Derrick
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- Joined
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Wikipedia defines a cyborg as follows: A cyborg is a cybernetic organism (i.e., an organism that has both artificial and natural systems).
We put pacemakers in our bodies to fortify ailing hearts, steel rods in brittle bones, metal plates in cracked skulls and alloy caps on broken teeth. We enhance the human body in many physical ways. We augment it when it gets weak or aged. We acquire specticals or contact lenses to perfect our vision, get hearing aids when our hearing is impaired for some reason.The list of things we accessorise our bodies with to make it survive and interact with the environment better are endless.
Motorcycle riders use spine protection for off road biking to make the body tougher in case of accident and we use steel-tip shoes and thick leather jackets to make the body more resilient should we fall. We can push the body so much farther in racing and mountaineering for instance because we can kit our frail bodies with the best in technological enhancements to make us crash and freeze proof. We get earpieces for our cellphones that allow us to talk with ease using wireless tech like blue-tooth.
We don’t think about it much, but we are constantly enhancing ourselves in some way, even if it sounds silly to point it out that way. We are in effect all becoming cyborgs, meshed machine and electronics with flesh. Sometimes invasive as in the case of pacemakers and sometimes skintight as is the case with high tech hearing aids and blue-tooth earpieces and contact lenses.
Maybe it is time for us to review our interaction with computers and more strictly define how we interact with them. Is a cellphone with a camera and web access just that or can it be considered as part of us, an extension of the human body. We carry around memories in them, use them to recall information and also use them to learn. How many times have you used a web enabled phone to check facts using Google or Wikipedia on the go? Are you recalling diary entries or even setting reminders with alarms for some calendar entries? Is that not an extension of your memory?
You save pictures on your computer be it laptop or desktop. You store music in it. You may even have movies on it. Is it not fair to consider these computers as extensions of the human mind. Should you be asked to pay for recollection? If you rent a DVD at a DVD rental store, should you not be able to dump that movie onto your hard drive for later recall? Is this a strange way of thinking about these things? Should your ability to recall memories have to cost you money in the form of the acquisition of said material or should you be able to recall it for free whenever you want?
Did you see the bunny running in front of the time traveling car in the Indian chase scene in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III? let’s assume you saw the movie when it ran on the big screen at your local cinema. Should you have to pay to recall that bit for analysis or is it okay to download the movie onto your hard drive slash “memory” and replay it? Is there some moral justification even if not entirely legal to be able to do so? Should it be legal for you to keep digital copies of books you have read and given back to your local library?
Should we redefine what our computers actually are and perhaps consider them as more than just mere machines, but extensions of the human mind in some way? Are you a cyborg?
We put pacemakers in our bodies to fortify ailing hearts, steel rods in brittle bones, metal plates in cracked skulls and alloy caps on broken teeth. We enhance the human body in many physical ways. We augment it when it gets weak or aged. We acquire specticals or contact lenses to perfect our vision, get hearing aids when our hearing is impaired for some reason.The list of things we accessorise our bodies with to make it survive and interact with the environment better are endless.
Motorcycle riders use spine protection for off road biking to make the body tougher in case of accident and we use steel-tip shoes and thick leather jackets to make the body more resilient should we fall. We can push the body so much farther in racing and mountaineering for instance because we can kit our frail bodies with the best in technological enhancements to make us crash and freeze proof. We get earpieces for our cellphones that allow us to talk with ease using wireless tech like blue-tooth.
We don’t think about it much, but we are constantly enhancing ourselves in some way, even if it sounds silly to point it out that way. We are in effect all becoming cyborgs, meshed machine and electronics with flesh. Sometimes invasive as in the case of pacemakers and sometimes skintight as is the case with high tech hearing aids and blue-tooth earpieces and contact lenses.
Maybe it is time for us to review our interaction with computers and more strictly define how we interact with them. Is a cellphone with a camera and web access just that or can it be considered as part of us, an extension of the human body. We carry around memories in them, use them to recall information and also use them to learn. How many times have you used a web enabled phone to check facts using Google or Wikipedia on the go? Are you recalling diary entries or even setting reminders with alarms for some calendar entries? Is that not an extension of your memory?
You save pictures on your computer be it laptop or desktop. You store music in it. You may even have movies on it. Is it not fair to consider these computers as extensions of the human mind. Should you be asked to pay for recollection? If you rent a DVD at a DVD rental store, should you not be able to dump that movie onto your hard drive for later recall? Is this a strange way of thinking about these things? Should your ability to recall memories have to cost you money in the form of the acquisition of said material or should you be able to recall it for free whenever you want?
Did you see the bunny running in front of the time traveling car in the Indian chase scene in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III? let’s assume you saw the movie when it ran on the big screen at your local cinema. Should you have to pay to recall that bit for analysis or is it okay to download the movie onto your hard drive slash “memory” and replay it? Is there some moral justification even if not entirely legal to be able to do so? Should it be legal for you to keep digital copies of books you have read and given back to your local library?
Should we redefine what our computers actually are and perhaps consider them as more than just mere machines, but extensions of the human mind in some way? Are you a cyborg?