to the people working on him to let him “keep this memory”.
Although the title Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind suggests that one could be happy if all bad memories were taken away, the story it tells proves this as false. The experiences a person deals with throughout their live makes the self that they are. By taking away part of the one’s memory, one’s self is also being taken away.
As to order and chaos, the office that allows for the treatment is offering order to disturbed and unset minds. The order it offers however also gives a great deal of chaos to provide its manufactured order of the mind. The chaos of the peoples own minds can thus be thought of as a sort of natural order in which the introduction of memory loss is unnatural and chaotic.