Lecture 4 Summary

Lecture 4...
http://www.movieweb.com/movies/film/60/1760/summary.php

Assoc Proff Steve Stockwell came in to do a lecture today instead of Adam. Proffessor Steve is Adam's Phd Supervior and quite an interesting fellow. He discussed in the lecture about virtual philosophy and extended into discussing cyber space, cyber punk studies, virtual reality and so forth. He also got us to watch "Johnny Mnemonic" made in 80s, as a representation of the internet in the year 2001. It was to show us the different representations of techonology in different periods of time. Eg 1985 Johnny Mnemonic movie represents 21st century and also to show that the last few years, the rise of spaces that allow individuals to contribute their own things (you Tube, Ebay).

The following is a few interesting points that i picked up in the lecture:

***Understanding "Mnumonic" - Musical notes example (Every Dood Boy Deserves Fruit - represents each of the musical notes) utilize mnumonics to remember things (example: exams codes etc) Clasic numonic device - in bedroom leave ideas around the bedroom to help memorize) Device for extending the capabilites of our minds, just like computers.

***Ability not to be bound by past an present but our way to narrate it our way.

***The movie the Matix an example of playing around with ideas of technology/virtual reality. working out of the ideas of imagination. Interesting take on virtual.

***Virtual Rationality....the notion is that we can only know what we can prove to know. Reference to data that the world is in a particular situation. exapnding of tv, radio, movie etc as we live in a world of speculation, these things have developed their own notions of virtual rationality. Examples of people with their own views of virtual rationality include: Guy Debord (Society of Spectacle), Unberto Eco (Hyper-reality) and William Gibson (Cyberspace as Consensual Hallucination) to name a few.

***Philosophers are starting to worries as people are devloping reading skills, internet skills etc that there input in ideas may take over. Steve also mentioned Socrates and Plato were two such people to question and to want their own view of the world. Influenced people for years.

The lecture was a slight be difficult for me to comprehend but interesting non the less.