For our group discussion, leamirella, Hillary G and I had a number of topics that we would emphasize if we were to teach Conceiving Ada.  

The first was the status of women in science.  We were a bit surprised how under represented the struggle of women to be take seriously in the field of science was represented in the movie.  Although the movie included lines that alluded to the fact that Ada was humiliated and laughed at because she wanted to pursue a career in the sciences, we would emphasize the obstacles that Ada had to overcome to be successful.  Furthermore, we would highlight the way in which Gender functioned as both an obstacle and an agent for Ada and Emmy.

In class on Thursday we discussed human behavior and decision making as random or deterministic as produced by an algorithm.  In another class I also debated this concept and my professor brought up a new alternative.  He used the term “statistical” implying that our choices are non-determinant and the best we can do is find levels of certainty around a complex process that is full of chance (in reference to evolution in general). 

In class on Thursday we tried to find agency in a world of algorithms… a daunting task. At one point, as we struggled without an answer, Miranda gave a sly smile and suggested that we should just not think about it. She said that prior to taking this class, she didn’t think about it and her life was fine. Although I agreed with this initially, I think that argument may only be one made from frustration so I’d like to make the case against it. 

 In Thursday's discussion, our section focused on Dennett's definition of the meme, and what function is has in our culture. While this topic interested me and forced me to dive deeper into what exactly the role of the meme is and consequently what our role is in our culture, it was a shorter conversation that stayed with me the last few days. We tried to unpack Dennett's views on the library of babel, which he then called the library of Mendel to describe genetic variation. On Thursday I came to class unsure of my feelings towards this library of infinite ideas, hesitant to accept it because by accepting it I assumed that I would be denouncing the value or potential of creativity. I don't feel like that's necessarily true anymore.

 For all I think memes are problematic, I can see why it would be useful for Dennett and Dawkins to employ them. If one wants to trace cultural development, it's helpful to encapsulate certain cultural traits as "building blocks" in order to follow their development across history. I have to say, I'm even pretty intrigued by the idea of boiling an element of culture down to its most basic elements. In Professor Dalke's discussion group on Thursday, we tried to discuss the meme of LOLcats, and started breaking it down to its basic elements (a picture and a mispelled, somewhat incongruous caption) to see how it managed to spawn other, similar trends (ie. Advice Wolf, Hipster Ariel, etc.).

 Back to the concept of algorithm where we've decided that the well-defined process is "mindless" but the outcome is more complex and random, I thought of a 2010 scientific achievement. Scientists were able to create a synthetic genome, insert it into a host bacterial cell with its genome removed (aka blank slate). This cell grew and reproduced under this man-made algorithm. The scientists are planning to engineer the cells to create biofuels, vaccines and drugs more efficiently than current methods.

 From our conversation Thursday on randomness and it's impact on life, I'm still not convinced that it really matters.  Regardless of whether or not our lives are completely determined, we'll never know, so why even talk about it?  We can answer this by saying that it's more comfortable to know that we have a purpose or that we don't have a purpose, but the thing is that we'll never know.  Why not just drop the conversation all together.  For those who want to think they have control then that's what they'll believe and those who like things determined will believe that.  Then you will have the group of people who don't really think about it, and they won't be forced into a conversation.