Synthesizing Cycle 1’s theme of, “What is Life”, I’ve given the students the option of choosing a personal novel where the question of life and sentience are important themes. Frankenstein and Feet of Clay were two suggestions.
For our Socratic Dialogue, I’ve found a nice article (via The Dish) from MIT’s Technology Review, which deals with the cultural differences that affect how Americans and Japanese view robots. They suggest it’s because Americans come from a monotheistic, jealous god culture where only god can create life, while the animism that permeates Japanese culture makes them more amenable to having self-actuating beings around them.
Apart from the theme, the article’s vocabulary is complex enough for lots of marking up and discussion, but it starts with the hook of warfighting mecha.
We’ll see how it goes over later today.
Interesting article. I’m not sure I agree in total. But I want to give it some more thought. I found the comments regarding the article very interesting as well. Good call for discussion.
Yeah, I found it quite interesting. I keep thinking of NASA as a counterexample. This type of broad, sweeping argument is very hard to prove one way or the other so it’s (potentially) great for discussion.
We have not discussed it yet but I hope by tomorrow afternoon. Will keep you updated.