Memo15+--+Full+Proposal

Thomas Solley STSH 4980-01 Senior Thesis Costelloe-Kuehn 9/20/2014

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__ Memo 15 -- Full __ Proposal Concerns; - Not exactly sure what best structure to use for this piece... And, as with my previous work, I worry about being too verbose with my work. Specfically here, I need a means of being specific enough with my focus that my thesis does not wander. We had a few ideas in-class about how to structure it, which was nice -- but I would have liked to have come up with more "conceptual frameworks" to use.

The actual Proposal will be attached as an MSWord doc here. [Version1 incomplete]



EDIT 9/21/2014 Having difficulty creating a cohesive document here -- I feel that this piece is repeating several criteria (such as "aims" in the Abstract and Overview). I could use a hand making sure that all my data is relevant and cohesive.

2:41 pm while I have now moved my document back to MSWord (less formatting issues), I'm still struggling to make a cohesive document that hits all of the points required, listed in the professor's guide. So I am unsure abotu my tone and content wandering somewhat in this document...

8:41pm -- Back to working on my thesis. I think I'll try to use an actual outline for this assignment rather than the fill-as-you-go from before (Draft1).
 * 1) Abstract
 * 2) Already mostly done... But may have some overlap with the Overview. Ideally the Overview provides more detail than the Abstract?
 * 3) Overview
 * 4) Somehow this is different from the Abstract? Folks read the Abstract to get a clue for the Paper, then read the Overview for a "little" more content?
 * 5) What the study aims to accomplish -- empirical, conceptual, methodological, and practical
 * 6) Just use my three from the Abract? No
 * 7) Conceptual;
 * 8) Prove that "humans" in modern society with access to technology (such as smartphones, computers, social networking and wifi) are closer to a networked intelligence -- and thus to a machine AI -- than previously thought.
 * 9) Redefine "humanity," "inhumane," "machine" [neg.], "cyborg" and "prosthetic" to encompass the technologies humans take for granted (smartphones, wifi, networked intelligence)
 * 10) Prove that augmentation technologies are not "playing god"
 * 11) Explore what would be required for a world to have widespread human augmentation -- to avoid the conflicts of DXHR (monopolies on anti-rejection medication, monopolies on information, warfare augmentations, forced experiments on civilians, pressure to replace organic & healthy systems with artificial augmentations, corporate control of society [vis a vis Iluminati]...).
 * 12) Re-direct future though and endeavors to encompass the advancements in technology; the "cyborgs" in our society [requiring a re-structuring of social classes], in hand with technological momentum, means that the world as a whole must come together to plan ambitious projects that keep these elements in mind -- that take our status as a "networked intelligence" into mind, as we plan a NEW global future.
 * 13) Methodological;
 * 14) Learn more about the transhumanist movement as a whole -- the organization's goals, achievements, and projected timeline. Now that the movement has a "structure," (vis. Worldwide Transhumanist Association), I would like to know what that is.
 * 15) Be able to define "transhumanism" to non-academics
 * 16) Be able to intelligently argue on the topic of transhumanist and human-augmentation ethics to fellow academics (social analysts, historians, and tech-developers).
 * 17) Devise a method by which the world could achieve peaceful realization of the DXHR universe without the conflicts within. A world with augmentations, cyborgs, androids, and AI...
 * 18) Empirical;
 * 19) Conduct surverys and studies to demonstrate the dependance humans have on networked technologies -- smartphones, email, wifi, computers... Focus on the amount of times tech-is-used & generic 'how important is this to your life' qs.
 * 20) Opinion-based surveys on the roles networked technologies play in the world today -- focus on "does this shape your life"
 * 21) Interviews with educational and social "experts" on the roles technology has in our lives. Focus on "dependence," use as a means for original citations and links to original studies.
 * 22) Gather quantitative data on smartphone-use, trends in technology (?), from literature (academic).
 * 23) Gather broad "group-based" categories from analysis of the academic and conservative (religious) sectors. See how widespread "acceptance" of technology is in today's world; see how widespread the "augmentation is god's work" fears are; see how much of the world is preparing for augmentation in the workplace, media, and battlefront.
 * 24) Practical;
 * 25) Pose questions to the reader that have them re-thinking their basic assumptions at the core of their very being, to create a profound re-imagining of the self.
 * 26) What is "human" in a world fixated on technology?
 * 27) What are the "limits" to what humanity should accomplish?
 * 28) What seperates "man" from "machine"? Are the lines really so well-defined as they were 40 years ago?
 * 29) How should we view cybernetics?
 * 30) Do cybernetics create an unfair advantage in the workplace?
 * 31) " " ... in athletics?
 * 32) Under what circumstances should employees be required to become "augmented"?
 * 33) Is forced-augmentation "wrong"?
 * 34) What happens to society in a world where augmentations not only are prevalent -- but surpass their organic ancestors? Do we see a "world divided" into the augmented versus the not?
 * 35) Is augmentation "god's work"?
 * 36) How has human evolution progressed -- in the biological, versus the technological arenas? How much of human "advancement" has been due to natural selection, and how much has been "creating tools" to adapt to our surroundings?
 * 37) Does technology allow humanity to "surpass" natural evolution?
 * 38) WITH technology, what is the next stage of "evolution"? Are organic-artifiical "hybrids" ("cyborgs," "synthesis" as per Bioware's "Mass Effect 3") the next stage of "evolution" BIOLOGICALLY?
 * 39) However I cannot actually incorporate all of the above points into my thesis -- this is starting to feel like it is expanding back into "multiple" Topics.
 * 40) Well, why not? Why not for this proposal?
 * 41) Time, for one thing..... It is now 9:50 pm on the night that this assignment is due.... So we probably don't have the time to actually flesh-out all of these.
 * 42) Ok, so we may list them?
 * 43) Still have to incorporate the "how to accomplish aims" and "why this approach is best" into the above stuff....
 * 44) Easy for some of these...
 * 45) Draft;
 * 46) WHat the conceptual aims of the project are
 * 47) Prove that augmentation technologies are not "playing god"
 * 48) Biggest "conceptual framework" 'fear' from the DXHR website video, .
 * 49) Other "fears" likely do exist, which we hope to address.
 * 50) Cannot easily address the "evolution" question as per above, since such a "fear"/"view" is composed of multiple parts we would need to address, which probably would not fit within the scope of this project.
 * 51) ""They're killing our humanity!" --> This is certainly one to tackle...
 * 52) Prove that "humans" in modern society with access to technology (such as smartphones, computers, social networking and wifi) are closer to a networked intelligence -- and thus to a machine AI -- than previously thought.
 * 53) Redefine "humanity," "inhumane," "machine" [neg.], "cyborg" and "prosthetic" to encompass the technologies humans take for granted (smartphones, wifi, networked intelligence)
 * 54) Re-direct future though and endeavors to encompass the advancements in technology; the "cyborgs" in our society [requiring a re-structuring of social classes], in hand with technological momentum, means that the world as a whole must come together to plan ambitious projects that keep these elements in mind -- that take our status as a "networked intelligence" into mind, as we plan a NEW global future.
 * 55) How the study will accomplish these aims, and why the proposed approach is best. Where you will obtain data. Should include a short overview of study components, and a biref justification of your research sites.
 * 56) c
 * 57) We propose to prove the first conceptual aim through a brief historical venture, using literature and STS-professors' input to make the claim that technology has been an integral part of humanity's advancement in the past 40000 years... (?). This shall also be combined with psychological analysis of the "fears" against augmentation/transhumanism from interviews with certified psychologists, based-upon literatures gathered from within the academic community (Francis Fukuyama? //Our Posthuman Future//; Leon Kass, Bill McKibben, Jeremy Rifkin -- all noted in Agar's article as "bioconservatives") . Sadly, knowledge of the transhumanist debate is limited to the individuals and groups within academia (or the "educated"); thus, very few persons outside of teaching positions or research are really expected to know anything (or have been taught anything) about the subject. As a result, this excludes a vast majority of persons in the local Troy community who would have otherwise been interviewed as a part of this study. Data therefore shall be drawn from interviews with psychologists and literature, as mentioned previosuly.
 * 58) Data for the second aim shall be drawn from quantitative studies and interviews to the general populace online and within certain academic circles, via SurveyMonkey and Facebook groups such as the Stanford Transhumanist Association and RPI Class of 2015. Questions shall be focused on drawing a metric number of hours in which persons use "networked technologies," as well as subjective responses to the query of "how important is this technology to your life"/"how often do you find yourself using it". Analysis of the results shall be supported with academic articles on the subject of technological dependence; as well as "traditional" definitions of "cyborg" and "networked intelligence." The benefits to this approach are that the conclusions can be drawn from metric data, rather than purely subjective interviews.
 * 59) The final conceptual aim of this project shall be achieved through analysis of the previous two aims' results in a final conclusion piece, tying-together the entire paper. We hope to gather knowledge in this domain from expert interviews of leading Transhumanists and from currently-working Transhumanists in today's global market. Basic literature searches into join-nation projects will also be used to support the arguments -- and further, we shall re-use academic articles in addition to science-fiction novels to guide recommendations for global endeavors.
 * 60) Background and Significance
 * 61) Draft
 * 62) Transhumanism has been slowly gaining momentum over the past few years -- going from a theoretical "no man's land" in the 70s [vis Warwick's "March of the Machines" and Harroway's "Cyborg Manifesto"], where the rapid advancements in technology were regarded with much skepticism and a touch of fear. The common goal amongst scientists of the era was to warn oncoming generations of the impact that future technologies would hold for the rest of humanity -- a fear that resurfaced in popular media in the early 2000s with films such as "iRobot," "Terminator," and "AI"; most of which focused on the (then distant) possibility of rogue artificial intelligence turning against its human creators. Prosthetics at this time were not terribly advanced -- and still consisted, for the most part, of simple "hooks" and "pegs," reminiscent of the seafaring pirates of centuries past. By the start of 2011, perspective had shifted towards augmentation and enhancement, rising with the social fervor following the release of the film "Iron Man" in 2008 -- as development began in defense contractors on projects such as the Raytheon XOS system, a preliminary forethough to exoskeletal technologies. As social media became more enamored with the idea of autonomous robots and augmentation systems (courtesy of the continued "Iron Man," "Terminator," and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" franchises), awareness and funding continued to rise for development of prosthetic systems. Starting in 2011, the film industry began debuting what would become a rising collective of films and public interest in the AI/robotics/prosthetics sector -- with games such as "Deus Ex: Human Revolution," "Mass Effect," "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance," "Killzone: Shadowfall," "Splinter Cell: Blacklist," "Crysis 3," "Gears of War," "Halo," "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier," "Starhawk," "Syndicate," "Spider Man Edge of Time," and many, many more. All of this showed a gradual trend in games and film towards depictions of "future" "advanced" societies, with technology and capabilities beyond our own. Around the same time as when DXHR was released, medical companies in Japan began work on their own prototype exoskeletal systems -- such as Cyberdyne's HAL system. The next few years saw a gradual increase in the number of private companies working to develop powered prosthetics and unitask-exoskeletons, with an explosion of DIY systems in 2013 with the rise of the "Maker" movement, on the heels of 3D-printing technology. There are now 15 (?) documented exoskeleton and prosthetic systems in-development today, 4 of which have already received scholastic acclaim for their ingenuity and pricing -- a trend that has continued to grow. In early 2014, the US government licensed DHARPA to begin work on tactical exoskeletal systems, the generation succeeding Raytheon's XOS2 and Lockheed-Martin's HULC systems; the "TALOS"</range id="523204764_2"> initiativ<range type="comment" id="523204764_3">e, current</range id="523204764_3">ly under-way, is in collaboration with "56 corporations, 16 government agencies, 13 universities and 10 national laboratories," as per a February 2014 Sploid article concerning President Obama's announcement on the TALOS initiative. Media and market interest in the fields of advanced-technologies is, clearly, on the rise.
 * 63) Literatures on the topic of "transhumanism" have evolved over the past 40 years to encompass the responsibilites and goals shared by many in the academic field -- culminating in the Transhumanist Declaration in 1998, a revised version of which was accepted by the Worldwide Transhumanist Association in 2009. Not much else is known about the progression of the transhumanist movement in literature between 1975 and 1998; though it can be assumed that public and academic opinions on the subject were influenced-by and on-par-with media through the intervening years.
 * 64) ... This is where I am weakest, as I did not get to the Zotero articles I wanted in time for this assignment. There are sources for me to draw-on to strengthen my arguments above (see comments) -- but for the most part, I know very little of the literature-growth on transhumanism through the years. I would hope to include such information in my Final Proposal, however.
 * 65) Preparation and Work Thus Far
 * 66) Draft
 * 67) The past three years have been spent collecting articles on the subject of human augmentation (releases), cybernetic systems, and progress on experimental exoskeleton technologies such as XOS, HULC, and HAL. We have about 66 articles to date, which have informed our opinions regarding the status of current technologies, and the barriers to further progress. Our earliest thoughts on transhumanism were influenced heavily by DXHR and Warwick's "March of the Machines," which demonstrated to us the need for caution and forethought in the face of technological momentum. Some preliminary research was conducted into carbon nanotube technologies -- batteries, fibers, muscles -- in light of the <range type="comment" id="523219416_1">"nanosuit" depicted in Crytek's "Crysis 2" video game in 2011</range id="523219416_1">. Research into this area was halted after it was determined that, lacking a PhD in materials-science, chemical engineering, or manufacturing, the students involved had little chance of discovering on their own what was acclaimed as the "holy grail" of engineering -- cheap, reliable, bulk production of carbon nanotubes.
 * 68) Inspection and analysis of the economic market, global politics, and technological privitazation have led us to a rather cynical point fo view regarding the status of transhumanist endeavors, and the likelihood of achieving those in the near future. We hold very little hope that a "breakthrough" will occur anytime soon, as research into augmentations has become privatized and subsidized by the military -- leaving very few companies at the "bleeding edge" of technology. Indeed, very few purely R&D companies exist in the United States in this day and age -- we once foresaw great progress of augmentation technologies under the wing of "supergiant" corporations like Massive Dynamic from "Fringe," AIM from the Marvel Universe, etc. Very few ultra-high "think-tanks" seem to exist -- or if they do, work on them is being conducted away from the public eye, thus restricting advancement and outreach on the subject (e.g. enterprising engineers, such as myself, have no "easy way in" to either contribute or work-with such advanced technology). Thus it has been rather dissappointing to find that the level of technology on the "consumer" market is not as advanced as we would have preferred, if our world today were to be compared to that of science-fiction. Most of the holdup seems to be focused within the following disciplines;
 * neuroscience; mapping of the brain is incomplete. <range type="comment" id="523220362_1"> Our knowledge of "what controls what" is still lacking </range id="523220362_1"> -- in that there are entire realms of interaction we have yet to fully understand, such as "touch sensation," "cognitive association," "phantom limb"...
 * [From talk with Dr. van Heuveln] "We just don't know enough about the brain yet... We don't know what tapping the brain anywhere else will do. [We have] very shallow knowledge except on individual neurons... [Some] complexity is present, but there is some stability [to our models of the brain] -- [it is] not a fully chaotic system. [Our] node-network neural theories are still bad and still restricted. Theoretically [scientists would be] able to make an arm with full-functionality [compared to the organic multitasker-equivalent], before we reach [the] ability to nail the cognitive interface." {April 2014}
 * materials science; there are not cheap materials that have the properties required to behave as organic-components do -- such as flex, react to heat and/or electricity, and be more durable than human bones [except carbon nanotubes, possibly, but restrictions on the creation of those are already listed above].
 * biology/chemistry; rejection is still a major problem with implants and embedded prosthetics. This factor significantly contributes to the lack of "test subjects" available (as well as materials cost).
 * power generation; considered to be the largest obstacle to augmentation and exoskeleton technologies, there is a large deficit in terms of the energy required for mobile (e.g. "wireless" or "untethered") application of these technologies, in comparison to current energy-storage (battery) and energy-production systems. While carbon-nanotube batteries have been proffered as the "ideal" solution to this problem -- and some examples of "painted" and "form-fitting" batteries have been researched -- no practical consumer technology has yet been produced that addresses these issues. Energy for these systems must be abundant, portable, renewable (e.g. not "one-time use"), and above all, small. Current technologies -- both theoretical and developped -- have yet to meet all of these requirements.
 * Industry; few researchers really try to do "high-flying," huge-vision projects -- as there is too much of a risk involved [Dr. Heuveln].
 * 1) At this time no "pilot studies" of the transhumanist or social circles have been conducted, outside of participant observation on the role of technology in the everyday life and passing articles regarding technological augmentations.
 * 2) Methodology & Plan of Work
 * 3) .... This should be fun...
 * 4) Draft
 * 5) Conceptual Framework
 * 6) At this time not many tropes have been found within the proposed fields of study, aside-from concepts such as "death of humanity," "the [blasphemy of] doing (of) God's work," "organic purity," and "fear of being left behind." These all arise in the original considerations regarding augmented society, as portrayed in DXHR.
 * 7) Research Questions
 * 8) What is "human" in a world fixated on technology?
 * 9) What are the "limits" to what humanity should accomplish?
 * 10) What seperates "man" from machine? Are the lines really so well-defined as they were 40 years ago?
 * 11) How should we view cybernetics?
 * 12) [REDACTED] Do cybernetics create an unfair advantage in the workplace? In athletics?
 * 13) [REDACTED] Under what circumstances should employees be required to become "augmented"?
 * 14) [REDACTED] Is forced-augmentation wrong?
 * 15) [REDACTED] What happens to society in a world where augmentations not only are prevalent -- but surpass their organic ancestors? Do we see a "world divided" into the augmented versus the not?
 * 16) Is augmentation "god's work"?
 * 17) <range type="comment" id="523223626_1">[REDACTED] How has human evolution progressed -- in the biological, versus the technological arenas? How much of human "advancement" has been due to natural selection, and how much has been "creating tools" to adapt to our surroundings?
 * 18) [REDACTED] Does technology allow humanity to "surpass" natural evolution?
 * 19) [REDACTED] WITH technology, what is the next stage of "evolution"? Are organic-artifiical "hybrids" ("cyborgs," "synthesis" as per Bioware's "Mass Effect 3") the next stage of "evolution" BIOLOGICALLY?
 * 20) Is transhumanism ultimately good for our society?
 * 21) Are cyborgs the next stage of evolution?
 * 22) [REDACTED] Comparing the world of today with the world of video-games, how far are we from "utopia"?
 * 23) [REDACTED] Does use of augmented soldiers justify conflict? Do robots instead? Drones? Would we see a similar "lack of humanity" towards fighting as happened in the Vietnam War?
 * 24) [REDACTED] Over the course of millennia organic life has adapted organically (e.g. cells) to our environments -- as per Darwin's theory of Natural Selection -- but now, technology appears to make it possible to overcome this, where birth "defects" and injuries are no longer damning. Should there be a new "law of evolution"?
 * 25) Is technology the ultimate expression of the inner self?
 * 26) Have we become dependent on technology, or do we still assert our dominance through it?
 * 27) [REDACTED] Have we surpassed "evolution"?</range id="523223626_1">
 * 28) Should catastrophic failure occur (solar flare, even?), how many people have the capabilities to fix the technologies they fundamentally rely-upon to survive? Has discretization and automation of technology rendered society vulnerable?
 * 29) So we have [1,2,3,4,9,13,14,18,19,21]... Out of those, I would say that [1, 3, 4, 14, 18, 19] address Aim2, with [21] forming part of the empirical search behind it. We can further ask "how often do you use your smartphone (at work, at home)"/"how often do you use your smartphone for networking"...
 * 30) [2, 4, 9, 13] aim to address Aim1. Particular questions on this front will not be empirical; this aim is to gather qualitative data only.
 * 31) [2, 4, 13] aim to address Aim3. This Aim is a conclusive one -- data will be gathered from literature as a means of "completing" the paper and inspiring the reader.
 * 32) Site justification (optional?)
 * 33) ... Refer back to prior sections?
 * 34) Study Components
 * 35) Literature review is one component we shall pursue. We have amassed at this point roughly 100 scholarly articles from which to draw our analysis, focusing on certain key vectors; the dependence of humans on technology, bioconservative views on transhumanism, and the history/progression of transhumanism through time. A majority of the articles included are assumed to be subjective -- e.g. written with particular bias, which we hope to take into-account when citing and comparing references.
 * 36) Personal interviews and public polls take-up the minority of information used in this study. As some documentation on the pervasiveness of technology has already been conducted, our own interviews and polls shall act as a balance against purely-academic papers. While it is expected that the results of the interviews will coincide with existing research studies, providing our own quantifiable data will help to ground analysis in reality.
 * 37) Data analysis is the final component of our study, which shall be accomplished through -- as mentioned earlier -- cross-referencing studies, remaining aware of author bias [and confirmation bias], as well as checking the expected results of my studies against academic experts'.
 * 38) Schedule of Activities
 * 39) September 14-- September 26, Structure Zotero articles by Tags, Notes, and Related.
 * 40) September 26 -- October 4, compose questions for all forums/ social-networking spaces, begin inputting questions.
 * 41) October 5 -- October 11, Contact professionals for interviews, contact non-professionals for interviews, contact "experts" for potential interviews
 * 42) October 11 -- 18, read literatures and begin summarizing findings (more in-depth than "management" in zotero)
 * 43) October 18 -- October 25, Summarize findings from Polls, literatures (memos)
 * 44) October 25 -- November 1, begin Second Round of Polls and First Round of Interviews
 * 45) November 1 -- November 29, Interviews and Literature-review continues, as does Polls2
 * 46) November 29 -- December 6, Finalize Thesis.
 * 47) Evaluation and Validity (optional?)
 * 48) c
 * 49) Research Ethics (optional?)
 * 50) c
 * 51) Feeling so tired... it's 4:50am.... I just want to sleep... For all of the three hours I am going to get before I have to get up to work on Capstone....
 * 52) Dissemination
 * 53) .... Didn't I already cover this in the Abstract....?
 * 54) ... I'm calling it a night... Tonight I'll go through and re-compile all this into Version2.
 * 1) .... Didn't I already cover this in the Abstract....?
 * 2) ... I'm calling it a night... Tonight I'll go through and re-compile all this into Version2.

So... If all my content is, indeed here, I shall now port the info into the document (see Version 2).