TOK class - 1/19
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So far, we have talked about what it means for humans "to know"
How about animals?
Can they "know" things as we defined the term "know" before?
The more accurately we know HOW our brains work, (as well as other
animals' brains), the better we will be at answering these questions.
In general, the more we know about ourselves biologically, the better
we will be able to identify our limits and capabilities.

Many people cited instances where animals act as if they have "knowledge"
in the way that we do. So then, the question posed is:

How are we(humans) different than animals? We obviously think we are...

Can animals reflect on issues? (Such as, can they be aware that they are
thinking? And can they ask the question, "Do other animals different than
me also think?")

How do animals handle emotions? Do humans do so differently?
How about instinct? To what extent do both animals and humans use instinct?

After talking about animals, we talked about machines. The first question
was:

Can we ever build a machine to "think"?

Clearly, defining the term "to think" is crucial in answering this question.
This initial question led to lots o' speculation and some cool completely
hypothetical questions.

First we talked about Deep Blue & then some other ideas in artificial
intelligence. (The idea of "learning" from more and more data sets...)

The key difference bewteen a human and a machine that was pointed out was
emotion and desire/goals. A machine can only do what it is programmed to do.

What if we programmed it(the machine) to stay alive & gave it enough data
that it could do so?
What if it then figured out how to build other machines, just like itself?
Does this then constitute thought equivalent to human thought?
What if it started using biological parts to construct new "machines"? 
How would you classify those new "machines"?
Does it matter which biological parts you use with respect to classification?


Regardless of how unequipped we really are to speculate on all of these
matters, it's fun to talk about. It's also important to gain an ability to
think about abstract/hypothetical issues, trying to fit those in with our
existing body of knowledge.