Project I.1

Quotes:

1. Speak, Memory: “Death is what gives life shape” Death, Life

2. Speak Memory:“Is it really beneficial for us? Is it letting go, by forcing you to actually feel everything? Or is it just having a dead person in your attic? Where is the line?” Death, Life, Grief

3. Speak Memory: The memorial bot “wasn’t about the technical possibility. It was: how is it going to feel emotionally?” Grief

4. Speak Memory: People are used to being surrounded by media and technology that “[they] are only beginning to consider what role they should play in mourning.” Grief, Technology

5. Speak Memory: Will it ever be possible to fully integrate technology, especially artificial intelligence, into our daily lives? Technology

6. Ever After: “permanent life is more than a selfish daydream; it’s a stepping-stone on our fated path of accelerating creativity, that godlike quality which will ultimately make us gods.” Life, Immortality, Hope

7. Dying Young Woman: hopes that one day, “her billions of interconnected neurons could be scanned, analyzed and converted into computer code that mimicked how they once worked.” Hope, Technology, Immortality, Belief

8. Dying Young Woman: is it supporting and helping her loved ones through grief or simply preventing them from moving on, which has been one of the common processes in life?Grief, Love, Memory

9. Dying Young Woman: Kim “might rejoin the world in an artificial body or a computer-simulated environment, or perhaps both, feeling and seeing through a silicon chip rather than a brain. Technology, Immortality

10. Dying Young Woman: “Singularity” = the moment AI surpasses human intelligences Technology

11. Dying Young Woman: “No one knows if even a perfect simulation of a mind would retain the self-awareness of the original” Technology, Individuality

12. Dying Young Woman: The possibility of reviving her shared memories and “restoring personal identity” Individuality, Memory, Immortality, Hope

13. Strange and Mysterious History: The board game was “interesting and mysterious” Mystery

14. Strange and Mysterious History: It “came straight out of the American 19thcentury obsession with spiritualism, the belief that the dead able to communicate with the living.” Mystery

15. Strange and Mysterious History: It “existed on the periphery of American culture, perennially popular, mysterious, interesting and usually, barring the few cases of supposed Ouija-inspired murders, non-threatening.” Mystery, Technology

16. Strange and Mysterious History: The people use the board to connect with loved ones, but researchers proved that the boards are powered by us – through ideometer, where it’s these “automatic muscular movements that take place without the conscious will or volition of the individual. Mystery, Memory, Death, Grief

17. Ouija and Cryonics: The two articles intersect – the link. Kim is the link. She is one of the links that is pressing for the neuropreservation that could potentially bring her, not her actual body, back to life. The Ouija board is the link between the unknown and known. The Ouija article is a metaphor for the cryonics article. The known in the Ouija article would be what everybody thinks about life and that “dying is a part of life” and the unknown would be the possibility of bringing a person’s memories, thoughts, life – but not body, back to life through neuropreservation. Mystery, Life, Death, Immortality, Individuality, Memory

Very Common Themes:

- Death, Grief, Technology, Memory, Immortality

Major Big-Picture Questions:

- Is X supporting and helping loved ones through grief or simply preventing them from moving on, which has been one of the common processes in life?Can apply to Ouija, Cryonics, Roman Bot

- Is it possible for technology to capture the true essence of the ones who have passed away – preserving their personality and the way they talk, react, and feel – or if through the process of restoration, will they lose those bits that were unique to them? Is individuality at risk?

- Why do people insist on achieving immortality rather than accepting death?

Freewrite, Ideas, Claims, Etc.

- QUOTE #7, #9, #10, #11, #12, #17- If her neurons are scanned, analyzed, converted, and transferred into computer code and eventually into a chip that gets put into a machine or even artificial intelligence, then it will raise endless questions on the idea of preserving a person after they have died, similarly to Newton’s article on the Roman Bot. It raises questions too regarding if she will actually be the same. If parts of her brain are damaged, and the researchers and scientists have to edit and repair, will she even be unique – is there even individuality left if a lot of people start to do this?

- QUOTE #1, #2, #3, #16, #17- If scientists managed to revive Kim, is it supporting and helping her loved ones through grief or simply preventing them from moving on? Grief and death are the common processes of life.

- QUOTE #4, #5, #6, #7, #9, #10, #11 - Harmon raised the idea that Kim “might rejoin the world in an artificial body or a computer-simulated environment, or perhaps both, feeling and sensing through a silicon chip rather than a brain” So, Artificial Intelligence. This would be a unique way of achieving immortality – through technology, specifically artificial intelligence.

- QUOTE #11- There are many people who resonate with her; however, there are also people who don’t, and so, the initial efforts to gather funds was difficult because the people who don’t agree are along the same lines as her Dad’s initial thoughts that “dying is a part of life.” Some pointed out “singularity,” which is where AI surpasses human intelligence. The thing is that humans are technically computers, too. We take in information, process it, store it, and react to it. However, if she becomes a computer, “no one knows if even a perfect simulation of a mind would retain the self-awareness of the original”

- The idea that people think the spirits or the dead are communicating with them is pointing out the people’s subconscious mind is more powerful than they think it is. The people use the board to connect with loved ones, but researchers proved that the boards are powered by us – through ideometer, where it’s these “automatic muscular movements that take place without the conscious will or volition of the individual.” The time periods the board was released, specifically WWI, targeted those who really wanted to communicate with the dead because they missed them, and if they are able to hear or see a message from their loved ones, it may help them with their grief.

- The two articles intersect – the link. Kim is the link. She is one of the links that is pressing for the neuropreservation that could potentially bring her, not her actual body, back to life. The Ouija board is the link between the unknown and known. The Ouija article is a metaphor for the cryonics article. The known in the Ouija article would be what everybody thinks about life and that “dying is a part of life” and the unknown would be the possibility of bringing a person’s memories, thoughts, life – but not body, back to life through neuropreservation. Mystery, Life, Death, Immortality, Individuality, Memory

Comments and Assistance from Fellow Classmates:

- *** Question 1 and 2: Chatbot – digital legacy

- *** What makes it hard for people through grieving – Memory

Theme(s): Memory, Grief

Question: Are the Chatbot and Ouija board supporting and assisting the loved ones through their grieving process or are they simply preventing them from accepting their loss and learning to move on, which has been, and still is, one of the common processes in life? Additionally, can such technology capture the true essence of the dead even if the Chatbot gathers all of its information through messages and even if the Ouija board has the potential power to contact the dead?

Should I just focus on the people’s awareness on the deaths?