Musings...
This session was one of the more profound sessions over these several weeks. It was profound to me because I felt it challenged me not just as a lowly academic, but also as a human being. It challenged me to see beyond the here and the now, beyond the reality that veils our eyes. Yes, I'm going there - to dream. Well, at least the first quotes of this session did that for me. The first quote by George Bernard Shaw did just that - “You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?" This, to me, was the start of the mentally challenging aspects of this course. Usually, I would simply understand it and just keep it at the back of my mind to be kept-in-view. But these first quotes ushered me to challenge the norm and not be satisfied with this reality. If one were to be contented and satisfied with everything around himself/herself and accept the status quo, then there would be no need for change - no need for improvement or innovation or development or transformation. This would mean the inevitable stagnation of our race and a possible step back into the dark ages. Without thought and the ability to generate thought we are nothing more than a large collection of species that dominate this planet (or so we think). But if we are able to become more than just a species, more than just organisms roaming the earth and if we are able to conceive our innovations and thoughts into reality then we become something great. Shaw's quote challenged me to be the person who looks forward and says "Why Not?". But such is easier said then done, with a limitless imagination and no ability to implement such vision, we become wanderers and 'wonderers' - never being able to see the fruition of our vision but forever dreaming. This is all very philosophical but it encompasses the thought processes in my head so bear with me. The next quote by Einstein - “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” was also very profound to me. Although I realize the reality that I am a mere student and my dreams of grandeur and innovation are not as bright until I get 'deeper pockets', I still value this piece of knowledge from Einstein because he questions what we know of knowledge. Although our knowledge of knowledge at this stage in our lives, I believe, is still infant, it is still true that whatever knowledge we create is limited to the things we understand and know to be true. However, imagination on the other hand is only limited by everything we do not know - because we do not know the very limits of the human mind to begin with. Thus, in many ways, imagination is very much more important than knowledge. A great man of imagination and of science, Nikola Tesla, is a testament to that.
Many had regarded this genius as a 'madman' because of his unorthodox beliefs in science and his quirky habits. Upon further research, I discovered that Tesla and Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, were good friends. It seems that great minds think alike. Mark Twain was regarded as a literary genius and Tesla a madman. Doesn't add up. Either way, evidence that his mad scientist antics were indeed a work of genius would be in the fact that today, NASA is trying to develop the very technology he had envisioned about a century ago. Tesla's idea was to be able to beam electricity from a distance to power objects or transmit signals back in the early 20th century. It's ridiculous how ridiculous ridiculous people can be. Although Tesla was not able to make some of his great visions true, one thing is certain - he was a person who embraced imagination. And the world definitely needs more of these 'mad' people.
Taking a step away from science and moving on to the application of vision is the next interesting topic of entrepreneurship. The heart of entrepreneurship is in being able to trail-blaze and be the forerunner in a business. This requires a bit of luck, the right management, the know-how, an innovative vision and capital. Well, one of the things Prof highlighted in class was the idea that trail-blazers should capitalize on market-driven opportunities to begin with. By analyzing trends and having good foresight and execution, market-driven opportunities would be the starting point for most entrepreneurs. This is mainly due to the lessened capital requirement. As your steamrolling baby grows, an entrepreneur can choose to capitalize on technology-driven opportunities, to stay ahead on the technological curve. This would work just as well if not better than market-driven opportunities because in today's increasingly affluent societies, everyone wants a piece of the tech-pie - the newest, coolest, most hi-tech gadgets. Thus, as an entrepreneur with the capital, being able to invest in technology-driven opportunities would also be an avenue for profit. As an aspiring entrepreneur and someone who has gotten my toes wet in such endeavors, I feel that this would be of great importance in the future (assuming I get to the point where I have deep pockets or even any pockets left, for that matter). All this talk of entrepreneurism leads me to the next interesting snippet in this session.
The confluence of the four 'Smarts' was something I understood through experience and something that would be handy for my future endeavors. See? You learn something new everyday. The first Smart was Smart people which meant having the right mix of people to envision, create and manage. This, I felt, was the most important of the Smarts as it is one of the greatest assets in business and it practically governs the next Smart on the list. And my favourite quote from Einstein basically sums up the importance of Smart people - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." The next Smart was Smart ideas which equates to having the right visions and ideas to create something that is innovative and unique. Followed by Smart money, which is knowing how and when to invest and having the right funding to support the business. The last Smart was Smart alliances and partnerships which was a crucial thing especially when you need to have partners in a larger project or an alliance with other companies to create a conglomerate of sorts - either way, it pays to be able to find the right people to work with.
Another interesting futuristic prospect was that of the field of development in artificial intelligence. Most people believe that machines can only be, even if the technology is present, heartless computers that crunch numbers for analysis and make decisions through endless algorithms. I don't believe so. This is because the human emotional repertoire isn't as complex as we think it is. We already have a set of socially accepted responses to emotional stimuli with minimal variation among people and even less when just looking at an individual. Thus, if a machine were to be able to be programmed to react and express emotion the same way people can, doesn't that make it capable of having emotion? Now let's not go too far into the transhuman and mechanization aspect of things but simply think of the possibility of this occurring. We currently behave in certain patterns depending on internal and external stimuli which can all be programmed into the machine and if such reactions can be predicted to a large extent then, we can safely create a generic human being through the behavioral analysis of us humans. Thus, I feel that creating emotion in machine is not that difficult and it may not be that different from us in the first place.
With regard to the intelligence aspect of artificial intelligence, I feel that machines can barely be limited by the fact that they currently may not have the cognitive ability to imagine - the generation of purely creative thoughts. What a machine would probably be able to do is generate ideas from a coded matrix which extends beyond the regular solutions, and by incorporating such extrapolations and calculating the feasibility of this new generation, it can determine whether this would be considered a creative thought or not. By extrapolating from a large, seemingly endless programmed database of stimuli and human experience, the machine can actually come up with something original and something unique. This is already more than I can say for myself as I do not have the ability to store all my past experiences, memories and feelings of certain incidents and extrapolating solutions from the variable outcomes of these incidents to create ideas and new solutions, but computers can store such information with their virtual memory hard-drives and utilize it in as many ways as the human mind can program, furthermore, they are able to take pieces of information from all these programmed human experiences and incidents, and analyze this critically on a level that the average person cannot. This is how, I believe, that machines can surpass us in the future. But when we finally create Smart machines, will we still need humans?
Personal rating for this session: 9.777/10
Off to further musings,
James G14
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