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Technical Writing · Exposition & Argumentation · Non-fiction Creative Essays · Grammar and Usage of Standard English · The Structure of English · Analysis of Shakespeare
Analysis of Literary Language · Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology) · The Writer's Guild
UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" · UMBC'S University Newspaper: "The Retriever Weekly" · Introduction to Journalism · Feature Writing · Science Writing Papers
Communicative Objective #2 (CO2): Recontextualizing Authorless Text · Presentation/Gaming Activity: "Shopping Happens"
The History of "this" Space: UMBC Food · Blackboard Weekly Posts (A Bulletin Board Community)
Explanation of How to Read "This" Objective · Parameters for Re-patenting an Artifact from the U.S. Patent Office · Photos of the Re-patent "Cyberpeople" Artifacts
An Artificial Intelligent's Theory on God: The URCAD Edition · The Serio-Ludic/Narrative-Sketch Genre of the U.S. Re-patent Office
The Test Subject Simulation of the "Cyberpeople Jack Implant" Artifact: The URCAD Edition · Promotional News Article for the Re-patent of the "Cyberpeople" Artifact
Disaster News Article for the Re-patent of the "Cyberpeople" Artifact · "Cyberpeople" Re-patent Goals and Choices · "Cyberpeople" Re-patent Process Narrative-Sketch
The Re-patent Rolling Credits: Who Contributed to "This" Objective · The Re-patent Workshops One and Two: Brainstorming Ideas Within a Social Context · A List of Artifacts Considered for Re-patent that were Researched, Tested, and Abandoned
The Re-patent Blackboard Community Post #1 ·
The Re-patent Blackboard Community Post #2 ·
The Re-patent Blackboard Community Post #3 ·
The Re-patent Blackboard Community Post #4 ·
The Re-patent Blackboard Community Post #6
What is URCAD?
URCAD is an acronym that stands for "Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and is held every year on the last week of April. URCAD features research, scholarship, and creative work carried out by UMBC undergraduates. Student work is shared through oral presentations, posters, artistic exhibits and performances, and film. This is UMBC's simplified explanation.
Here is my explanation. Typically presenters are Senior who are about to graduate. Most, if not all presenters have spent an entire year preparing their research for public consumption. Entrance to URCAD is a complex process with strict deadlines.
These are the pre-requisites to entrance as a presenter:
Why should I care?
The reason you should care is this. I have over 20 years of experience designing presentation/activities and presenting in general whether running training sessions or "selling": selling ideas, selling products, selling proposals, or selling persuasion. This is not listed in my resume as it is not a typical "selling point" for a technical writer nor is it a "soft skill" recruiters typically look for in candidates unless the position description specifically states, "Must have presentation skills." This is why you should care. It is just one more unique skill that separates me form the pack of technical writers among my mathematics skills, statistics skills, computing skills, analysis skills, and logical training in the "Hard Sciences."
The day is similar to a corporate recruiter at a job fair. My day begins at 8:00 am. Everything I was bringing for the day had to fit on an airport luggage carrier. My presentation was transported in boxes and strapped to the luggage carrier with bungee cords to prevent escape. I had to schlep a 1/2 mile across parking lot number 24, between the campus buildings to my destination; The doors to the Presentation Hall were opened to presenters at 8:30 pm resulting in scurrying to set up quickly and obtain any last minute presentation needs from the sponsors.
9:00 am, the doors opened for visitors and so began the all day presentation/exhibits. At 12 noon, presenters were given a lunch break, doors were locked, and one hour was given to re-energize ourselves for round two.
1:00 pm, the doors opened once again when we received the bulk of visitors till 4:00 pm when the presentation was considered over. Over 1500 attendees visit the URCAD presentation every year and this year was no exception.
URCAD 2007: The 11th Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day at UMBC Presenter of a Three-dimensional Multi-Modal/Multi-Media Argument. April 25, 2007
Abstract
Internet users are expected to make meaning from a myriad of communication modes (e.g., audio, image, and text). Bolter and Grusin (1999) explain that the concept of “remediation," a “complex kind of borrowing in which one medium is itself incorporated or represented in another medium,” can facilitate such meaning-making. An example of remediation is the taking of a digital photograph of a painting for display on the Internet. As a new medium, the photograph of the painting becomes digitally portable, accessible to anyone on the Internet. But, at the same time, the photograph loses the textures created by the artist’s paint strokes. With the increasing digitization of analog communications, I argue that we must understand the effects, both positive and negative, that occur through the process of remediation. Consequently, in this project, which explores a hypothetical patent for what I have termed the “Cyberpeople Jack Implant,” I offer a model for such critical reflection and construct an ethical argument about the “remediation” of science via digital technology.
By combining three existing patents I have proposed a new patentable artifact I call the “Cyberpeople Jack Implant.” The purpose of the “Cyberpeople Jack Implant” is to connect the visual centers of a person’s brain to a computer for the purpose of displaying visual information. My proposed patent raises a larger ethical argument: should we allow scientists to bypass the slow progress of biological evolution through the use of computing technology in order to accelerate the evolution of humankind? I remediate the language of patents in a genre I have invented entitled a Serio-ludic Narrative-sketch genre. The purpose of this new genre is to assist the general public in understanding the implications of my patent proposal. By doing this, I also illustrate how remediation occurs on the Internet through a series of artifacts and communications.
Technology is both a burden and a blessing. Technophiles gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved, seeing it as without blemish and entertaining no apprehension for the future. The technophiles speak for themselves, and do so all over the place. A dissenting voice is sometimes needed to moderate the din made by the enthusiastic multitudes.
It is inescapable that every culture must negotiate with technology, whether it does so intelligently or not. A bargain is struck in which technology giveth and technology taketh away. The wise know this well, and are rarely impressed by dramatic technological changes and never overjoyed.
From the proposition that humans are in some respects like machines, we move to the proposition that humans are little else but machines and, finally, that human beings are machines. And then inevitably, as John McCarthy's (the inventor of the term 'artificial intelligence,') remark suggests, to the proposition that machines are human beings.
Beware of those who hold up technology as a religion.
-- Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
So for the time being, regardless of how much data we accumulate, none of us will ever have a ghost. But for analog based people like you Mr. Batou, no matter how many digital components you add on through cyberization or prosthetics, your ghost will never diminish. Plus, because you have a ghost you can even die. You're so lucky! So tell me, what's it like to have a ghost?
-- An artificial intelligent speaking with a human being in "Time of the Machines," Ghost in the Machine: Stand Alone Complex
First we build the tools, then they build us.
-- Marshall McLuhan
Epoch Five: The Merger of Human Technology with Human Intelligence
Epoch five will result from the merger of the vast knowledge embedded in our own brains with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our technology. The fifth epoch will enable our human-machine civilization to transcend the human's brain's limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections. We will overcome age-old human problems and vastly amplify human creativity. We will preserve and enhance the intelligence that evolution has bestowed on us while overcoming the profound limitations of biological evolution.
If war is the father of invention, then play is the mother. As we enter the 2030's there won't be a clear distinction between human and machine, between real and virtual reality, or between work and play.
-- Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near
Note: The best I can do here is switch modalities by providing a hypertext version of the poster content. The poster itself measures 30" x 20" and I am not able to assemble it as a pdf in its original presentation format. As Bolter and Grusin said, there are always gains and losses switching from one modality to the next especially in digitizing. Unfortunately, a photograph of the poster will only render the text unreadable and it is what was said that is more important than the method of delivery.
Internet users are expected to make meaning from a myriad of communication modes (e.g., audio, image, and text). Bolter and Grusin (1999) explain that the concept of "remediation," a "complex kind of borrowing in which one medium is itself incorporated or represented in another medium," can facilitate such meaning-making. An example of remediation is the taking of a digital photograph of a painting for display on the Internet. As a new medium, the photograph of the painting becomes digitally portable, accessible to anyone on the Internet. But, at the same time, the photograph loses the textures created by the artist's paint strokes. With the increasing digitization of analog communications, I argue that we must understand the effects, both positive and negative, that occur through the process of remediation. Consequently, in this project, which explores a hypothetical patent for what I have termed the "Cyberpeople Jack Implant," I offer a model for such critical reflection and construct an ethical argument about the "remediation" of science via digital technology.
Food For Thought
When machines meet and exceed human capacity for thought and declare themselves to "conscious entities." will we believe them?
As humans add cyber-enhancements in order to maintain a competitive edge in an age of "information overload" what will be the dividing line between man and machine?
Humans will eventually covet Artificial Intelligents ability to process more information more quickly and Artificial Intelligents will covet Humans possession of a soul and the ability to die. Both will see advantages to the other's state of being, hence both will assume that a merger of man with machine is not only logical, but also a natural step in technological evolution. On the other hand, Postman warns us that with every new technology there are gains and loses. Do we have the ability to determine what these gains and loses will be?
If the entire consciousness of a human being can be downloaded into a computer, updated in one-minute intervals, and numerous copies made for security through redundancy, how can we distinguish between the original and the copy?
New technologies replace old technologies. Who will be responsible for upgrading the copies of the human consciousness as software and hardware improves?
If mankind's technological evolution does succeed in shedding its mortal coil (the need for a human body) and attains immortality through technology, what if one decides that immortality is not as attractive or as desirable as one thought and decides that she/he wants to die, who will decide an individual has the right to die? With there being so many copies of a person, how can one be assured that all the copies have been destroyed?
Note: According to the guidelines of the original assignment, the only research l was allowed to perform in creating "this" project was researching the U.S. Patent Office Database. The purpose of this constraint was to see what I made of the information within the database without external influence. The readings and web sites I have suggested all came long after this project was submitted February 24, 2006. As I continued to discuss these ideas with others, more and more people began to make incremental suggestions as to where to seek new information in the area of interfacing the human brain with machines. Hence, I am grateful for contributions made by Dr. Jody Shipka, Dr. Jennifer Maher, Dr. Gail Orgelfinger, Daniel Reiner, Jonathan Deane in reverse and forward engineering "this" multi-modal communication. The exhaustive list of contributors to "this" project may be found under the heading "Acknowledgements" within "Goals and Choices" of "this" project.
Suggested Readings
The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil (2005).
The main difference between this book and his earlier writing, The Age of Spiritual Machines, other than 250 additional pages in the new book, is that Kurzweil cites hundreds of scientists and their research all working on incremental breakthrough's in various disciplines that when combined will lead to a marriage of man with machine.
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil (1999).
Kurzweil is a futurist and an entrepreneur in the field of artificial intelligence. Based on previous information and trends, Kurzweil creates a "roadmap" and discusses the breakthroughs that will be necessary for a marriage of man and machine. In essence, Kurzweil is an advocate for short-circuiting the slow process of biological human evolution and accelerating the process through the use of technology. Kurzweil illustrates the future of computing and the natural stages of progressions that will be made in forecasts of ten and twenty year periods at a time.
Robo Sapiens: The Secret (R)evolution (2006).
This is a video documentary worth looking at the subject of current research being performed by scientists who are seeking to interface the human brain directly with machines.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman (1993).
Postman does devote a chapter in his book to computing technology, but mainly argues more from a point of "remediation." Technology remediates itself, and when it does, there are always gains and loses switching from an old technology to a new technology. If nothing else, Postman warns us to beware of those who uphold technology as faith.
Remediation: Understanding New Media by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin (1999).
This is an excellent source to begin an exploration of "remediation" and new media communication theories.
At Play in the Fields of Writing: A Serio-Ludic Rhetoric by Albert Rouzie (2005).
Rouzie argues that since the 18th century a split occurred between seriousness and play and one could not flip back and forth between the two. This split continued until the Internet became accessible to the general public through the use of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) browser, such as Mosaic 2.0 (1993). As more users began to come online, more and more people began to experiment with their new found freedom of being anonymous on the Internet. Users would enter bulletin boards and chat rooms with fictitious names in order to remain anonymous. Being a virtual person within a virtual community provides users with the ability to say things one normally would not say in face-to-face contact. Users would flip back and forth between serious writing and having fun with their freedom to the point of being ludicrous.
Rouzie calls "this" style of writing serio-ludic shortening the word "serious" and "ludicrous" (play) and combines them to form the adjective-adjective compound modifier serio-ludic. Rouzie argues that the division between work and play is an old Victorian socio-cultural hold-over in the English language and the Internet has begun a major healing between the long standing division of work and play in rhetoric.
I argue that the language of science is not only difficult to understand by other than the trained scientist, but also remains inaccessible to the general public. Why not explain the language of patents by using a genre that edutains (educates and entertains) its intended audience. By applying good techniques of technical writing, combining narrative with sketch and using techniques of Rouzie's serio-ludic rhetoric, I have created a hybrid genre that makes patents more accessible to the general public. I call this new genre a serio-ludic narrative-sketch, that when combined, not only educates, but also entertains the reader, hence edutainment This is the specific genre the "Re-patent" has been written in.
The Ambiguity of Play by Brian Sutton-Smith (1997).
This is an excellent source for an introduction to Adult Play Theory, an area highly under-researched by academia. When one performs a search on the topic, most literature has been written analyzing child play, but not adult play, for it is assumed that adults do not play.
Suggested Web Sites
This is a good place to start to learn about ethics applied to Robotics, guiding the design, construction and use of the Robots and Artificial Intelligents.
This passage in the Wikipedia acts as a good starting point for the three fundamental laws that will need to be built into Artificial Intelligents for protecting human beings. These laws were created in 1942 by Isaac Asimov, the writer of countless books in science fiction. This is only one suggested site as there are many others discussing the three laws of robotics.
One of the agendas of this workshop was to work on the details of ethical considerations for Artificial Intelligents. In other words, discussions concerning protecting Artificial Intelligents from Human abuse, i.e., a Artificial Intelligents Bill of Rights. Scientists are already considering the rights of Artificial Intelligents before these entities are animate or conscious.
A web site version of this presentation may be found at http://www.theintegralworm.com/toct01.html
This site illustrates by applying "remediation," there are always gains and loses moving from one mode of communication (analog sketches, 3-D objects, sound files, written text, etc.) to another mode of communication (digital web page, digitizing analog documents, digital drawing, hyperlinks, mp3 files, etc.)
I can be reached at my email address if there is anything you would like to discuss in reference to this presentation or any other areas. My current interests are artificial intelligence, neuroscience, mathematics; particularly Chaos Theory and Markov Chains, statistics, philosophy. ethics, play theory, writing process theory, boundary crossing theory, theories of composition within a socio/cultural settings, and theories in new media composition.
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