Question 1
Referring to Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, the definition of a cyborg is a cybernetic organism. They first used it in an article “Cyborgs and Space” to discuss about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. A cyborg is an organism that has both artificial and natural systems. The development of cyborgs nowadays would be more advanced which we cannot simply identify them. Anne Balsamo claimed that the cyborgs could reshape our thinking due to the disruption of dualisms. In this essay, I would like to provide the views of different scholars for the situation of cyborgs and whether the cyborg is still a transgressive figure.
“High-tech culture challenges these dualisms in intriguing ways.” It was the conclusion of Donna Haraway about the emergence of cyborgs in” A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. She and Balsamo suggested cyborg feminism. The troubling dualisms are like, self VS other, mind VS body, culture VS nature, male VS female, maker VS made, truth VS illusion, total VS partial, God VS man, etc. It was all about nature VS artificial which religion groups claimed that cyborgs would be regarded as violation of nature. However, she thought that feminism would be a force to advocate a more transgressive cyborg which changed the male dominations in reality. The dualism could not be always right because it did not represent the real us. For the sake of great human satisfaction, Haraway thought that human would be likely to be a cyborg rather than a “goddess”. The cyborg in the future would be a hybrid being.
Daniel Pimley advocated another idea for cyborgs: anti-essentialism. “The cyborg offers us hope not as a ‘thing’, but as a ‘he’ or a ‘she’.” He claimed that being a cyborg would be genderless. In his article “Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body”, gender had been discussed. The destruction of gender in the cyberspace would lead to a new opportunity to rethink the gender issue in the reality, especially for female. A Multi-User Domains (MUD), which is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text establish the stage of being a cyborg. Pimley had interviewed some female MUD users to explore whether they enjoy the freedom to be male, female or neuter. Some said the gender boundaries was so tightened that they uncontrollably performed to be their real sex and some said that they enjoyed to be virtually free. Pimley pointed out that cyborgs would not be disembodied in the future but provided human to redefine the boundaries of our bodies. The inevitability of “the retreat into a world of formless minds and the ultimate repression of our bodies” would be highly discussed in the future.
In “Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence”, Andy Clark talked about our sense of self. He assumed us, human being as a cyborg and we should accept this challenge. For Clark, technologies were not external objects. They were internalizeable tools that cyborgs could incorporate into their very being. He emphasized on the relationship between human and technology. Desire would be the main force which enabled the creation of a humans-as-cyborg being. He provided a lot of technology predictions which allowed us to think about the integrated relationship with cyborgs. His views towards cyborgs were based on his naturalism and technological enthusiasm which declined to accord embodiment a central role in future human-technology relations. The "potent, portable machinery linking the user to an increasingly responsive World Wide Web," as well as "the gradual smartening-up and interconnection of the many everyday objects which populate our homes and offices” offered us the “mindware upgrades”.
Maybe a cyborg already exists in our conception. The line between cyborgs and human is gradually blurred. Margaret Talbot in her essay” The way we live now: 6-15-03; My Son, the Cyborg “said that the “cyborgian life” was permeating in daily life. Although it is due to human are embraced by technology nowadays. There must be at least one technology accompanying you. Mobile phones, mp3 players, video games and computers were more “humanlike” and you sometimes could be trapped into the virtual world. Talbot provided another example to illustrate that there were already many “cyborgs” in reality: those who got implanted or received cosmetic surgery. She explained that “experiments with ''bionic technology,'' like brain implants that can restore vision to the blind or mobility to the paralyzed, are now proceeding with human subjects.” The goal of making cyborgs more humanlike might be the dreams of many human. However, the making of humans a little more like cyborgs seems to be applying to reality.
According to “The cyborgs are coming”, Baiju Parthan, the writer, foresaw that the co-existence of human and machines. He suggested that “Post-humanism” would become a new ideology of the future world which means that human would employ technology as a tool to be more intelligent and perfect. Parthan had given some ideas to us that allow us to get prepared for this new trend. Kevin Warwick, Professor from the University of Reading, Britain, he had implanted chip in his left arm wirelessly linked him to the network. He could do lots of things wirelessly in the campus. After removal of the implant, Professor Warwick felt depressed and admitted that he had felt "an affinity to the computer" with the implant. Parthan pointed out that the case of Warwick might be too serious but proofed that cyborgs did exist in our daily life and we were getting used to them, like the patients who implanted pacemakers or those who carried laptops everywhere. He finally reassumed that human beings were already the super-intelligent machines but the integration and dependence on the technology would be a serious threat in the future.
Cyborgs are an organism that has both artificial and natural systems which always cause argument towards its advantages and disadvantages. Nonetheless, Cyborgs are gradually not regarded as a figure because the boundaries between human and technology are getting blurred and invisible. According to the above scholars, the post-humanism is getting popular by the human desire of advanced technology; the cyborg feminism offers the power to beat the essentialism which allows the growing number of cyborgs; the everywhere technology enables the disembodiment and the creation of “natural cyborgs”. The development and transformation of cyborgs would be much more transgressive. It is suggested that cyborgs would be treated as “being”. The penetration of technology and the desire of human for advancement would bring cyborgs to an upper level: hybrid being.
Reference:
1. Clynes, Manfred E.and Nathan S. Kline. "Cyborgs and Space". 1.3.09 <http://www.scribd.com/doc/2962194/Cyborgs-and-Space-Clynes-Kline?autodown=pdf>.
2. Haraway, Donna. "An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit". Routledge. 2.3.09 <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html>.
3. Pimley, Daniel. "Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body". Pimley.Net. 2.3.09 <http://www.pimley.net/documents/cyborgfutures.pdf>.
4. Clark, Andy. "NATURAL BORN CYBORGS?” Edge Organization. 3.3.09 <http://edge.org/3rd_culture/clark/clark_index.html>.
5. Talbot, Margaret. "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 6-15-03; My Son, the Cyborg". The New York Times. 3.3.09 <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905EFDC1339F936A25755C0A9659C8B63>.
6. Parthan, Baiju. "THE CYBORGS ARE... COMING". Life Positive Foundation. 2.3.09 <http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/evolution/technology/cyborg.asp>.
“High-tech culture challenges these dualisms in intriguing ways.” It was the conclusion of Donna Haraway about the emergence of cyborgs in” A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. She and Balsamo suggested cyborg feminism. The troubling dualisms are like, self VS other, mind VS body, culture VS nature, male VS female, maker VS made, truth VS illusion, total VS partial, God VS man, etc. It was all about nature VS artificial which religion groups claimed that cyborgs would be regarded as violation of nature. However, she thought that feminism would be a force to advocate a more transgressive cyborg which changed the male dominations in reality. The dualism could not be always right because it did not represent the real us. For the sake of great human satisfaction, Haraway thought that human would be likely to be a cyborg rather than a “goddess”. The cyborg in the future would be a hybrid being.
Daniel Pimley advocated another idea for cyborgs: anti-essentialism. “The cyborg offers us hope not as a ‘thing’, but as a ‘he’ or a ‘she’.” He claimed that being a cyborg would be genderless. In his article “Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body”, gender had been discussed. The destruction of gender in the cyberspace would lead to a new opportunity to rethink the gender issue in the reality, especially for female. A Multi-User Domains (MUD), which is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text establish the stage of being a cyborg. Pimley had interviewed some female MUD users to explore whether they enjoy the freedom to be male, female or neuter. Some said the gender boundaries was so tightened that they uncontrollably performed to be their real sex and some said that they enjoyed to be virtually free. Pimley pointed out that cyborgs would not be disembodied in the future but provided human to redefine the boundaries of our bodies. The inevitability of “the retreat into a world of formless minds and the ultimate repression of our bodies” would be highly discussed in the future.
In “Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence”, Andy Clark talked about our sense of self. He assumed us, human being as a cyborg and we should accept this challenge. For Clark, technologies were not external objects. They were internalizeable tools that cyborgs could incorporate into their very being. He emphasized on the relationship between human and technology. Desire would be the main force which enabled the creation of a humans-as-cyborg being. He provided a lot of technology predictions which allowed us to think about the integrated relationship with cyborgs. His views towards cyborgs were based on his naturalism and technological enthusiasm which declined to accord embodiment a central role in future human-technology relations. The "potent, portable machinery linking the user to an increasingly responsive World Wide Web," as well as "the gradual smartening-up and interconnection of the many everyday objects which populate our homes and offices” offered us the “mindware upgrades”.
Maybe a cyborg already exists in our conception. The line between cyborgs and human is gradually blurred. Margaret Talbot in her essay” The way we live now: 6-15-03; My Son, the Cyborg “said that the “cyborgian life” was permeating in daily life. Although it is due to human are embraced by technology nowadays. There must be at least one technology accompanying you. Mobile phones, mp3 players, video games and computers were more “humanlike” and you sometimes could be trapped into the virtual world. Talbot provided another example to illustrate that there were already many “cyborgs” in reality: those who got implanted or received cosmetic surgery. She explained that “experiments with ''bionic technology,'' like brain implants that can restore vision to the blind or mobility to the paralyzed, are now proceeding with human subjects.” The goal of making cyborgs more humanlike might be the dreams of many human. However, the making of humans a little more like cyborgs seems to be applying to reality.
According to “The cyborgs are coming”, Baiju Parthan, the writer, foresaw that the co-existence of human and machines. He suggested that “Post-humanism” would become a new ideology of the future world which means that human would employ technology as a tool to be more intelligent and perfect. Parthan had given some ideas to us that allow us to get prepared for this new trend. Kevin Warwick, Professor from the University of Reading, Britain, he had implanted chip in his left arm wirelessly linked him to the network. He could do lots of things wirelessly in the campus. After removal of the implant, Professor Warwick felt depressed and admitted that he had felt "an affinity to the computer" with the implant. Parthan pointed out that the case of Warwick might be too serious but proofed that cyborgs did exist in our daily life and we were getting used to them, like the patients who implanted pacemakers or those who carried laptops everywhere. He finally reassumed that human beings were already the super-intelligent machines but the integration and dependence on the technology would be a serious threat in the future.
Cyborgs are an organism that has both artificial and natural systems which always cause argument towards its advantages and disadvantages. Nonetheless, Cyborgs are gradually not regarded as a figure because the boundaries between human and technology are getting blurred and invisible. According to the above scholars, the post-humanism is getting popular by the human desire of advanced technology; the cyborg feminism offers the power to beat the essentialism which allows the growing number of cyborgs; the everywhere technology enables the disembodiment and the creation of “natural cyborgs”. The development and transformation of cyborgs would be much more transgressive. It is suggested that cyborgs would be treated as “being”. The penetration of technology and the desire of human for advancement would bring cyborgs to an upper level: hybrid being.
Reference:
1. Clynes, Manfred E.and Nathan S. Kline. "Cyborgs and Space". 1.3.09 <http://www.scribd.com/doc/2962194/Cyborgs-and-Space-Clynes-Kline?autodown=pdf>.
2. Haraway, Donna. "An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit". Routledge. 2.3.09 <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html>.
3. Pimley, Daniel. "Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body". Pimley.Net. 2.3.09 <http://www.pimley.net/documents/cyborgfutures.pdf>.
4. Clark, Andy. "NATURAL BORN CYBORGS?” Edge Organization. 3.3.09 <http://edge.org/3rd_culture/clark/clark_index.html>.
5. Talbot, Margaret. "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 6-15-03; My Son, the Cyborg". The New York Times. 3.3.09 <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905EFDC1339F936A25755C0A9659C8B63>.
6. Parthan, Baiju. "THE CYBORGS ARE... COMING". Life Positive Foundation. 2.3.09 <http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/evolution/technology/cyborg.asp>.
In the introduction paragraph, you have state very clear what do want talk in this passage. By quoting the important sentences from the books, the readers would easily to catch the flow of your mind and the useful, important points.
ReplyDeleteYou raise that“The cyborg offers us hope not as a‘thing’, but as a‘he’or a‘she’.” The gender identification of Cyborg is a hot topic of this field. By the feature of Cyborg, we cannot easily to define the defined Cyborg is male or female. Moreover, we need to think that the importance of definition of the boundaries of our bodies. I think the book you suggested provide a very well explanation.