The Independent reports on a patent application made by Google in 2011 and flagged by Engadget on 15th October this year, that would allow uses of a wearable ‘head-mounted display’ (HMD) to make hand gestures to initiate applicable actions. The HMD in question is most obviously GoogleGlass and the patent makes specific reference to to gestures that include a heart, to like and automatically share life and images with definable social networks. This is cool! But at what future cost…
Read More...

Tags: GoogleGlass, aI, artificial intelligence, human efficiency, technology, cyborg, Geordi La Forge, philosophy, Ian Tibbetts, Google Glass, Humanity, Emotion

Altruism may be defined as the ‘selfless concern for others’ in association with ‘behaviour that benefits others at personal cost’. Therefore if I donate a pound to a beggar this appears to be an altruistic act. I have made myself poorer in order to benefit the beggar.

But what does it actually take for an act of apparent kindness to be rightfully considered as an altruistic act, and are such acts even possible? Does altruism really exist?
Read More...

Tags: altruism, selfishness

From the home page:

'Imagine that 'sight' is a limited resource. It is made available to each of us for just one year between our twenty-first and twenty-second birthdays. All of our existence up to the age of twenty-one is spent in (what sighted people imagine as) darkness and we will return to that same darkness forever on reaching the age of twenty-two. On returning to the darkness we will remember nothing of what we have seen. Importantly, all these facts are known to us.'
Read More...

Tags: lifestyle, thought, philosophy, philosophy questions, asking philosophical questions