Red Beards Response to others

Through the week of April 16th to the 20th we have been able to view other classmates presentations on what they were going to write about for their final paper. The two projects I decided to write about were the ones by Caleb Brougher and William Conn. The topics of their paper are about interactive video games and the singularity.

Caleb decided to write about the benefits that video games play in the rehabilitation of those who have been injured. This can be used to get people moving again. If a person had a head injury and lost use of a limb or even just broke that part of the body a video game can help in getting the use of that body part back. In some cases people could not move a hand or an arm. Then they used a virtual reality game and the person was able to gain movement in that limb and use it again. Caleb also talked about how video games helped people with critical thinking. This is mostly in strategy games where people need to think through situations. These games are beneficial to either people trying to expand their thinking ability or even a person with a brain injury. He also talked the use of games for the help of PTSD. This is a major issues for our heroes returning from war and some are not able to make the transition back to civilian life. Mainly this is just used to calm the soldiers down and help them adjust back to normal life. My opinion on Caleb’s presentations is that it is eye opening. Many people do not think of benefits of games and he did a good job showing the benefits.

Bill decided to talk about the singularity between technology and man. He talked about Moore's Law of exponential growth in technology. This just says that the intelligence of technology is growing at an exponential rate. This growth will not stop until totality is reached. He also talked about Ray Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns. In this Kurzweil talks about how that if the advancement of technology meets a halt from an issue that this issue will be overcome by new technology. Some predictions made about the singularity is that it will happen by 2045. In this case after the singularity there will be no distinction between humans and technology. Another prediction is that we will obtain immortality through the uploading of our consciousness. On the other hand some people such as Theodore Modis and Jonathan Huebner say that the advancement rate is actually decreasing. Paul Allen says that the more advancement that are made in technology only make it harder to have more advancements. My opinions on Bill’s presentations is that he did well with being able to tie research for and against the singularity together. I believe his report will be a good one based on what his presentation was.