Assignment 8

A Not So Distant Future
“Asta La Vista Baby”
-The Terminator

If we were using free association and I asked you what comes to mind first when I said the word cyborg, what would you respond? You would probably think of popular fiction like The Terminator or I, Robot. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cyborg as, “A person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine or other external agency that modifies the body's functioning; an integrated man-machine system” (OED online). Now according to this definition, we have cyborgs walking among us today. A paraplegic with metal prosthetics could be considered a cyborg, a deaf person with cochlear implants that help him hear could be considered a cyborg, even our ex-VP Dick Cheney could be considered a cyborg with the pace maker that keeps his black heart running at a consistent pace. All these inventions do constitute a technical merging of man and machine. But what if we wanted to take that standard a bit further, what about a pace maker that not only uses the body’s natural electrical charge for power but also could adjust to the bodies environment? It would be a machine that would be totally self sufficient and also function in sync with the body as an organic component would. I believe that we are coming close to an age where that machine and many more like it are going to become very real, machines that enhance the human body to limits unimaginable by today’s standards.
Cybernetics 101
First coined by science fiction writers Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, the original idea was nothing but that, fiction. The 1960 article defined it as an enhanced human being capable of surviving in space and life on foreign planets without the need of a suit or earthlike conditions. Cyborgs in fictions have taken all sorts of titles. In The Terminator, human like machines are sent back in time to both kill and save John and Sarah Conner, the future saviors of the human race. In Robocop Detroit policeman Alex J. Murphey, is brutally mutilated and is brought back to life as a half man, half machine, state of the art police officer. In reality, cyborgs don’t quite resemble these examples. There are no machine gun prosthetics or computer eyes that can see in ever different light spectrum. The most advanced by today’s standards are probably the cochlear ear implants that allow the deaf to hear, “Cochlear implants bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Signals generated by the implant are sent by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which recognizes the signals as sound” (www.nidcd.nih.gov). Though it can’t detect a pin dropping in a loud room, this is an incredible real life example of man and machine merging to enhance human life.
So what kinds of cyborgs are there? According to Craig M. Klugman’s “From Cyborg Fiction to Medical Reality”, there are two and they are separated by the Cartesian school of thought that the mind is a separate entity from the body, “A non-Cartesian cyborg would have only parts of the body or mind replaced. Cyborg bodies, therefore, fall along a second continuum, Cartesian and non-Cartesian” (45 Klugman). Many of today’s medical wonders fall under the non-Cartesian thought of cyborgs, “Cochlear implants, eye telescopes, and dental implants transform people into transplantable bodies” (46 Klugman). Though the least likely of the cyborg examples, the theory of the “disembodied mind” is certainly the most thought provoking; a mind taken from a damaged, organic body and placed into a machine that would act as a host. Almost as if the idea came from a horror novel the idea brings forth many possible ethical and intense psychological problems. Klugman uses Damon Knight’s 1958 story “Masks” as an example:

The head of the project, Babcock, transplants Jim’s brain into a mechanical body. Although he looks human, Jim wears a metallic mask that more accurately reflects his self-image as a machine, not a human…Jim loses touch with his humanity and finds all things organic and repulsive. Disgusted by biological processes, he brutally murders a small, innocent dog. Jim desires total separation from humanity to the extent that he wants his brain placed in a bulky mechanical body designed for solo space exploration

(48 Klugman). This is one of the biggest fears that I have about a possible evolution of man and machine. What if we lose the essence that makes us human? If we lose touch with humanity we lose what makes us build and strive to do better, if we become machines that can’t better themselves then what the point of evolving?