Artificial Intelligence

This week's read is from the NY Times, and is an article called, Scientists See Promise in Deep-Learning Programs. It was an interesting article about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and that they were getting so advanced to the point where software is surpassing the human brain in recognizing patterns and the process of learning. The article is written by John Markoff, a writer for the NY Times. He is best known for his book and articles that captured the life of famous computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. The author is well involved with the software development industry and is well qualified to write about the concept of artificial intelligence, a big field in software engineering and computer science. He writes for a moderately informed audience, an audience that appreciates the feats of technology accomplished by man, but also does not use much jargon or scientific terms. The article is an easy first approach to computer science. The purpose of the article is to suggest that artificial intelligence has an undeniable place in the economy and the future, that artificial intelligence is rapidly increasing and taking its place in an incredibly advanced and efficient society. One effective strategy that the author likes to implement is personification. The software can't actually learn, but it can store information and recall it, but the author uses verbs to describe the actions of the software, like learning, being trained; the software seems to be like a Frankenstein of sorts. It works well because it enhances the idea of artificial intelligence and also emphasizes the significance of such advancements, to show how human-like computers and software has become.

Outliers: A Story of Success

This week's reading was from my independent reading book. It is called Outliers: The Story of Success,  by Malcolm Gladwell. The section I read had explored a strange statistical occurrence that show in the birth date of talented hockey players are prominently in January and February. He also looked at other "outliers", extraordinary success stories, such as computer scientists and a small town in America that never gets heart disease, to examine the origin of success. Malcolm Gladwell is a British Canadian journalist and speaker who constantly deals with issues in social science. His purpose in writing Outliers is clear from the beginning: to criticize the world's definition of success and change the way in which we allow unfair advantages to occur. He believes that the way in which our society works is that we write off people as failures too quickly, and stunts their development and potential for the extraordinary. He writes for those who want to study social sciences, societal behaviors, and social psychology. Malcolm Gladwell effectively achieves his purpose by using logos, and argues that if we want more extraordinary people in the world, we would have to change the fundamental system in which we breed success. This is an effective strategy because it is straight foward and easy to follow. He makes his argument very reader friendly and does not overwhelm with complicated statistics. He makes the narrative true to character and it is a proper tone.

The Old Man With His Head In His Hands

This week's rhetorical piece is the Old Man with His Head in His Hands by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).  Vincent van Gogh was a 20th century impressionist painter whose use of bright colors and emotional honesty has left a huge impression on 20th century art culture. The context of this piece is not only the emotional pain and agony that van Gogh endured as he constantly battled mental illness, but van Gogh's spirituality. Though he had rejected religious institution, he still held firmly on the belief that there was a life waiting for him after death. The position of the man crying in his hands while secluded would have easily represented complete sorrow and depression if it weren't for the annotation at the bottom of the page. The annotation at the bottom of the piece shows that van Gogh still clung to his spirituality even at the peak of his mental agony; van Gogh's annotation of the piece is "at eternity's gate." Van Gogh's purpose in many of his late works as his mental illness worsened was to portray his emotional agony and his longing for control and clarity. Van Gogh was a secluded man who painted to cling to reality, which leads me to believe he had no intended audience, but those who see his piece are those who follow 20th century art and those who study the style of impressionism.  His most effective strategy is personification of his emotions. He personifies his pain and depression into a pained and frail old man and it is easy to see what point in his life van Gogh was in when he painted this painting. I think that the annotation and personification achieved his purpose well because the parallel of the two elements show how profound spirituality was to van Gogh.

Greek Philosophy, continued

This week, I am revisiting my IRB, which is An Introduction to Greek Philosophy, by John Mansley Robinson. John Mansley Robinson is the author of many other greek philosophy texts that look at topics such as Presocratic Philosophy and a study of human nature in context of greek society and beliefs. The context of the text is knowing about Greek society in the context of location and time. Greek society was one of the roots of European philosophical traditions, being one of the first sophisticated civilizations in Europe. To also further understand the text, they also competed alongside the Babylonians in evolution of their civilizations. This section I read changed it's purpose from showing how Early Greek philosophers affected later thought; now, it examines how profound greek Philosophers to affect civil life, politics, and mathematics. The audience is those who are studying greek history or who are interested to learn the roots of modern European philosophy, because look at greek philosophy would help to understand current fundamentals in modern thought. One rhetorical element used was dialogue. It was effective especially when trying to teach the thoughts of Pythagoras and Zeno and Melissus. Pythagoras's character was easily examined in how he spoke to his disciples, his noble mannerisms in the dialogue showed that his entire philosophy was framed around his strive for a pure life and emphasized the idea of how Pythagoras spurred the idea of purifying a soul through lifestyle. Zeno and Melissus questioned their teachers to come up with new logical twists and ideas that I can recognize influence modern day mathematics and calculus. Infinity is now put into context of numbers instead of where it was only existent as an origin for matter, according to greek philophy.