Presentation

I started off my presentation with an intro that went something like this:

An idea fundamental to the history of the human experience is the idea of free will. Greek philosophers like Heraclitus who argued that there were laws that the universe followed, and others like Leucippus argued for determinism, the thought that everything is already determined and we have no control over our actions. Religions were created to try to explain the phenomena around us, and quell our most basic impulses. 

Since the time of ancient Greece and the beginning of major religions, modern thinkers have propositioned that maybe we do in fact have free will. We know we each have our own minds and make our own decisions. In fact, even our society is based around the idea that we are all free thinkers, like our Founding Fathers. 

Recently, however, science has brought us back to this fundamental question. It has pointed us in a new direction, which is to say, yes, we know we each have our own thoughts and feelings and ideas and expressions, but are we really in control? Science isn’t pointing us in the direction of God or an external determining factor, but rather an internal one. Our brains determine everything for us, and even what may seem like the slightest imperceptible change could in fact determine a large part of who you are. 

And who is that, exactly? Everything we do is guided by neural networks. Sleeping, eating, breathing, thinking - you name it. Your unconscious brain performs activities that you aren’t aware of in the instant you’re performing them - for example, when your foot automatically jumps to the brakes while driving in a dangerous situation. when people’s eyes are dilated we find them more attractive without even realizing it due to evolution since that means they’re looking for someone. The final example about how the unconscious works that I’ll give is that strippers make more money during certain times of the month, even though men aren’t consciously aware of their fertility levels. All of these decisions that we make - consciously or not - embody who we are, and in order to understand who we are, we need to understand the brain and how it makes decisions. 

However, I'm going to change my presentation after constructive criticism I received. Instead of focusing on this intro, I'll make it shorter and to the point, and make most of my slides into pictures. I also need to explain the graphs in my presentation in a better and clearer way. I need to connect my thoughts better and string them together. Also, I need to actually ask my research question and bring it into context. I need to also come up with some creative ways that my research will be useful, and bring them into the presentation. It's so insane that after Monday afternoon I'll be done with the AP Capstone program!

I'm thankful I have the opportunity to practice it one more time on Monday morning, so that I can fix up any last minute changes that I might need to make.  

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