Issues of the body; Cyborgs and artificial life.

What does it mean for us to be networked?

If you ask someone what a cyborg is, the usual answer that is given is someone who has a human head and armored body; giving a distasteful look on humans. 

“With the telephone, there occurs the extension of ear and voice that is a kind of extra sensory perception. With the television came the extension of the sense of touch or of sense interplay that even more intimately involves the entire sensorium”

p. 265-266

Marshall McLuhan, Understand Media - The extensions of man.

Notions of life: Vitalism

'Life is seen as having unique, and sacred properties that are not possessed by an inanimate object.'

Materialism

'A scientific tradition that regards life as having the same physical and chemical qualities as inanimate objects; eg DNA.'

Informationalism

'Cybernetics built on the materialistic view of life, and introduced some informationalist ideas to understand the nature of life. Living forms are capable of growing and repairing their structures.' Life can also create new life. 

Some informationalist perspectives on cyber-culture:

- Cybernetics

- Cyborgs

- ALife

- Artificial Intelligence 

Norbert Weiner in the 1940/50's came up with the cybernetic idea. This then developed into the term Cyborg (cybernetic organism). 

“The figure of the cyborg encapsulates many contemporary anxieties about the encounter of the natural and the artificial and the idea that there are no clear divisions between the non-human and the human, the technological and the biological, the original and the copy.”

Dani Cavallario Cyberpunk & Cyberculture p. 44

The cyborg is said to be a creature of myth and social reality whilst embodying cultural fears and anxieties. There are many different examples of fictional cyborgs. These include: Cybermen from Dr Who, Captain America and Wolverine from X-Men. 

This fictional idea of cyborgs have now been used by surgeons and biologists in recent years. They worked with the notion that 'body parts are replaceable.' This creates a pragmatic sense of realism, that infact spares of the human body can be made.

“anyone with an artificial organ, limb or supplement (like a pace-maker), anyone reprogrammed to resist disease (immunized) or drugged to think/behave/feel better (pyschopharmacology) is technically a cyborg”

Dani Cavallario Cyberpunk & Cyberculture p. 46

For example hand transplants, cochlear implants and artificial hearts have all been used in recent years. 

So who controls the body?

Kevin Warick actually plugged the internet into his arm. He had an artificial arm in one place, and by moving his arm, the other hand would do what his hand did. The scary part is, if the artificial hand was moved by someone, Warick's hand would do the same thing!

As all this was going on, Steven Levy wrote a book on Artificial Life. 

"Artificial life, or a-life, is devoted to the creation and study of lifelike organisms and systems built by humans. The stuff of this life is non-organic matter, and its essence is information: computers are the kilns from which these new organisms emerge. Just as medical scientists have managed to tinker with life's mechanisms in vitro, the biologists and computer scientists of a-life hope to create life in silico” 

Steven Levy

 

Levy explained that programmes self replicate and control. This then can lead to virus'. But is this just paranoia?

But when does the blending of humans and technology become morally unacceptable? 

Yes lives can be saved, but from a young age children are being subject to watching cyborgs through the media. Will this impact on generations to come?