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Make screen shots or somehow capture two images from 7 Miles a Second—one that you see as utopian and the other that you see as dystopian. 

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Do you find the ending of Children of Men to be hopeful or bleak? Give three very specific pieces of evidence, with time codes, from the film that lead you to find either hopefulness or hopelessness in the ending.

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I found Children of Men to be more hopeful than not. One of the more salient and final examples, at 1:39:50, Kee is able to see the boat that has also seen the rowboat. This seems more hopeful than not because she and the child managed to escape the conflict behind them, and the Uprising members are dead so they cannot pursue the two. Although Theo is dead here, the real goal was to get the child to safety. Additionally, the scene at 1:31:33 that spans until 1:34:13 also seems hopeful because the soldiers decided to cease firing because of the child. At this point, it seems like in spite of the violence, the hope that the baby represents is able to overpower the soldier’s animosity towards the refugees, especially when contrasted with them murdering unarmed civilians at 1:27:35. Later, at 1:35:58, the trio is escaping by rowboat. At this time, it feels like a lot of biblical imagery is coming through, with Faron pushing to secure the safety of the child and  Kee. Throughout the beginning of the film, he’s a disillusioned and detached character, but he becomes motivated to save the child and Kee while having little to no relationship to either. Additionally, as the camera is cutting away from the last scene, the audience can hear children laughing. This is hopeful in representing a repopulated humanity, as a result of Kee and her child getting to the boat.

 Another ‘hopeful’ part of Children of Men was Theo’s advice to Kee before he died at 1:38:01. Again, like the first scene, Theo has died here. However, it does seem like his passing was intentionally cast in one of the most peaceful settings that the movie featured. This is an effect produced by elements such as the fog and boat as ‘shelter’ and the rhythmic wave-rocking effect on the camera. The soothing effect that the ocean has here is actually comparable to a human parent rocking a child, for several reasons. Peace is initially broken in this scene when the jets fly overhead at 1:37:21. The planes immediately interfere by breaking the quiet environment, then ‘pull’ the perspective along with them towards the destruction of Bexhill. Immediately after, Kee thinks that she notices that she is bleeding. It is then revealed that Theo was wounded instead of Kee, and she thought the blood was hers. At this point, 1:37:38, the camera to a side-profile of both characters sitting opposite each other. Theo claims that he is ‘fine’ and seems more concerned with Kee keeping Dylan close. As Faron grows visibly weaker, Dylan also starts crying and Kee is unsure what to do as the inexperienced parent. Although Kee’s motions are mechanical for parenting, the moment she looks at the baby and names her Dylan is approximately when Theo dies at 1:39:09. He dies too early to know that the ship has returned. In spite of this, his face is still calm and he seems to be smiling. This culminates in his death being a ‘rocking to sleep’ but also hopeful in the sense that he was at peace without the certainty that the Human Project would return. In his actions, Theo secured the only way that could possibly protect Kee, Dylan, and result in peace. 
Calling back to a very prior event in the movie, at 54:12, Jasper is explaining what caused Theo to transform into the cynical and jaded character he was in the beginning. Jasper claims that faith held together Theo and Julian. He recounted how their son Dylan’s unfortunate death led Theo to become a cynic regarding action and change, because “life’s going to make its own choices”. This reflects both Miriam and Jasper’s sacrifices in order to preserve Kee. Before Jasper died, each of Theo’s actions were in some way self-preservational, such as escaping the Fishes originally because he heard of his planned execution, or his selfish motivations in helping Julian before her death. Following Julian, Jasper, and Miriam’s sacrifices, Theo is alone with Kee. He now carries more pressure and must intervene when the dog is barking at Kee, as well as deliver her child and negotiate with Marichka. Following Faron killing Syd, rescuing Kee, and helping them to escape Bexhill, Kee names her child after Dylan. This is a callback to Jasper’s explanation of Faron’s cynical outlook, that the fact that the amount of events out one’s hands make it pointless to act. Theo ended up following the opposite in Bexhill, where in scenes like the one from 1:29:43 to 1:31:18. Analysing this shift in the end makes the ending seem more hopeful because it offers rationale against using Theo’s uncertainty about the Tomorrow’s arrival as bleak.

Create a timeline or chronology based on your reading of Hilary Green’s 2023 report, “Maxwell Chambers and His Complicated Connections to Davidson College.” Include every possible date and event that you find in her account. Then, reflect on your timeline/chronology. Possible directions: What do you now know that you didn’t before reading? What gaps exist in your timeline?

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1780 – Maxwell Chambers born to Joseph and Mary Campbell Chambers.

1784 – Death of Joseph Chambers.

1820 – After receiving an education and working in Charleston, Chambers returns to Salisbury. 

1854 – Chambers frees 19 enslaved people.

1855 – Chambers dies. In his will, 29 enslaved persons are freed. Additionally, Davidson is gifted money and property, specifically a factory that employed enslaved men. 

1857 – After Chambers heirs sue Davidson, the will is now settled. 

1860 – Original Chambers building opened at Davidson. 

1861 – Davidson sells Rowan Factory (the one included in will) to Confederates. It is repurposed as a lsprison for prisoners of war. 

1863 – More Salisbury properties sold by Davidson trustees. 

1890 – “Maxwell Chambers” day established. 

1919 – Maxwell Chambers day no longer celebrated.

1921 – Original Chambers building burns down.

1930 – Second Chambers building open.

2017 – Commission on Race and Slavery established with members, changing of building names suggested, specifically the Chambers building

2020 – Name changing policy approved, Dr. Green begins to research Maxwell Chambers

2023 – Dr. Green’s report on Maxwell Chambers is published. 

After reflecting on my timeline, I understand better now how the actions of a person in their brief lifetime could possibly impact communities and families hundreds of years after. Because of this, it makes sense why the names of buildings can be offensive, as well as statues and other commemorations, as they celebrate morally deplorable individuals. As the semester progressed, reflecting on this timeline has yielded new results. In the prompt, the second step recommended reflecting on what was not revealed by the chronology, which reflects the constructed nature of history. In several first-unit plenaries, history was discussed as a less-objective account than a chronological one, because it the active recollecting of the human experience. Additionally, analysing the primary document “Maxwell Chambers and His Complicated Connections to Davidson College ” and ‘picking out’ all the dates to form a timeline leaves behind context with the ‘recollectors’ of history often having disproportionately high representation. The omission of information is often not conscious, somewhat apparent in the above chronology, which tells a drastically different narrative than Dr. Hillary Green’s paper. 

To briefly outline the purpose and background of this, the context and historical background of various texts and songs has been a recurring component of analysis for me throughout this semester. The humanities all reflect specific artifacts that are affected by historical factors and conditions leading to change, which is what is expressed in several of these.

With regards to viewing new and separate perspectives, this serves a similar purpose of explaining that a variety of processes may be used to assess the number “9,” for example. 3 x 3, 3^3, or √81 will all apply and evaluate to the same thing, with countless other possibilities. This is merely a way of expressing the more mathematically-aligned methods of analysing change through humanity and human culture.

Causal determinism, in a basic interpretation, is the concept in which all facts of the past pair with the laws of nature in order to determine the future. Suppose, for example, an individual who failed an exam. This would be caused by a fact such as their lack of preparation, which could be a product of their character. This character may be influenced by other factors such as the people they grew up around, along with other general circumstances. These factors would all contribute and determine the event of the individual failing this exam. One could thus reasonably state that all provided past facts, along with the laws of nature, determine the present and the future. 

This could theoretically be modelled through combinatorics, the exploration of quantities that are on some scales, conventionally incomputable. A simplified example would be if an individual had 5 shirts, 6 pairs of pants, and 7 ties, they would have N total outfits. This could be modelled by

where an individual could find the total possibilities of shirts, pants, or ties. Determinism is in some ways expressible throughout human history in the same structure by saying that perhaps every separate event leading up to a time t did or did not happen. Further, it could be constructed that each event has more than one outcome, rather than true or false, in the same way that if a coin is flipped, it also produces either heads or tails. Similarly, a die being rolled can produce any value from 1-6. Suppose now the following statement:

This is a conceptual construct that can convey the nature of any cultural artefact, for example, W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Comet. Let x be the artefact, which is the summation () of primary factors, such as historical conditions at the time. Some examples would be the socio-economic status of Black Americans at the time, as well as interpersonal relationships, literary influences, and education, with respect to Du Bois. This summation of q would iterate through each factor, from the first until the a-th. Then, the inner product (∏) would serve a similar function to collecting the product of all the shirts, ties, and pants, but iterates through historical factors of a more “micro scale,” or those contributed to the most direct conditions listed under the outside sum. 

Y represents any of these sub-factors at position r under the q-th outside historical condition. Something that would contribute to the social status of Black Americans at the time would be the Jim Crow laws, and Du Bois’s education at Harvard. The inner summation () processes each condition that affects those sub-factors, which are what y denotes. 

At this point, consider a condition affecting the sub-factor “Jim Crow laws,” which impacts the socio-economic status of Black Americans around the period 1920. In this scenario, imagine that the socio-economic status is at index 1 of impact, and the Jim Crow laws are also at the forefront index 1 for impact to the social environment. To assess, say, the fifth condition to impact the Jim Crow laws of z would be z1,1,5, substituting the q, r, and s index values respectively. Variable z would now be a characteristic of history such as the antebellum political dynamics of Southern states. 

Using Model 2, one could approach any cultural artefact with an analytical method. However, it must be kept in mind that this model is realistically a concept, which would require expansion with the same structure of summation of the products of sums to a further indexed degree, as each condition may be impacted by non-evaluable quantities of factors. Therefore, this remains a theoretical construct, feasible only for a computer. However, when considering details such as improving artificial intelligence models and the expansion of computational power into the future, models such as these move from literal infeasibility towards potential reality. This current that pulls humanity towards the future holds concerning implications for the future. Should the metaphysical property of determinism hold, the future possesses insight into the further future, as well as allow one to better understand how other human and nonhuman minds perceive human culture. 

In “Could You Merge With AI?,” Susan Schneider explores the concept of human consciousness interacting with AI. Schneider addresses merging a person’s mind with AI as well as uploading a mind to a computer, while highlighting key concerns about the mind’s persistence. Using the concept of humans interfacing with artificial intelligence, Schneider addresses transhumanism and her own approach to the conception of the person. Furthermore, she examines the underlying ethical and moral concerns regarding the status of artificial intelligence in relation to humanity. Analysing the excerpt above provides insight into the author’s perspectives on tranhumanist theories and how they are concerned with consciousness, interfacing with technology, and ethical arguments when applied to the entire passage. 

Susan Schneider addresses transhumanism as the pursuit of modifying the human body with technology, primarily in order to enhance the human far beyond current standards. “Could You Merge With AI?,” considers artificial intelligence and how it may be used to approach arguments surrounding consciousness. She first provides the reader with four preexisting notions of the persisting self, which are psychological continuity, brain-based materialism, soul theory, and no-self view (Schneider 76). Then, Schneider explains the implications behind each of these in the scenario of integrating the human with technology. Psychological continuity, the theory that proposes that an individual is only their memories and ability to reflect on oneself, would require the memories and reflection to be preserved in any new form the brain takes. Brain-based materialism is the claim that thought is dependent on the very substance of the brain, and therefore, the mind may not persist if the brain changes(77). The fourth and final belief, no-self theory, would not be concerned with the survival of the self, as the belief rejects a notion of self (77). She finds these insufficient in conditions to approach uploading with regards to transhumanism, as they all lack a key distinction with regarding the mind and the person.

Schneider then introduces the concept of patternism, a key term in developing her perspective on consciousness. She defines patternism as a computational approach to the mind that borrows traits from the psychological continuity view. To introduce the concept, she recalls the computational theory of the mind, an outdated theory claiming that the brain physically functions in the same way as a traditional computer (77). Although Schneider and other proponents of patternism concede that the traditional computational theory to the mind does not accurately express the structure of the brain, proponents of this theory adopt the computational approach in order to address the nonphysical components of the mind, such as memory and perception (78).  She refers to this new approach as the Software Approach to the Mind (SAM), which Schneider then uses to further develop her definition of patternism. The SAM theory claims that the mind is equivalent to the software or programs that run on a computer. 

Schneider asserts that the SAM requires patternism, because its proponents fail to address personal identity as a property. However, she argues that the persistence of the mind is a concern for SAM proponents, which remains unaddressed as long as they fail to address the persistence of the person. Schneider then claims that transhumanists seek a connection between the mind and personal identity, in order to permit the modification of the mind without death. The Kurzweil excerpt that Schneider cites depicts this relationship in the shifting bodily particles, which shows the dynamic substance of a person, while also defining the configuration of the mind to be as an algorithmic pattern (80). Transhumanists define this pattern to be composed by information like memories, values, attitudes, and emotions (81). Since all of these may conceivably be expressed as data, Schneider believes that patternism allows transhumanists to subvert concerns surrounding the preservation of the person in  “uploading”. 

An underlying concept of Schneider’s essay is the ethical concerns of the beliefs of transhumanists regarding AI. Schneider’s conception of consciousness and the mind is based on patterns, which are modelled after computational algorithms. Since the essential components of the person are their patterns, one who believes in patternism may consider AI as a standalone consciousness that may be perceived as a person. A clarifying distinction must be made in order for one to distinguish between a person and a human. A human refers to the physical human, in the body and DNA, whereas a person is the intangible mind and consciousness. The status of personhood concerns whether or not artificial intelligence must be given the same rights as a human, given that AI does not necessarily have an organic body but could potentially meet the criterion of “human”. In considering the personhood of humans to be patternistic in a way that may be expressed computationally, patternism would also allows for artificial intelligences that is conscious in the same way as humans. 

Introducing AI as an entity that may be qualified as a person allows Schneider to further defend her theory morally, as this entity would thus deserve similar rights and treatment. The other aforementioned theories of personal identity would either fail or have difficulty in identifying an artificial intelligence as a person and thus defending it having the same rights as one. However, with respect to a human’s intuition, an AI that can act and speak as a human would be indistinguishable from and be entitled to enjoy the same privileges of personhood, such as the freedoms of speech, mind, and “body”. Thus, patternism resolves the conflict that concerns many other theories. 

For Schneider, patternism straddles the line between a theory of personal identity and a theory of the mind. As a product of the twofold existence that it enjoys, patternism avoids the pitfalls that other theories may encounter while appealing to other forms of personal identity. Schneider leaves the reader with an understanding of the consequences of AI and its possible personhood, leaving unresolved the question of whether or not a nonhuman may still deserve the same rights. Using patternism, Schneider fleshes out the answers to many of the questions that worry transhumanists, while simultaneously raising questions as a product of merging theories of personhood and persistence of the mind. If patternism holds true, one must be concerned with a future where artificial intelligences are indistinguishable from human intelligences. Thus, transhumanists must discern between human and artificial intelligences, or choose to not differentiate the two. 

Work Cited 

Schneider, Susan. “Could You Merge With AI?” Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. 72–81. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfjd00r.8. Accessed 24 Oct. 2023.