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Showing posts with the label human nature

The State of Consciousness: Meeting the Philosophers of Artificial Intelligence

Consciousness is our state of awareness and has been debated among theologians for a long time. John Locke discussed consciousness as perception that passes through the mind while Rene Descartes followed Cartesian Dualism when pondering the differences between physical and mental matter. No one has every truly defined, empirically broke down, or proven the existence of consciousness. I had the pleasure of meeting a group of philosophers to discuss the nature of consciousness in today’s world. Of course I am not talking about sandal wearing theologians coming out from some past century to share their Socratic wisdom. Instead of unemployed philosophers the group was made of psychologists, computer engineers, and even a mathematician. They are an eclectic crew that ranged from individuals who wore t-shirts with formulas to those with proper business attire. Each attended with their own interest in the topic from a professional and hobbyist point of view. The meeting was fas

Discussing Parks as a Place of Value Through Poetry

Poetry offers a new way of looking at the same thing. A new perspective with enough feeling or insight to challenge our previous assumptions. It doesn't really matter much what the topic of discussion is as poetry is about everyday life. In this case poetry can be about parks and their value to the environment both financially and aesthetically. Parks and landscaping are used to improve upon the environment. They cost a significant amount of money to build and more money to maintain but they are worth it. There is a reason why we are so attracted to parks and why we as humans enjoy them. We enjoy them so much that those neighborhoods that have parks and landscaping are worth more than those who don't. Parks are more than simple decoration as they provide activities, recreation and a chance to connect. They keep wildlife in the area and become places where people socialize. Birds and squirrels become actors on our real life television that plays a metaphorical movie from eac

Throwing Ourselves Two Million Years into Human Advancement

Divisions of Labor were born with the human ability to throw a projectile.   Research has taught us that as people learned the ability to throw sticks, stones, rocks, and weapons the social nature of life began to change. Where humans were limited in their food supply, the ability to throw objects created more efficient hunting that led to increased calorie intake. Researchers recently published the interesting findings on human development in the journal Nature. The shoulder has developed in such as way to maintain elastic energy so that when it is released it can produce the fastest motion possible. Other species cannot do this. Where chimpanzees can throw 20 mph the human can often achieve up to 100 mph. This makes the projectiles much faster than the natural speed in the environment. This faster speed creates higher levels of food and nutrition obtainment which fosters population growth.  The division of labor occurred because food was a commodity that could be bartered