The Myth of the Ant Queen

The Myth of the Ant Queen was quite an interesting read. I found myself agreeing with most of what was said in this essay and looking for examples that I had seen that had been built out of the theories of a somewhat organized chaos that created a system of working things. Its almost overwhelming to look at some of the basic necessities we have today and imagine the complexity of such common household items like computers, ipods, palm pilots, and so on. As was described in the latter part of the essay, things like voice recognition consist of hundreds of smaller individual systems that eventually lead to a larger efficient operating system. It is mind-blowing to even comprehend the amount of time and labor that would go into making something that is seemingly so simple and yet so very complex!
The evolution of Manchester early on in the essay was incredible! It almost does not seem like something like that could actually happen, but then I think back to some of the places that I have been and everything seems to have its place. Apparently it is somewhat of a common phenomenon to see in larger cities. I know that in the city of Manila there is definitely a split of the classes creating the slums, high-class areas, and business areas. There is no real head authority of the slums but surely they have made for themselves a common selling place, washing place, and living areas. Although Manchester was quite a miraculous city seeing as it wasn’t much of anything to start with and was able to progress into quite an industrious place. In large cities today it seems like people are forced into the situations that they are in. Because large cities, generally speaking, only get larger then these are defined and developed areas have no other choice but to expand. Places with business get more businesses due to an ever-increasing amount of people and need to employ, while living areas for the different classes become larger as well. It seems only natural that if smaller place that is organized by individuals and has no plan slowly becomes larger those already set standards would still be followed. It is easier to follow the leader and go where things are already functional. Why bother with setting up something new and different if you already know that there is a place where you know you can function. It seems like a logical theory that thousands of individuals can create a seemingly working organized system, as chaotic as it may appear.
Overall, I really enjoyed the read and found it to be very insightful into some of the things happening around me that I may not even notice. It was very interesting to see the evolution of this idea of separate individual systems that contribute and create a larger functional system.
http://www.thecaveonline.com/APEH/dbqmanchester.html
http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/

Library of Babel

Honestly, I was unable to fully comprehend what this essay was trying to say. It is obviously written with a point to get across and I believe what he was trying to communicate is that our universe is infinite but within that infinity there are cycles, there is an order to the chaos that happens within our world. At least, this is what I think his main point was or so it seemed he concluded with. I find it a very interesting concept and it is true. Although it seems like our world is progressively getting worse, it does go through cycles. Humanity goes through a cycle.
How many times has it seemed that the world was about to end and but gotten better? How many times has man invented and then reinvented tactics to go about life. It seems like every person no matter the environment they are raised in must relearn that which is necessary for life, and in the process going through a natural cycle. It seems as though generations must go through the same thing as we look back into history and shake our heads at how often we must learn the same lesson over and over again. We wage our wars and conquer each other, it seems to be an endless cycle.

I find it interesting that he first points out that what is made in the “libraries” must be the handiwork of a god. Even though this was written in the 40’s when science was not as advanced as it is now and theories were more speculation and attempts to put meaning behind something rather than a linking together of scientific “know-hows” trying to prove these theories. He was still able to see the inconceivable odds of creating something so complex out of nothing. Truly it is something that can not be understood by the human mind because it is beyond our comprehension. We are all in search for some kind of meaning to this life.

I was confused when he began to talk about how the library was complete, in that the library contained all the books that it needed. Meaning to say that everything done within the universe had a reason and any questions about the universe had answers? I suppose it gave people reason to believe that they could find answers to life and thus making their own beliefs. Prophesying about future events in hopes that such things could be possible because the library was full.

Overall I found it be very confusing. His extensive vocabulary didn’t help much with understanding what he was trying to say either. I made sense of what I could and overall I believe what he was trying to convey was that we live in an infinitely cyclical universe.
http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html
http://james.grimmelmann.net/files/Library.markdown

The essay “The Power of Context” was quite remarkable to me. I was amazed at how they were able to turn the crime scene around in New York with the Broken Window theory! Having lived in a city of 14million people I have seen the graffiti, the panhandling, and heard stories of the crime. Luckily I haven’t experienced that personally. I lived in Manila, Philippines for 4 years and it amazes me that that kind of law enforcement, working with all the little things, really took that away. I definitely agree that context is truly a means of affecting things whether it be in the message graffiti sends or just the way things are dealt with. It’s hard to say, when I look at the poverty levels and housing situations of a majority of the people there who live in caddy-shacks, that a problem like crime and begging could be fixed when corruption is so prevalent. I’m reminded of the movie “slumdog millionare” on so many levels when reading this story. When a child is raised without parents in the slums of a third world country its hard not to resort to stealing, begging, and higher levels of crime. There is no reason not to. In countries like that, people can’t just be thrown in prison because over the half the country would be in prison due to the difference in classes. There is no where for these children to turn unless someone can help them, either they dig through trash heaps everyday in hopes of survival or find a way to make a living no matter what the cost may be. Some of the higher most respected people that they see are those who are drug and crime lords. This is what they aspire to be, powerful by whatever means available. It’s a very powerful movie that portrays the life of those in the slums of Mumbai and places alike. I have seen the beggars in the streets of the Philippines that carry around babies or are blind one eye, all a scheme, so that they can earn more money. I wish I could say that the Broken Window theory would work there as well but the truth of the matter is that the authority figures there are no better than some of the criminals mulling around the alleys. It’s hard to persuade someone that has no respect for the law and greed for money to suddenly sacrifice their bribes and over privileged abilities to uphold the law for better morals and overall better city. We are innately selfish beings. The City of New York was lucky to find someone with a strong enough will and ambition to clean up the city as he did. I can only hope that these kind of people will arise in places less fortunate so that they too may benefit from their ideals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4245422.stm