Question

what are some tools that help intellectually? literally. I'm doing a power point on tools that we use today and how people would react if they found them 1000 years from now and i need something intellectual, so... could some one help?

Answer 1

You mean abstract tools? Calculus, perturbation theory, mean-field theory, statistics, any number of algorithms used in computing.

Or are you thinking of tools of modern measurement, like calipers, lasers, balances, microscopes, spectrometers?

Or are you thinking of strong cups of coffee and Ritalin?

Answer 2

im talking about actual tools with physical aspects... look, this is the assigment:

PART 1: IMAGINE PEOPLE IN 1000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE ARE DISCOVERING ITEMS FROM 2012
YOU NEED TO PICK FIVE ARTIFACTS
1. SOCIAL
2. POLITICAL
3. INTELLECTUAL
4. TECHNOLOGICAL
5. ECONOMIC
PART 2: FIND AN image for each artifact
Part 3: 2-3 sentences about the importance of the artifact to society


ive got the rest down, all i need is intellectual

Answer 3

That is amazing. Where do these people learn to teach? Or speak English, for that matter? About all I can get from this is that you are supposed to think of artifacts -- physical things -- that would give a future archaeologist some insight into those five aspects of 2012 humanity -- i.e., insight into the social, political, intellectual, technological and economic nature of our culture. Why that couldn't be explcitly stated, I don't know. But let's assume that's what's meant.

In that case, what you need is some artifact that says something about our "intellectual" culture. That's difficult, because the term "intellectual" isn't well defined. For example, often it means "ideas about how society ought to be run," but that's kind of covered already by "political" and "social." Or "ideas about how the universe works," but that's kind of covered by "technological."

Given that, I would interpret it as "philosophical" in the sense of personal philosophy: how a life ought to be lived, personal morals, the way in which men judge each other, things like that. For example, in the early Christian Era we had neo-Platonism as a personal philosophical movement, the idea that everything we know in nature is an imperfect reflection of a perfect thing, e.g. real squares are shadows of perfect squares, and real love or loyalty is an imperfect shadow of perfect love or loyalty. That led to a host of philosophical conclusions about how to run your life, the nature of God and the meaning of life, et cetera.

What's similar today? Well, we still have the Protestant ideal of self-improvement, which gives rise to an enormous industry of "self help" and "personal growth." So one artifact might be any of the books in the "self-help" and "growth" aisles of the bookstore, The N Habits Of Highly Effective People or something like that. In parallel with that we also have the idea of "root causes," that people get in trouble or flourish in part because of their social setting, those around them, et cetera, so they are not 100% responsible for what they do. Something like that movie about the LA teacher (Escalante?) who taught calculus to neglected ghetto kids who then blew away the AP test would be an artifact of that. Another strong theme is the conflict between individual and society, the idea that to really achieve greatness, you may need to fight with society. Any number of outsider-hero movies would work for this, such as the recent spate of superhero movies.

I suppose artifacts that merely demonstrate how we disseminated anddiscussed ideas would qualify, too, so a TV set or movie projector, a book, a pamphlet or brochure containing a political ad or argument (thekind that stuffs your mailbox at election time). Maybe some piece of Internet switching hardware, sine the Internet is an enormous intellectual soapbox these days.

Answer 4

thanks for the essay. it really does help. and i cant believe i was so stupid to not think of a book. ill probably use something like that. thanks :)

p.s.
its a virtual class so the dont really know how to properly explain their assigments. plus the teacher is barely avaliable, so cant get help from him.

Answer 5

Well, a book is good, but if you're thinking along those lines, you should probably try to use some uniquely 2012 artifacts, because a book works any time after about 1550 AD. So...maybe an iPhone or iPad, too, with a Youtube app on it.

Answer 6

ok, but ive already used a computer, an iPod, an Android phone, a TV. i just need that last object

Answer 7

How about a share certificate in Facebook, Inc.?

Answer 8

uhhh. not shure what that is

Answer 9

well. it dosnt matter. i turned it in and got a great score so thanks for th help :)

Answer 10

A share certificate is a certificate that says you own some stock in a publically-traded company, such as Facebook, Inc. When you buy stock, in principle you get a share certificate, that says you owe a certain number of "shares" of the company. Most publically-traded companies have millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions of shares, so one share isn't very much. The price of each share can vary between a few cents to fantastically overvalued companies like Google and Apple, shares of which can cost $500 or more apiece.

Owning a share of a company usually entitles you to vote for the board of directors (since you own part of the company). But it's not one-man-one-vote, but rather one-share-one-vote, so ordinarily there are a few large shareholders (people who own a significant fraction of the shares) who will dominate such voting. Being a shareholder in a publically-traded company also gives you some legal rights, such as to receive moderately detailed information about the company's performance, the right to sue management if you feel they aren't running the company responsibly, and so forth.

It's also possible, in fact typical, to own shares of a company privately, meaning own shares that aren't publically traded -- that anyone can buy or sell. These "resrticted" shares are what you get if you help found a company, or perhaps join one in its early start-up days. The most reliable way to become wealthy is to acquire shares in a young company that goes on to become successful. For example, you and five guys start a company and work hard at it for ten years, building it up to a modest thriving venture, and then either sell it to a larger company, an investor or investing group, or "go public" -- meaning you sell the company to the public at large by issuing stock. Since you own 20% of the shares, you will receive 20% of the value of that transaction, which would typically be millions if not tens of millios of dollars. That's how you get rich. The only other plausible route is through government and the legal system, where you can loot the public treasury through force of law without doing any useful work. It's nearly impossible to become wealthy by just earning a salary.

Answer 11

ok cool :) learn something new every day (: i got it, thanks