Dr. Kjar's Lecture: "Evolution: Order and Chaos"

Dr. Kjar's lecture: "Evolution: Order and Chaos" gave a very interesting scientific point of view in regards to creation myths. At first the creation mythologies that we have all grown up believing

seem to be a very accurate and we believe this to be a fact. After attending Dr. Kjar's lecture I find myself very skeptical as to what, if any, creation myths that are fact. Dr. Kjar gave lots of support for sciences perspective on how humans and life on Earth has evolved over time and how this change is not random. I was surprised to learn the differences of truth and fact, meaning that a truth is something you know (i.e. I ate breakfast this morning) and a fact is something that can be measured, (that ruler is one foot long). This surprised me because I thought that truths and facts went hand in hand as facts were the truth and truth were the facts. After listening to Dr. Kjar I now understand the difference. What I found to be most interesting was the notion that Natural Selection is the "fun" section of science as Natural Selection has led to the development of many new sciences. I thought the lecture gave a good bridge of understanding in protraying a very logical scientific perspective on the notions of creation that we have been studying in class. I also noted that like Galileo, Darwin went against years of academia teaching when formulating his ideas on science, just like Galileo did with astronomy. I thought Dr. Kjar's lecture made clear a very disticnt point that evolution isn't a theory, but is a provable scientific fact.

Picture accessed: March 26, 2010

Picture accessed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Darwin_ape.jpg

Blade Runner

The movie Blade Runner describes a 2020 culture where there seems to be two dominating manufacturing powers. The opening scence to the metropolis world of Earth, shows advertisements for Coke-Cola, and other American, and Asain, brands. The economy is capitalistic, but it seems there are two classes of econimic standing, those who have and those who don't. Earth is now a vast City-world, and all of nature is non-existant. The cybernetic world now sell perfectly manufactured replicas of animals, and humans. The culture seems to be pleasure centered, meaning that the ideal life the status quo, is a life of leisure. Most of Earth's population has moved off-world, those left behind, are street urchins, criminals, scientists working for the manufacturers, and the cops. Now on Earth the manufacturers have become very adept at making replicas of humans, and this leads to a new race of replicants, those who think like humans, and look like humans. A moral message raised was that it was wrong to enslave the replicants and us them for forced labor, and I agree with this message. But to make it moral to enslave the replicants, I think, all you have to do is change the thought process part of them. If you changed their minds, thought process, from being self-aware, and able to problem solve, and back to single processes like cut this metal sheet, cut this metal sheet, or build the whole car, build the whole car. Once you change the thought process the robotic, man-made, replicants regardles of how human they look could still be used for forced labor, because they would be machines. I believe this ties in with the themes of Order and Chaos, and the Ideas of ourselves among others, because without being self aware, we cannot see how our actions affect others. The replicants see how they are percieved within this culture and try thier best to be human, and live their lives... This leads to chaos; the machines now experience no order, they feel something that doesn't correspond with the logic of their machine minds. The replicants to try to extend their lives by going rogue. The replicants are very strong and powerful, but its the human's ability to think and problem solve that over comes even the brightest and most dangerous replicant and end the movie.

Image accessed: March 20, 2010

Image accessed from: http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpapers/movie/bladerunner/blade_runner_11.jpg

Put A Ring On It!?!

Dr. Jesse Kabwila Kapasula's lecture "Feminist Agency in the Age of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies': Faces of International Feminism in Transanational Popular Songs," was a very interesting lecture. It was compromised of a well thought out, if not a little extreme, idea that the underlying problems of marriage is not something that feminist or those who views are that of a diverse ideal of the word Woman, should be promoting and that songs that glorify the opposite of this ideal 'Woman,' set the womans movement back decades as these images and ideas are glorifyed and mass produced due to the popularity of transnational popular songs. Such is the case of Beyonce's Single Ladies, as put forth by Dr. Kapasula. The most interesting point that the lecturer brings up is the idea the feminist agency is really just trying to act in a way that transforms you, but from a women's perpesctive. The notions and sexuality of the music video and the lyrics of the song are completely and utterly infuriating, according to Kapasula. She speaks about the persona, and what the persona is saying, what is the spirit within us all and what are we trying to attain for ourselves. For Kapasula, a Malawian from the continent of Africa, her persona is trying to get people to re-think Feminism, Internationalism and Heteromatic thinking (thinking in terms of man and woman exclusively). Her ideas are not so extreme that they seem radical, on the contrary, her lecture opened many eyes as to how other cultures view the popular music, both video and lyrical, of America and it is inspiring to see not just a normal 'run of the mill' sorta cop-out that everything American is good. This ties into our theme of Order and Chaos, because is sorta throws a wrench into the ignorance that we as Americans embrace, which is that sometimes what is meant to be sex symbolism and increased sales can undo years of freedom fighting and set the womans movement towards equality back a few steps. I see some similarities of Kapasula to those of Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto. Namely, Kapasula's Gift Narrative, and the analogy of the magician who loses control of his unearthly powers and how those powers turn back on their owner. I say this because, to those who are giving many good sentiments are being fulfilled by the giver but the best intentions might have the most horrific consequences. From Kapasula's point of view, giving is only suficing the needs of the giver not the givee, and by such, is demoralizing and only worsening the situation. As Kapasula said, it is the responisbility of the wealthy nations to help the poor nations out of poverty not place them under bondage; as many gifts come with politcal agendas and media propaganda. I feel the Kapasula's lecture was not only mind opening but raw and to the point, it was a little hard to understand since I don't have a complete understanding of what exactly Agencies definition could be but I adhere to the definitions set forth by the lecture and agree: What is this ring? What is meant by put a ring on it? Beyonce's video may be "hot" but because of this lecture I am sure, some girls, don't want that ring anymore!!

Image accesed from : http://femmething.com/wp-content/uploads.2009/11/beyonce-put-a-ring-on-it1.jpg

Accesed on :March 10, 2010

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

While watching the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, I was captivated by the movie's well edited, direction and the underlying fantasy of memory erasing. This movie makes the audience question themselves from a point of view that is so bizarre, and yet believeable, that if we erased our bad memories, we can controll our present happiness. This is strange, because as I wastched the film it seemed that those who erased their minds were not really in control of thier natural self, their subconcious self, making them prone to repeat past mistakes now erased. This repetition, of past mistakes, really highlights a central theme that is presented throughout the movie, which is that memories, both good, and bad, are necessary in shaping our personalities, and self-image, as well as building up our experience. In the chaos of the movie, the audience learns how the bad events whether in love or life, are necessary in keeping one grounded and hopeful, that our lives are ordered by the choices we make through the chaos. I also correlated the notion of inducing an acute case of alzheimers (memory erasing) and the readings on those who said that when loved ones were diagnosed with alzheimers that they were not the same person. The question I asked myself was why would people want to change themselves just because the memory wasn't the best. I believe that the bad memories in life help man understand why the good feels good, and strive for the great. The movie was perfectly planned in its editing and everything seems to correlate to something else both forwards and backwards throughout the movie. Take for instance Clemintines hair color, the names of the colors range from blue ruin to agent orange, and these colors help navigate the audience through the messy flashback scenes of Joels minds. The significant thing about Clemintines hair is that her mood reflects the name of the color of her hair. When she has her hair agent orange she seems to be on the warpath, not really caring who or what gets in her way, i.e. fire hydrants, Joel, and then decides to erase her memory of Joel. The blue ruin is very reflective of Clemintines mixed emotions, because both Joel and Clemintine are the creators of their own chaos, one is so ordered and the other so chaotic. The movie has many levels of meaning and would be very interesting to watch in a few years just to see how my perspective of the movie changed.

Image Citation: Accessed through http://www.morgan.k12.co.us/phpscript/blogs/media/blogs/MBenson/eternal_sunshine3.jpg

Accessed on March 7, 2010