9 research outputs found
The universe without us: a history of the science and ethics of human extinction
This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I is an intellectual history of thinking about human extinction (mostly) within the Western tradition. When did our forebears first imagine humanity ceasing to exist? Have people always believed that human extinction is a real possibility, or were some convinced that this could never happen? How has our thinking about extinction evolved over time? Why do so many notable figures today believe that the probability of extinction this century is higher than ever before in our 300,000-year history on Earth? Exploring these questions takes readers from the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, through the 18th-century Enlightenment, past scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century like thermodynamics and evolutionary theory, up to the Atomic Age, the rise of modern environmentalism in the 1970s, and contemporary fears about climate change, global pandemics, and artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Part II is a history of Western thinking about the ethical and evaluative implications of human extinction. Would causing or allowing our extinction be morally right or wrong? Would our extinction be good or bad, better or worse compared to continuing to exist? For what reasons? Under which conditions? Do we have a moral obligation to create future people? Would past “progress” be rendered meaningless if humanity were to die out? Does the fact that we might be unique in the universe—the only “rational” and “moral” creatures—give us extra reason to ensure our survival? I place these questions under the umbrella of Existential Ethics, tracing the development of this field from the early 1700s through Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, the gloomy German pessimists of the latter 19th century, and post-World War II reflections on nuclear “omnicide,” up to current-day thinkers associated with “longtermism” and “antinatalism.” In the dissertation, I call the first history “History #1” and the second “History #2.”
A main thesis of Part I is that Western thinking about human extinction can be segmented into five distinction periods, each of which corresponds to a unique “existential mood.” An existential mood arises from a particular set of answers to fundamental questions about the possibility, probability, etiology, and so on, of human extinction. I claim that the idea of human extinction first appeared among the ancient Greeks, but was eclipsed for roughly 1,500 years with the rise of Christianity. A central contention of Part II is that philosophers have thus far conflated six distinct types of “human extinction,” each of which has its own unique ethical and evaluative implications. I further contend that it is crucial to distinguish between the process or event of Going Extinct and the state or condition of Being Extinct, which one should see as orthogonal to the six types of extinction that I delineate. My aim with the second part of the book is to not only trace the history of Western thinking about the ethics of annihilation, but lay the theoretical groundwork for future research on the topic. I then outline my own views within “Existential Ethics,” which combine ideas and positions to yield a novel account of the conditions under which our extinction would be bad, and why there is a sense in which Being Extinct might be better than Being Extant, or continuing to exist
2016-2017 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2016-2017 term.
The College Catalog is a document of record issued in August 2016. The Catalog contains current information regarding the College calendar, admissions, degree requirements, fees, regulations and course offeringshttps://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1103/thumbnail.jp
2014-2015 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2014-2015 term.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1009/thumbnail.jp
2013-2014 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2013-2014 term.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1008/thumbnail.jp
2012-2013 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2012-2013 term.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1007/thumbnail.jp
TOWARDS A MODEL FOR ARTIFICIAL AESTHETICS - Contributions to the Study of Creative Practices in Procedural and Computational Systems
Este trabalho propõe o desenvolvimento de um modelo analítico e da terminologia a ele associada para o estudo de artefactos estéticos computacionais. Reconhecendo a presença e uso crescentes dos media computacionais, começamos por estudar como através da remediação eles transformam quantitativamente os media precedentes, e como as suas propriedades procedimentais e computacionais os afectam qualitativamente. Para perceber o potencial criativo e a especificidade dos media computacionais, desenvolvemos um modelo para a sua prática, crítica e análise. Como ponto de partida recorremos à tipologia desenvolvida por Espen Aarseth para o estudo de cibertextos, avaliando a sua adequação à análise de peças ergódicas visuais e audiovisuais, adaptando-a e expandindo-a com novas variáveis e respectivos valores. O modelo é testado através da análise de um conjunto de peças que representam diversas abordagens à criação procedimental e diversas áreas de actividade criativa contemporânea. É posteriormente desenvolvida uma análise de controlo para avaliar a usabilidade e utilidade do modelo, a sua capacidade para a elaboração de classificações objectivas e o rigor da análise. Demonstramos a adequação parcial do modelo de Aarseth para o estudo de artefactos não textuais e expandimo-lo para melhor descrever as peças estudadas. Concluímos que o modelo apresentado produz boas descrições das peças, agrupando-as logicamente, reflectindo afinidades estilísticas e procedimentais entre sistemas que, se estudados com base nas suas propriedades sensoriais ou nas suas estruturas de superfície provavelmente não revelariam muitas semelhanças. As afinidades reveladas pelo modelo são estruturais e procedimentais, e atestam a importância das características computacionais para a apreciação estética das obras. Verificamos a nossa conjectura inicial sobre a importância da procedimentalidade não só nas fases de desenvolvimento e implementação das obras mas também como base conceptual e estética na criação e apreciação artísticas, como um prazer estético
2011-2012 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2011-2012 term.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1006/thumbnail.jp
2010-2011 Catalog
This catalog lists available courses for the 2010-2011 term.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1005/thumbnail.jp