As a student I've been taking plenty of tests lately. My university has a pretty good testing system and convenient testing centers and I'm a pretty good test taker so none of this really bothers me, but I have found the testing center policies interesting. The fact that I have to remove my hat before going in is one. Recently they've also disallowed the wearing of a wristwatch, almost certainly in response to the new smart-watch technology coming out. While this is the right thing to do, it does indicate a need for much grander changes in both the way we do things as well as our thinking, probably especially in education. Changes we are woefully unprepared for.
Let's consider the testing center again, perhaps as if you were the director of these. We made the change for smart-watches so that they won't be used for cheating. What will we do if Google Glass, or a similar project where data is displayed on a pair of glasses worn by the user, takes off and starts showing up? If that technology becomes integrated into people's prescription lenses? What about if those smart watches become smart tattoos? What about when students start having direct neural interfaces integrating computers into the brain? These problems are coming, and I think we can quickly see there's no easy solution, and maybe no solution at all to make a our current testing systems compatible with the existence of these technologies.
As my neuroscience teacher put it, most testing today is a simple demonstration of declarative memory. This is to say tests usually require a simple recalling of facts, figures, or other basic knowledge. However, the need for this to be done in the human brain is dwindling. Facts can be more easily stored, more quickly recalled, and more reliably maintained in computer systems than in nervous tissue. Why would we keep using cerebral circuits (that weren't really designed to do this in the first place) when we can use electronic ones? The go to example is memorizing phone numbers, something many of us remember doing before technology made it an exercise in pointless exertion of energy.
Lest you think this is the pie in the sky omphaloskepsis of a futurist and science fiction fan, let me relay a story I heard from one parent. He wanted to have his daughter writing letters, and specifically to do so using some specific vocabulary. Shortly after he heard his daughter speaking out loud while alone in her room writing the letter. Listening closer he realized she was using the voice recognition feature of the tablet/smartphone to simply ask for the spelling of the appropriate words. This was much to his disappointment, as he was expecting her to look the words up when writing them and learn the definition along with the spelling. That's how big a change something as simple as voice recognition is making.
A future where traditional testing is pointless seems on the horizon. How education will or even can deal with this is unclear. The problem with leaving our traditional testing is that other methods require more work to evaluate, and usually are less objective which can be a big problem for admissions tests like the MCAT. The only solution I've thought of is an increase in internships and apprentice work, but whether or not this is feasible is unclear. I know the major reason the radiology or medical laboratory programs at my school can't admit more than about 40% of applicant students is because they only have so many slots for clinical rotations available. It could be damaging to the economy to have the influx of cheap or free labor that having five interns or apprentices to every one trained employee might mean. The problem is a big one, and sadly I haven't seen it given all that much attention. Let's hope for and work toward that changing sometime soon.
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Monday, September 30, 2013
Imagination and Knowledge
After my last post I decided I want to write another one this month, since I like to cool off and give any readers I might have a break when I go on tears about technology, law, and society. I didn't have a good topic that I wanted to talk about, though, so I asked my wife what she thought I should write on. She provided a one word prompt: imagination. I decided to go with this, but having something so broad I needed to keep looking. A few internet searches later I happened upon some Einstein quotes around, Imagination is more important than knowledge." In that way I have I said to myself, "¿Is it?" and then I realized I had a topic for a post.
I think considering imagination and knowledge more important than one another is actually a little misguided. They're different entities that have different purposes and bring differing benefits to a person or society. It's like saying hammers are more important than saws or potatoes are more important than chairs. And we can often get by with only one. But, these are two forces that gain the greatest power when working together.
Knowledge is a foundation. Knowledge tells us how the world and things in it work, how to do things, and how things are connected. Imagination gives us the capability to see how these facts could be different, improved, or superseded. But using imagination rarely can make a strong impact if we're without the knowledge to back this up. Knowledge lets us reasonably examine the ways in which the things we imagine might play out, so that when we try to put those things we imagine into reality the chance that we're successful is higher.
My love for Star Trek was recently re-kindled by a collection of online reviews of works in the franchise and one thing that's been striking is that one of the most impressive things about the franchise was its ability to imagine the future in a very different yet very reasonable way. Social issues such as race, ethnicity, and sex becoming less important to a team that works together. Also, amazingly, the science of instantaneous point to point transportation, faster than light travel, and futuristic weaponry (though it was changed later, the original meaning of the term "phaser" was "photonic maser" which, while actually redundant since the microwaves a maser produces are made up of photons, points toward the laser which does indeed exist and could be weaponized). Many of the high points of the series' are when this works to add believably and a feeling of reality to the impossible,and failures of the series often occur thanks to imagination being backed up by too little knowledge.
I think considering imagination and knowledge more important than one another is actually a little misguided. They're different entities that have different purposes and bring differing benefits to a person or society. It's like saying hammers are more important than saws or potatoes are more important than chairs. And we can often get by with only one. But, these are two forces that gain the greatest power when working together.
Knowledge is a foundation. Knowledge tells us how the world and things in it work, how to do things, and how things are connected. Imagination gives us the capability to see how these facts could be different, improved, or superseded. But using imagination rarely can make a strong impact if we're without the knowledge to back this up. Knowledge lets us reasonably examine the ways in which the things we imagine might play out, so that when we try to put those things we imagine into reality the chance that we're successful is higher.
My love for Star Trek was recently re-kindled by a collection of online reviews of works in the franchise and one thing that's been striking is that one of the most impressive things about the franchise was its ability to imagine the future in a very different yet very reasonable way. Social issues such as race, ethnicity, and sex becoming less important to a team that works together. Also, amazingly, the science of instantaneous point to point transportation, faster than light travel, and futuristic weaponry (though it was changed later, the original meaning of the term "phaser" was "photonic maser" which, while actually redundant since the microwaves a maser produces are made up of photons, points toward the laser which does indeed exist and could be weaponized). Many of the high points of the series' are when this works to add believably and a feeling of reality to the impossible,and failures of the series often occur thanks to imagination being backed up by too little knowledge.
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Rise of Video Games: Sci-Fi
I just watched a trailer for a new game coming out called Remember Me. I see people describing it as Total Recall in a Blade Runner setting. It looks like a great piece of science fiction: computers becoming part of who we are as humans making our memories open to manipulation, changing what we do and who we are through one electronic attack. I have a feeling I'm really going to like it.
Last post I bemoaned the loss of good, let alone great, science fiction on TV. It's sad to see it go, and I still hope eventually we'll turn away from our love of watching the "reality" TV dregs of entertainment and return to having something on TV that seeks to challenge and explore our existence and future, but until we do when I really want to experience that I'll have to turn to video games.
Currently I've been playing Mass Effect 3, the latest in one of my favorite series and what I'd argue may be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written. In my humble opinion Mass Effect can easily go toe to toe with Star Trek, Star Wars, or any of the other greats of science fiction. It's a classic space opera with aliens, intergalactic politics and adventure, and spaceships. It's got some fascinating science to go with the fiction, the title of the series referring to localized physical phenomenon that changes the effective mass of objects in a certain area. It's probably the only work I've seen that mentions that lasers as a weapon could work, but will be limited to short ranges due to diffraction.
Mass Effect also carries the proud tradition of solid writing and well done characters set forth by developers Bioware. There's an alien from a proud warrior species who's gruff and cynical like one of those proud warrior race dudes might be, but wistfully lament's his species inability to come together and rebuild themselves after being struck with a biological weapon that's reduced them to near sterility. There's a professional, very physically attractive woman whose appearance might seem pandering to a male audience at first, but I feel reinforces the later revelations of her difficulty accepting herself as an independent human being more than her father's genetic experiment in creating the perfect offspring to carry on the family name. There's an artificial intelligence seeking that if you prod in the right direction will fall in love with your ship's pilot. And these are just the outstanding instances, the game is full of great stories. You get to take part in writing some of them yourself if you play it.
I've also quite the fondness for the series Deus Ex. Deus Ex may be the quintessential exploration of what it means when we finally begin to merge ourselves with machines. The title itself is almost certainly a play on the phrase "deus ex machina" or "god from the machine" and likely refers to the apotheosis of humanity through human augmentation. It plays on what it will mean for mankind when electronic surveillance becomes a part of everyday existence and communication, what will happen when physical ability can be bought and sold, and every moment of gameplay makes you wonder what we'll be able to do when our eyesight can be enhanced with a computer chip or our strength with a set of servos. It's a game that makes one wonder deeply about the future of humanity as we hurtle toward technologies drastically changing who we are and how we interact.
Thoughts such as this are what make science fiction is a wonderful and important genre. While it may be too expensive to hire the writers and special effects team necessary on a TV show now, video games make the perfect stage. The games already computer generated, and so special effects are mostly just paying artists for the ideas. Writing in video games is still an art that few can do well, but the industry is constantly learning and we've clearly already made some gems. There's not much I like on TV these days, but there's some great things to play on the game console.
Last post I bemoaned the loss of good, let alone great, science fiction on TV. It's sad to see it go, and I still hope eventually we'll turn away from our love of watching the "reality" TV dregs of entertainment and return to having something on TV that seeks to challenge and explore our existence and future, but until we do when I really want to experience that I'll have to turn to video games.
Currently I've been playing Mass Effect 3, the latest in one of my favorite series and what I'd argue may be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written. In my humble opinion Mass Effect can easily go toe to toe with Star Trek, Star Wars, or any of the other greats of science fiction. It's a classic space opera with aliens, intergalactic politics and adventure, and spaceships. It's got some fascinating science to go with the fiction, the title of the series referring to localized physical phenomenon that changes the effective mass of objects in a certain area. It's probably the only work I've seen that mentions that lasers as a weapon could work, but will be limited to short ranges due to diffraction.
Mass Effect also carries the proud tradition of solid writing and well done characters set forth by developers Bioware. There's an alien from a proud warrior species who's gruff and cynical like one of those proud warrior race dudes might be, but wistfully lament's his species inability to come together and rebuild themselves after being struck with a biological weapon that's reduced them to near sterility. There's a professional, very physically attractive woman whose appearance might seem pandering to a male audience at first, but I feel reinforces the later revelations of her difficulty accepting herself as an independent human being more than her father's genetic experiment in creating the perfect offspring to carry on the family name. There's an artificial intelligence seeking that if you prod in the right direction will fall in love with your ship's pilot. And these are just the outstanding instances, the game is full of great stories. You get to take part in writing some of them yourself if you play it.
I've also quite the fondness for the series Deus Ex. Deus Ex may be the quintessential exploration of what it means when we finally begin to merge ourselves with machines. The title itself is almost certainly a play on the phrase "deus ex machina" or "god from the machine" and likely refers to the apotheosis of humanity through human augmentation. It plays on what it will mean for mankind when electronic surveillance becomes a part of everyday existence and communication, what will happen when physical ability can be bought and sold, and every moment of gameplay makes you wonder what we'll be able to do when our eyesight can be enhanced with a computer chip or our strength with a set of servos. It's a game that makes one wonder deeply about the future of humanity as we hurtle toward technologies drastically changing who we are and how we interact.
Thoughts such as this are what make science fiction is a wonderful and important genre. While it may be too expensive to hire the writers and special effects team necessary on a TV show now, video games make the perfect stage. The games already computer generated, and so special effects are mostly just paying artists for the ideas. Writing in video games is still an art that few can do well, but the industry is constantly learning and we've clearly already made some gems. There's not much I like on TV these days, but there's some great things to play on the game console.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The Fall of Television Science Fiction
I just watched an episode of Star Trek (Next Generation to be specific-¡Picard rules!) and afterwards thought about playing some more Mass Effect 3. I actually turned off the TV and did some reading, but my mind got caught up considering the state of sci-fi these days.
I think most any fan of the genre will happily, or I suppose more like disgruntled-ly, tell you there really isn't any good sci-fi on TV anymore. Personally I think this ended with the show Firefly, and maybe that's why it holds such a fond place in my heart-it was practically television science fiction's dying breath. Don't get me wrong, there's been a good one or two in the last while. I liked Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Dollhouse. I might debate whether or not Lost counts as sci-fi, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quite enjoyable. I hear lots of praise for Fringe, though I lost interest somewhere about halfway through the second season.
Television science fiction isn't going away, for sure, but I remember the days of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate, and Sliders. I lived in a time where I could watch something that truly imagined something outside normal human experience and embraced that concept to explore. You have to dig for that on TV nowadays. Of course, you have to dig for anything of remote worth these days.
I recently heard that when TV was first invented people thought it would change the world for the betterment of humanity. TV may have been a major part of winning the cold war. It changed the way people communicated, allowing a story to reach millions from all around the world. People thought that this power could be harnessed to spread messages of thoughtfulness, enlightenment, and truth to better humanity. Such a grand vision is now swallowed up in banality as we're treated to a parade of vapid celebrity voyeurism and bad parenting, lack of life skill, or legitimate mental illness freak shows.
TV may be no more than a plethora of pathetic pandering to the "lowest common denominator," but there's still great science fiction out there in literature (I listen to a weekly sci-fi short story podcast that's wonderful) and also in one of our emerging art forms, the video game. I'm getting a little long on this post already, so I think I'll make this a two parter and express my love for video game science fiction separately later. So, ¡Tune in again for the exciting conclusion!
I think most any fan of the genre will happily, or I suppose more like disgruntled-ly, tell you there really isn't any good sci-fi on TV anymore. Personally I think this ended with the show Firefly, and maybe that's why it holds such a fond place in my heart-it was practically television science fiction's dying breath. Don't get me wrong, there's been a good one or two in the last while. I liked Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Dollhouse. I might debate whether or not Lost counts as sci-fi, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quite enjoyable. I hear lots of praise for Fringe, though I lost interest somewhere about halfway through the second season.
Television science fiction isn't going away, for sure, but I remember the days of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate, and Sliders. I lived in a time where I could watch something that truly imagined something outside normal human experience and embraced that concept to explore. You have to dig for that on TV nowadays. Of course, you have to dig for anything of remote worth these days.
I recently heard that when TV was first invented people thought it would change the world for the betterment of humanity. TV may have been a major part of winning the cold war. It changed the way people communicated, allowing a story to reach millions from all around the world. People thought that this power could be harnessed to spread messages of thoughtfulness, enlightenment, and truth to better humanity. Such a grand vision is now swallowed up in banality as we're treated to a parade of vapid celebrity voyeurism and bad parenting, lack of life skill, or legitimate mental illness freak shows.
TV may be no more than a plethora of pathetic pandering to the "lowest common denominator," but there's still great science fiction out there in literature (I listen to a weekly sci-fi short story podcast that's wonderful) and also in one of our emerging art forms, the video game. I'm getting a little long on this post already, so I think I'll make this a two parter and express my love for video game science fiction separately later. So, ¡Tune in again for the exciting conclusion!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Torn between two loves
Today is the release of Mass Effect 3. Like most major modern video games it costs $60 new, or $80 for the collector's edition. I haven't purchased it, though I absolutely love the series and can't wait to play the latest installment. My mom pointed out earlier that I do have the money. I still have some money in my bank account and credit on my credit card. I could buy it, but I'm saving my money for something else. Specifically, I'm saving for someone else.
I started dating a long time friend on new years day. The near 400 miles separating us are frustrating. We'd like to be together, but she lives in Salt Lake city and I'm in Denver. There's not much tying me down here, though. I'm planning to move once I have enough money to pay my student loans and other basic costs of living until I can find a job (which, after seeking full time work for about a year I worry will be quite a while).
So, I find myself torn between two loves. Many reading this might find my love for a video game frivolous or even downright foolish, so let me defend my already scorned love. The Mass Effect series continues developer Bioware's traditional of strong, character driven, intelligent writing. As discussed here, the game has raised questions about the nature of life and what it is that makes us who we are. It's been called the Star Trek of our generation, and I dare say that's correct. It's an original and epic space opera, in an unfortunate age where well written fiction, let alone science fiction, often loses out to the latest iteration of milf island, some dude dates fifteen women, or watch the train wrecks when it comes to entertainment. Mass effect is one of the games elevating the medium of gaming, a hobby I feel is at least capable of being very uplifting and intellectually engaging but is so often maligned (and not always unfairly) as being a waste of time at best or a mind distorting influence of evil at worst. Mass Effect enriches things I enjoy (science fiction and video games) by adding to worthwhile examples, and its success is a proof to those who finance entertainment that intelligent video games and well written sci-fi make money.
My love for my girlfriend is somewhat less easy to explain, but many more have written about love of a woman than love of a video game so I probably don't need to belabor that point. I've chosen to save what I can to hasten a long term reunion of me and my beloved. I can only hope that I'll be able to earn enough to actually go through with the move, and work hard enough to make it worth it when I get there.
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