...article “The Experience Machine” he speaks of plugging into a machine for two years at a time for life that will give you an experience your heart’s desire that reality won’t give you. In my essay I’m going to explain and agree with the authors 3 reasons as to why you shouldn’t plug into the Experience Machine. I will explain the functions of the machine, answer the key question and explaining whether the author convinced me or not to want to use the experience machine. Plugging into the machine seems like something a lot of people would enjoy but personally it’s not something I would recommend or decide to try on my own. It does sound promising but the cons outweigh the pros of this experience machine. The Experience...
Words: 1009 - Pages: 5
... It looks exclusively at the resultant pleasures and pains in all affected agents. Jeremy Bentham developed a ‘hedonic calculus’ to help quantify utilitarianism. In short, his methodology involves evaluating the utility of each possible action at a given moment. The action generating the highest utility represents a moral obligation. Any action producing a lower utility is morally wrong. It is crucial to understand that morality is determined retrospectively in this theory: it is the real outcomes that matter, not the expected outcomes. Although utilitarianism appears intuitively strong, several powerful objections have been raised. In this paper, I will present and analyze several of these objections, namely those raised by John Stuart Mill in his own work on utilitarianism. The first objection portrays utilitarianism as ‘the doctrine of swine’. According to this objection, the sole pursuit of pleasure is...
Words: 1497 - Pages: 6
...that we should never tell a lie no matter what the consequences, utilitarian’s would first calculate the positive and negative effects from either telling the truth or telling a lie. But, if telling a lie will maximize more happiness or pleasure for the number of people involved, then telling a lie is the morally right thing to do. Another objection I find interesting is Robert Nozick’s experience machine. Nozick’s example of the experience machine is meant to be a counter-example to hedonism. He asks, if it were possible to put you in a virtual reality machine, where you could live out the rest of your life in a practical, computer-generated reality, would you do so? My answer would be no and I think most people would pick the same. Although certainly they would be much happier in the machine, a life in the machine just wouldn’t be as valuable as a life outside of the machine. Nozick argues, if happiness were the only thing of value, then a life in the machine wouldn’t be “missing something” at all. The fact that we think it would be implies that we value more for its own sake than just happiness. The utilitarian replies to this objection by saying that we are mistaken in thinking that these other things are...
Words: 708 - Pages: 3
...firestorm that was generated when a Texas cheerleader, Kendall Jones, posted pictures of game animals she had legally taken on an African safari with her father on Facebook. This incident truly showed me for the first time how widespread anti-hunting sentiment was as well as how little people seem to know about it. In order to counter these sentiments and give people a better understanding of hunting and how it is not unethical, I will state what I believe to be the three most common ethical objections to hunting and then provide rebuttals. The three objections are, hunting is unethical because it disrupts nature and has caused the extinction of numerous species, hunting is unethical because modern technology gives humans an unfair advantage, and finally, the biggest and most common objection, hunting is unethical because it causes animals to experience extreme duress and pain. It is my hope that my arguments will sway you to see that hunting, when done lawfully, is completely ethical. Objection one is “hunting is unethical because it disrupts nature and has caused the extinction of numerous species”. While it is true that overhunting and poaching have caused the decline of species in the past (U.S. Fish and Wilflife Service), this was when most people harvested wildlife as a major food source before crops and livestock became wildly available, as well as the not known to be mistaken belief that there was an infinite number of animals to feed people forever. Now that we...
Words: 978 - Pages: 4
...more respect and dignity than one would give to a pet or a piece of property. But this is not the only trait that makes up a person. According to a philosopher named Dr. Philosophicus Veritas, in order for something to be considered a person it must possess the properties of intelligence and self-awareness. I would agree with this definition of a person, but I do not believe it is complete. I would add the properties of phenomenal consciousness and free will to the list. These properties are essential in order to be considered a human. To begin with, Dr. Veritas and I agree that the first property of intelligence is a vital piece of being a person. Intelligence is defined as the ability to learn and adapt to one’s environment and experiences on a daily basis. Without this property one could not be considered a human because I would not be doing anything morally wrong if I were to lock a creature without intelligence in my basement and treat it as a pet. Without intelligence the creature would not know that the environment of my basement was not its original home. As long as I feed it and let it sleep, it would be perfectly content in living in my basement and I would be causing it no harm. Since I would not be putting an unintelligent creature in danger or violating its moral rights by treating it as property, this creature cannot be classified as a person. Another property that Dr. Veritas and I agree upon is...
Words: 2424 - Pages: 10
...Turing, A.M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433-460. COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE By A. M. Turing 1. The Imitation Game I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words. The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B thus: C: Will X please tell me the length...
Words: 11812 - Pages: 48
...A. M. Turing (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 49: 433-460. COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE By A. M. Turing 1. The Imitation Game I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words. The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B thus: C: Will X please tell me the length of his or...
Words: 11811 - Pages: 48
...Capita, DHL, HSBC, Phillips, and many more large organizations. IT Leaders Ltd programs focus on 8 key IT Leadership elements, including “organizational politics for IT managers, leading IT teams, business and IT strategy, technology innovation, crisis leadership, business change leadership, senior level influencing, and corporate leadership”. The IT management and commercial program includes various topics from IT to business alignment, business relationship management, managing IT teams, technology sourcing, negotiation and finance for IT managers. The blended and distance learning courses provided by IT Leaders Ltd are also available worldwide and are based on 10 management skills model provided by IT Leaders. This book is based on the experiences of IT...
Words: 2783 - Pages: 12
...Assisting Suicide PHI 200 Mind and Machine Instructor: Jon Stern August 22, 2011 Being in a situation to end someone’s life due to pain and suffering would make you feel responsible for their death. In Susan Wolf’s situation her father’s health was decling affecting his physical and mental state. She described her father as “a smart, savvy lawyer, the family patriarch. She could see his spark for life start to fade at the end when he could not even read, do the New York Times crossword puzzles he used to knock off in an hour, or even watch television (Wolf, 2008).” At this point she knew her father’s condition was not getting any better, that’s when he said he wanted to stop. There are doctors that are comfortable with assisting suicide like Jack Kevorkian, which were known as “Death Doctors”. “Dr. Kevorkian has been known as “Dr. Death” since at least 1956, when he conducted a study photographing patients’ eyes as they died. Results established that blood vessels in the cornea cornea contract and become invisible as the heart stops beating. In a 1958 paper, he suggested that death row inmates be euthanized, and their bodily organs harvested. In 1960, he proposed using condemned prisoners for medical experiments. In 1989, a quadaplegic, too handicapped to kill himself, publicly asked for assistance, and Dr. Kevorkian began tinkering on a suicide machine. But a different patient – Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old with Alzheimer’s – was the first to test...
Words: 739 - Pages: 3
...number of writers have predicted, the computers of the future will possess intelligence and capacities that exceed our own then it seems as though they will be worthy of a moral respect at least equal to, and perhaps greater than, human beings. In this paper I propose a test to determine when we have reached that point. Inspired by Alan Turing’s (1950) original ‘Turing test’, which argued that we would be justified in conceding that machines could think if they could fill the role of a person in a conversation, I propose a test for when computers have achieved moral standing by asking when a computer might take the place of a human being in a moral dilemma, such as a ‘triage’ situation in which a choice must be made as to which of two human lives to save. We will know that machines have achieved moral standing comparable to a human when the replacement of one of these people with an artificial intelligence leaves the character of the dilemma intact. That is, when we might sometimes judge that it is reasonable to preserve the continuing existence of a machine over the life of a human being. This is the ‘Turing Triage Test’. I argue that if personhood is understood as a matter of possessing a set of important cognitive capacities then it seems likely that future AIs will be able to pass this test. However this conclusion serves as a reductio of this account of the nature of persons. I set out an alternative account of the nature of persons, which places the concept of a person at the...
Words: 9474 - Pages: 38
...prevent dangerous items from going on a plane, the vast majority of passengers will not receive a pat-down at the checkpoint. All passengers have important rights during a pat-down. You have the right to request the pat-down be conducted in a private room and you have the right to have the pat-down witnessed by a person of your choice. All pat-downs are only conducted by same-gender officers. The officer will explain the pat-down process before and during the pat-down. Instead of making everyone strip down, the TSA has organized a type of body scan screening machine that let passengers skip the undressing part. The machine “undresses” you by using either x-rays or millimeter radio waves. The backscatter x-ray technique is the one getting the most publicity at the moment. In this machine, visualize a beam of low-power x-rays, similar to a laser beam in dimensions, scanning across your body, left to right, top to bottom. The machine paints an image of the backscattered results point by point, and an agent looking at the image can see things like metals,...
Words: 1154 - Pages: 5
...SALES MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING FORECASTING Cold calling - contacting a lead for the first time Commission – a form of sales force compensation in which the amount paid is in direct proposition to the accomplishment of specific objectives. Company sales forecast - a prediction of unit or dollar sales for the given period in total or broken down by product, segment or other categories’ and based on the marketing strategy that will be put in place A Prospect - a potential buyer interested in the seller’s product Quotas are quantitative objectives used to direct sales force activity and evaluate performance. Sales territory – all the actual and potential customers often within a specific geographic area, for which the salesperson has responsibility Sales management is the management of Personal Selling function. Personal Selling is a person to person process by which the seller learns about the prospective buyers want and sees to satisfy them by offering suitable goods or services and making a sale. (Keokemoer 2005) Selling is convincing the prospect to convince him or her to buy a product or service. Buyers can buy without a salesman being presented but they tend to buy minimum quantities and to confine their orders to known lines. Importance of Salespeople in management A sales function covers such activities 1. The presentation, demonstration and sale of company goals, negotiation...
Words: 10374 - Pages: 42
... see in the night Opponent processing: Red/green: (L-M): differences between those 2 cones/ if miss L, then can’t tell red from green Blue/yellow: (s-s+m/2) Explicit: conscious Episodic/semantic Implicit: skill memory LTP: stronger synaptic connection Long term: grow more receptors on post synapse anatomical Short term: amount of neurons Turing machine Single vs double dissociation Single: one manipulation Double: two manipulations Visual angle Grandmother cell a lot of cells respond for Halle Berry Do not respond only to Halle Berry Math: impossibly large number of neurons Only 100 images do not necessarily show that those cells only respond to one concept Size constancy: If no depth cue/ with out size constancy; then same visual angle same proximal size and same perceived size. s Alternative: different difficulties of those 2 tasks Mediate by separate part of brain regions Color constancy Binding: different percepts What is intelligence? (Cartesian) Dualism, identity theory, functionalism The Turing test (and objections to it) Aunt Bertha machine Linear vs. exponential scaling Dualism: mind is nonphysical substance Identity theory: same mind state means the same brain state Problem of strict...
Words: 4004 - Pages: 17
...to the use of deception, to find the truth. This paper will analyze the code of ethics in comparison to law enforcement procedure, and the role of nonverbal communication play with regard to detecting deception. The Ethics of Deception Ethical and moral behaviors are characteristics that individuals have but not all individuals have the same degree of moral ground. Everyone has the right to free choice and free-thinking, which are the foundation of the pursuit of happiness, life, and liberty. Within the context of free choice, humans have the choice of telling the truth or lying. Truth is usually only given freely when the foreseen benefit exists; otherwise most individuals will resort to a lie. By nature, humans do not want to experience pain, harm, or anything that may restrict individual freedoms. For individuals who violate laws, social norms, or otherwise commit an act, which will resort in a consequence, lying is a rational choice to prevent said consequences. People who lie often have an increasing sense about his or her surroundings, non-verbal communication presence, and internal thought process. These actions by individuals make it increasingly harder for law enforcement personnel to extract the truth from a suspect. The use of...
Words: 1545 - Pages: 7
...NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY ADVANCED EDUCATION PROGRAM BUSINESS PLAN SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Supporting the women prisoners after they are out prison. Advanced Accounting 54B GROUP 6: 1. Nguyễn Diệp Anh 2. Vương Phương Anh 3. Đoàn Hồng Anh 4. Đỗ Phương Anh 5. Nguyễn Thị Hường 6. Bùi Diệu Linh Table of Contents I. SUMMARY: 2 II. ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW: 3 1. Problems and Solution: 3 2. Vision: 3 3. Mission: 3 4. The object: 3 5. Market Analysis 3 I. PRODUCT: 4 II. MARKET ANALYSIS 5 1. Target market 5 2. Total market valuation 6 3. Target company revenue 6 4. Market trends 6 5. Competitive Advantage 7 III. MARKETING STRATEGIES 7 IV. STAFFING AND OPERATIONS 9 1. Operational plan: 9 2. Management and personel: 10 VII. SALES PLAN 10 VIII. SOURCE OF FINANCIAL 12 1. Capital of founding people: 12 2. Supporting financial for social organizations : 12 IX. CONCLUSION 13 I. SUMMARY: Everyone wants to be a good person, to become useful citizens of the country, but it is not easy, especially with those who committed an offense in the first time, the way for them to re- integrate community seems too fragile. And the challenge has become more difficult for the female prisoners. Because of going out the prison with nothing and the mistake past, their opportunity to remake their lives are so faint. In vocational guidance for prisoners after serving...
Words: 3895 - Pages: 16
