Week 5

So, this week's topic is Interaction.
Its importance in our life, its significance and it's future possibilities.

In my opinion, i think the whole idea of virtual reality that can interact with our mind is so so crazy, as in a good and bad way.

Starting with a good way. It gives so much opportunities for people, that it blows my mind. It makes life easier. for, example, Google Glasses, we no longer need to hold something in our hand to take a picture, or to check our emails. We say it, and the magic glasses do it for us. But i guess, even smart phones have a some sort of a similar idea, called the "Voice control', you tell you phone what to search on the Internet, or to call someone.. it is doing what it was told to do. Plus,  it gives a good idea for home videos, you can film from your point of view. People can experience whatever you have experienced.

The other good thing, is the learning outcomes from the virtual realities. We can learn how to drive, fly, etc. Which reminds me of the episode of Big Bang Theory, when one of the main characters was learning how to drive . The same thing happens in the video games, when the virtual reality interacts with your minds. The other day i went to the Event cinema, while we were waiting for a movie, we decided to play on one of the games in Galaxy world. We play a 4D zombie killing game. First of all, it was isolated, we had to wear 3D glasses, the seats and the guns were shaking as we were shooting zombies and the cold air was blowing into our face, unbelievable experience, very real, gives you goosebumps. Extremely realistic.


Now, the negative. I believe that, as soon as we will experience, virtual reality as something normal, we will loose sense of actual reality. For instance, we might loose sense of fear. As the virtual reality does not hurt, for example the virtual driving , if you crash you can start all over again, but if you crash in real life, it will hurt...alot. Or for examples if we will play video games all the time. Killing others wont be as horrible thing to us, as we know that it is not real-real. So, when a kid loses his sense of reality and starts stabbing people, he will not feel guilty or immoral  because in virtual reality he does not really kill anyone, so it must be same with the other reality.

Another issue with virtual space , is that people can get even more isolated. But this more relates to the robots, and cyber-humans. A few months ago, i was watching a documentary, how now there are more people who do not have time for normal relationships, having family or just a partner, because it is complicated. If Cyber-Humans will became more and more accessible some people might loose any connections with real people, as humans have their own problems , views and opinions, they can not be programmed in order to pleasure or satisfy another person. Robots will make relationships easier, no problems, it will do what ever the person wants, it will say whatever that person wants to hear. Crazy. Which reminds me of an episode of Futurama, when it explains what would happen if real people will date robots.
DONT DATE THE ROBOT

week 4

This week's lecture was based on the models, extended mind and how we see the world itself.



So, in my opinion , our world is an extension of our mind. We create things, we agree on naming them, giving them some abilities. However, the world itself exists no matter what. For example, there is a car, and i know it is a car, and everyone else knows its a car, than it is a car. But, a blind person might  see ( imagine) it differently, therefore his world would be completely different, based on his other senses such as touch, hear, etc. We see things in the way we as a society, community decide on.

In my opinion , most of the general things are the same for most of the people like objects, coulrs, but people see things differently, blind people will have a different view on what non blind people see, color blind people would see colors differently, and they will believe that they way they see the world is the right on. And what about people who have mental problems and they hallucinate? They see thing we do not see, but because they believe it is true in their mind, it is true, just as true as that we do not see ( the hallucination) is true as well.

Talking about the general world we are all live in, that we are all agreed on. It is fully designed by us, for us ( physically speaking). Our world is what we want it to be. We get the news we want to hear ( the more scandalistic, the better). If we want more communication media we get it. Straight after my space emerged the popularity, Facebook, twitter, tumbler and instagram appeared, just because we wanted it so much.

However, in terms of technologies and communication we get hooked on it as Natasha Dow Schull says “addiction by design”. Yes, we have created the media communication tools, but it was to please our addiction for feedback that continues to push technological progress more for emergence of more and more devices and apps.

I think the idea of behaviorism is very interesting. The concept of the feedback is completely amazing and true. We are all addicted to something, but to be honest i do not think that addictions are always bad. Every one is addicted to something. Some are addicted to drugs, others to social media . It is part of our lives. We enjoy it when we have it. So , returning to the feedback , thats one of the main reasons why we have medias such as tumbler, instagram and twitter. It is not really about communicatio ( at least Facebook has a chat option). You post only to get feedback, you share your life, which sometimes is not how it is, and you count how many thumbs up or likes you get ( on Instagram i count the likes) .

I think with the emerge of all these social medias, people have got very low self esteem, thats the reason why we are so addicted to the likes, and comment. We want to be heard, we want to show how good we are, we want to be heard, so we can get attention. The reason why we have got this low self steam is because of the media . It allows us to see what celebrities are up to, and some of them are the same age as we are. And we feel bad for not establishing and reaching the same as they are. We all want to own a big house, fly on a private jet, wear brands cloths and date a famous super model... but we are stuck in our normal life, where we have to pay bills, take public transport and date an ordinary person just like you are.

Week 3 Meta communication, patterns and play

This week's main reading was Bateson's "A Theory of Play and Fantasy". Most of the lecture was focused on the signs of communication and patterns it creates.

Bateson states that in order to have "real" communication we need to see the pattern which is based on personal mood, posture, tone of voice, etc.  I think this image is perfectly describes the lack of redundancy and pattern . That is what happens when we talk over the text or emails, we do not put any emotions through that, because we do not get any emotions back . I guess that is the reason why now there is so many stickers and emoticons for the phones and online chatting. It gives some sort of a emotional feedback, and can shows what mood we are in. Or they could be used out of laziness that a person does not know what to say so they send you a smile face.

So, as has Bateson mentioned, real face to face communication involves redundancy, which he calls pattern. In my understanding these patterns are the emotional signs.

The signs and the redundancy are important in order to have healthy relationship and a better ecology. Bateson talks about his observation on chimps, that were playing, however, it could have easily be seemed as a fight. However, they have gave each other signs that indicated the playfulness of the action and no harm will be involved. Exactly the same is happening with people, good example could be when girls say "no" to boys but sometimes they mean "yes"... and that is just a matter of a observation and knowledge of a person ( girl in this situation) to know whether she says "no-no" or "no-but if you ask me again i will say yes-no". 

The signs are important not just in maintaining a communication between friends or family. It helps us to recognize when someone is lieing to us or pranking. One for the best examples for that would be a well known tv show "Lie to Me". Perfectly describes how the knowledge of different facial expression can reveal so much about a person. 

However, the technology that we are using right now are making it completely invisible, as we do not know what the other person really mean by saying something. However, without these technologies we wont be able to communicate in long distance with each other. Sometimes we have to sacrofise our "good" communication in order to have at least some sort of communication ( speaking of secondary communication only).