PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER

Is it possible that someday a supercomputer can predict all of your choices that you will make from the time you are born until the time you die based on your genetic code and DNA? And if so how close can they actually get, and how much random chance will shake up that prediction. Is it impossible to know – or is it possible that someone’s entire life could be foretold? And with that said if you can predict the life of one individual, could you indeed predict the life of 7 billion humans on the planet?

That is to say predict how they will interact, and all the events that could possibly occur? Theoretically, and here is where we get into a bit of philosophy, the answer is probably yes. Now that’s certainly going to bother a good number of people who believe in free will, and it bothers me even bringing up the topic. You see I believe in freedom and liberty, and I intend to live my life as if I am free. But am I? Are you?

It might sound a bit cliche’ish to invoke the example of the Hollywood Movie “Minority Report” as it seems someone always is, but indeed, it was a very decent movie with an on-going moral dilemma of free-will versus a Calvanistic view of the world. Nevertheless, last week I was having an interesting dialogue with an overseas acquaintance about the ability of modern day psychologists predicting future behavior.

We do it all the time in our society, we call it profiling. We do it at our airports, and our State Department, Military, CIA, etc, does it in sizing up those individuals we must deal with. It seems quite possible that our ability to predict the weather is getting much better with supercomputers, so indeed at sometime in the future we should be able to predict human behavior, and human choices based on the individual in certain circumstances. And we should be up to do this somewhere within the 99.99 percentile.

Does that mean we should?

After all, there could be some serious benefits if we can predict such things, and we would be able to prevent terrorism, and violent acts. We could use this to protect the American people, and prevent or reduce crime. However if we do this, what will we give up? Will we give up our freedom and liberty in the process? Will we dismiss free will as an underlining principle which guides our system of laws and society?

We all exist in a system of social groups. The profession we choose, the hobbies we partake in, the community in which we live all the way to our national identity. Different social groups have different tolerance or acceptance of tattoos and body modification. Some people who want to get a tattoo may never simply because they have seen what their society does to or thinks of people with tattoos. In extreme cases they become an outcast, stared at, thought less of or labelled a freak just because of the negative tattoo associations some people and social groups have. Obviously people who have tattoos which cannot be seen are more difficult to be judged upon.

In the UK currently the negative tattoo associations can be mainly found in the vague but occasionally still evident class differences. The feeling of tattoos being for the working class can still be found especially in older generations. Other factors effect the reaction which we have to tattoos. A tattoo of a dragon all the way up a mans arm for example (called a ‘sleeve’) would be treated entirely differently if he were wearing a suit than if he were in very baggy jeans and a wife-beater top. In this regard we interpret the tattoo in the context in which it is presented. The negative repercussions of having a tattoo are mainly felt in the professional industries such as banking and law rather than in public situations.

In the United States negative tattoo associations include belonging to biker gangs or criminal street gangs, meaning some Americans with tattoos may be unfairly branded as troublemakers or misfits. This can lead to people with tattoos only associating with other tattooed folk, which perpetuates the negative tattoo associations within society. The old saying that when like mixes with like their communal irrationalities and false beliefs are perpetuated and reinforced can explain this phenomenon.

These associations are not always an issue. In some professions negative tattoo associations are largely ignored or don’t exist, the military and the entertainment industry being two examples. However, in the military tattoos should not be visible when in uniform and many in the entertainment industry also choose to have tattoos in largely non-visible areas. Some odd places for tattoos have been utilised by celebrities recently including the inside of the ear, side of the finger and down the side of the body.