Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence (original) (raw)
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So what about replacing everything, that is, transplanting a human brain into a specially designed robot body? Unfortunately, it would leave untouched our biggest handicap, the limited and fixed intelligence of the human brain-Hans Moravec, Mind Children, The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence OP/ED THE CYBORG Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1995 Do you remember Ol' John Henry? In a contest with a steam-shovel he dug his way through a mountain, staging for the last time the superiority of muscle over machine, and gave his life in the exchange. OF John Henrv. That steam engine with its regulator and insistent logic of heat and motion gave rise to more intelligent machines. Now we are ready for a new folklore for the new folk populating the network and beyond. Hans Moravec's book of 1988, Mind Children, The Future of Robot nnd Human Intelligence, is among the more daft pronunciation guides for proponents of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life, however indistinctly the two may be differentiated. Moravec would like us to vividly imagine the rather promiscuous possibilities he has fantasized for our bodies (what William Gibson refers to in his canonical work, Neuronmncer, as "the meat"). What Moravec has in mind is that we leave our bodies behind altogether as we prepare to become Mind Children, the progeny of highly sensitive self-replicating automata. All that our rebirth requires is the liberation of our mind from our flesh, gray matter and all, its contents perfunctorily evacuated by robotic surgeons. Moravec's lurid technofantasies are set apart from the body text of his book by italicized passages in which he adduces scenarios of our blithe acorporeal future. As we begin to comprehend fully the significance of the cybernetic systems we operate and which in turn govern us, it is necessary to recognize that our "biggest handicap" is not that the brain is too small, slow, or inefficient. Rather, we have not yet come to terms with the body bv means of which the brain is vitalized. 1 have amended some of Moravec's slanted text for strictly didactic purposes, as 1 am truly wed to what Moravec "leaves untouched": the mind and the body. What follows is not a precis of Moravec's book, but will rather suggest a number of hypertextual links (renvois) that might add to its comprehension. The connective tissue of this web could only be spun in a dyspeptic mind, which I no doubt possess. To give credence to my argument, I also feel it necessary to discuss my own robotic conversion.
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Evolutionary continuity between humans and cyborgs on the basis of Joseph Margolis' concept of the human self as enlaguaged cultural being emergent from the continuum of nature-culture experience, as call for it David Hildebrand and Douglas Browning 1 , and what it can mean: 'bare' experience. I follow here Joseph Margolis line of understanding experience, which is culturally and biologically defined and from its' beginning submerged in artifactually construed human world of culture 2. However, if I depart from the experience, if-in dewey'an categories-I meet problematic situation, which provokes me to search for the possible solution 3 , then what is it? And why? Living life in contemporary times each one experiences the power of influence of new technologies. These technologies mediate our forms of life: work and leisure, social contacts and communication, forms of our mobility in the urban environment, forms of our self-identification. I do not refer here only to visual technologies, or technologies of imaging, which are a very powerful tool in this aspect, but generally to technologies, encompassing invasive usage of technologies as in case of implants, metal bones, artificial heart valves, cosmetic surgery and such, that have become already of normal everyday life, and technologies influencing our form of rational thinking, memorizing, forms of actualization and expression of emotional feelings, directions of desire. Reflecting the influence of technologies on the human person it is explicit that something radically changes in human condition. Of course, I do not claim that each one experiencing the influence of technologies on his/her life is conscious about that fact or analyzes it and interprets critically. Still, this influence Cyborgs Manifesto, is extremaly vague or very often used as adjective (as for ex. "human organism", "human babies", "human purity", "human status", "human male" and others), or in juxtaposition with machine or animal 5. What does it mean to be the human is not explained, its rather taken in the form of myth, about which Haraway writes: "An origin story in the , humanist sense depends on the myth of original unity, fullness, bliss and terror, represented by the phallic mother from whom all humans must separate" 6. Haraway combines this myth with the underlying human animality in order to show the difference in the new subject appearing, that is a Cyborg. Although since 1991, when she has first published A Cyborgs Manifesto, she has written another manifesto: The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, People, and Significat Otherness 7 , we still do not find there any specific definition of the human person, which seems to be crucial, if the objective is to define the posthuman. Of course one can say that Haraway writings are visionary, combining facts, images, theories taken from different fields in order to present us the possibility of a different world, in which there would be not hard divisions between entities, subjects, people and animals, people and machines, and so there would be much more freedom and network cooperation. She aims "to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism" 8 , and we can agree that this effort have been and still is effective, as Haraway keeps on inspiring the posthumanist theoretical reflection. Therefore, one may argue that Haraway being visionary does not need to construct a definition of the human person, which is transcended to embrace a Cyborg. However,