http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/authors/170/ryan-a-piccirillo Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:54:08 -0400 Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:54:08 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/560/the-technological-evolution-of-filmmaking-and-its-relation-to-quality-in-cinema By Ryan A. Piccirillo - The development of motion picture complexity has been driven by a continuing technological evolution, ignited and manipulated by human initiative and inventiveness, which has afforded filmmakers the opportunity to practice a more complex craft to tell more complex stories. In concert with societal attitudes and proximity, this evolution has driven the development of distinct styles, movements, and methods that would have been impossible without increasingly advanced apparatus. However, while this technological progression has been linear, it has not necessarily coincided with a similar evolution... Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:02 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/560/the-technological-evolution-of-filmmaking-and-its-relation-to-quality-in-cinema http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/298/qi-chi-in-james-camerons-avatar By Ryan A. Piccirillo - A nine-foot-tall, royal blue giant creeps low to the ground, brushing by exotic foliage. He holds a proportionally large bow and arrow in hand. In an instant he pauses, keeping entirely still, before loading an arrow into his weapon. He pulls back steadily, locking his arm tightly behind his shoulder. He breathes in, holds, and releases. The arrow glides through the hollow air before burying itself in the chest of a six-legged beast. The giant leaps up and rushes to his prey, dragging a dagger across its throat as he offers a brief prayer in a foreign tongue: “I see you Brother, and thank... Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:59 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/298/qi-chi-in-james-camerons-avatar http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/294/the-mind-in-the-brain-the-brain-in-a-robot-strong-ai-in-an-artificial-neural-network-brain-replica-housed-in-an-autonomous-sensory-endowed-robot By Ryan A. Piccirillo - In his paper Minds, Brains, and Programs, Searle distinguishes between what he calls “strong AI” and “weak or cautious AI.” Weak AI is powerful enough to formulate and test hypotheses about the mind in a precise manner, but cannot be said to be a mind or consciousness in itself. It is in this incapability that Searle makes the distinction between weak AI and strong AI. “According to strong AI,” posits Searle, “the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind, in the sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to understand... Mon, 04 Oct 2010 06:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/294/the-mind-in-the-brain-the-brain-in-a-robot-strong-ai-in-an-artificial-neural-network-brain-replica-housed-in-an-autonomous-sensory-endowed-robot http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/289/logotherapy-and-the-holocaust-uniting-human-experience-in-extremity-and-normality By Ryan A. Piccirillo - During the Holocaust, Dr. Frankl witnessed extremes of human suffering. He watched men tackle fear, fear destroy men, and prisoners develop tricks to retain their humanity and hold onto hope. His psychological background compelled him to psychoanalyze not only his fellow prisoners, but himself as well. Of his most important observations, his assertion that “an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior” (Frankl 38), is instrumental in helping the outsider understand concentration camp behavior. He explains that, “it is very difficult for an outsider to grasp... Mon, 20 Sep 2010 06:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/289/logotherapy-and-the-holocaust-uniting-human-experience-in-extremity-and-normality http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/285/the-sobibor-revolt-death-to-the-fascists By Ryan A. Piccirillo - “We knew our fate […] we were in an extermination camp and death was our destiny. […] Only desperate actions could shorten our suffering and maybe afford us a chance of escape. […] the will to resist had grown and ripened” (Blatt 139).The prisoners at Sobibor knew that escape was the only hope for survival. Past escape attempts were met with bloody Nazi retaliation, a deterrent which successfully frightened prisoners into submission. However, an underground movement, led by a Polish Jew named Leon Feldhendler, began plotting a final revolt and escape despite the... Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/285/the-sobibor-revolt-death-to-the-fascists http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1671/the-white-rose-movement-conscience-in-silent-nazi-germany By Ryan A. Piccirillo - The morality of every person dictates the innate wrongness of genocide, and yet the world stood by as the Nazis sent millions to the gas chambers during the Holocaust. Historians and social scientists often attribute this moral failure to the blissfully feigned ignorance of the German people, enveloped in a blanket of fear propagated by the Nazi regime, and the indifference and prejudice of other nations. Total inaction was a remarkable failure of the human conscience, but a few brave college students in Munich proved to the world that conscientiousness still existed in the Fatherland. It is for... Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1671/the-white-rose-movement-conscience-in-silent-nazi-germany http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/277/property-dualism-and-physicalism-unclenching-the-soldiers-fist By Ryan A. Piccirillo - From the time of the ancient Greek philosophers to modern contemporaries, the mind-body problem has been perpetually debated. With neuroscientific evidence in mind, traditional Cartesian dualism, which establishes that mental and physical substances are fundamentally distinct, has been widely abandoned for more plausible formulations of the theory. Property dualism, a far more convincing claim, suggests that while there exists only one kind of substance, there are fundamental differences in the properties of mind and matter. The formulation of property dualism which denies the causal relationship... Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/277/property-dualism-and-physicalism-unclenching-the-soldiers-fist http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1683/the-lockean-memory-theory-of-personal-identity-definition-objection-response By Ryan A. Piccirillo - In the history of discourse on the subject of the self and personal identity, conflicting viewpoints have arisen. Some suggest that the self is simply the mind which thinks; others posit that the self is identifiable with one’s body; still others claim that to even conjure an idea of the self is an impossibility. In his Essay, Locke suggests that the self is “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places” and continues to define personal identity simply as “the sameness... Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1683/the-lockean-memory-theory-of-personal-identity-definition-objection-response http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/204/moral-adaptation-in-primo-levis-survival-in-auschwitz By Ryan A. Piccirillo - The holocaust proved that morality is adaptable in extreme circumstances.  Traditional morality ceased to be so within the barbed wire of the concentration camps. Within the camps, prisoners were not treated like humans and therefore adapted animalistic behavior necessary to survive. The “ordinary moral world” (86) Primo Levi cites in Survival in Auschwitz, ceases to exist; the meanings and applications of words like “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to fuse and the differences between these polar opposites become... Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/204/moral-adaptation-in-primo-levis-survival-in-auschwitz http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/200/raising-titanic-the-world-of-communication-and-the-creation-of-one-of-the-worlds-most-succesful-films By Ryan A. Piccirillo - In an interview with Playboy, Cameron admits he made the film because he “wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because [he] particularly wanted to make the movie” (Playboy). Inspired by deep-sea IMAX productions and a fascination with shipwrecks, Cameron was determined to include actual footage of the Titanic wreck as a framing device in his film. He negotiated with a Russian research organization, the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, to sponsor his deep-sea expedition. Arguing that it “might be of some scientific benefit, [he] won official approval to charter the Keldysh,&rdquo... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:15 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/200/raising-titanic-the-world-of-communication-and-the-creation-of-one-of-the-worlds-most-succesful-films http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/198/citizens-united-vs-federal-election-commission-taking-america-from-a-proud-democracy-to-a-privately-funded-corporatocracy By Ryan A. Piccirillo - The Christian Science Monitor argues that many voters vote based on false beliefs garnered from misleading campaign ads, continuing, “the media blitz that saturates voters’ minds to the exclusion of all else is the goal of any campaign manager with enough money to pull it off.  Under these circumstances, voters trying to inform themselves about the issues of the day are not shopping in a marketplace of ideas so much as looking for a needle in a haystack.” This illustrates the fundamental danger of this court’s decision: a voter’s choices will now be exclusively... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:17 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/198/citizens-united-vs-federal-election-commission-taking-america-from-a-proud-democracy-to-a-privately-funded-corporatocracy http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/196/career-snapshot-the-film-director-a-human-lens By Ryan A. Piccirillo - It is the director’s job to translate the script to the screen as he directs the array of people working under him on how to best capture his artistic vision for the film. Director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) says of his job, “I’m a sort of human lens through which everyone’s efforts are focused. A big part of my job is making decisions about how all the great talent that I’m working with blends into a single consciousness” (Rabiger 5). A great director is a great leader with drive, patience, inspiration, and imagination. He is responsible for... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:45 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/196/career-snapshot-the-film-director-a-human-lens