On the differences between the cyborg and the posthuman
We’ve seen that it is an over simplification to consider the cyborg as a fantastical techno-creature from our most outlandish fiction. For me personally the cyborg represents an enhancement to basic human function through the use of some prosthesis. And while many of today’s medical prosthesis are remarkable in their sophistication, they can rarely be said to improve human performance (one notable exception being the artificial legs of Olympic hopeful Oscar Pistorius)
Instead the contemporary cyborg is usually an attempt at repairing a damaged human, rather than an enhancement. Fictional cyborgs, and most likely real cyborgs in the very near future, are much more than this. Such cyborgs are truly more than human and achieve this status with the addition of prosthesis that give them abilities mere organic humans could never manage. These cyborgs are most definitely posthuman, but posthumans need not be cyborgs. I’ve argued (Sumamry: Week 8) that we are all in fact already posthuman, and that we have always been so since the invention of tools and social groups that modified our thought processes enough to make us more than individual entities. For me, the posthuman is a combination of the organic human and a set of external factors, tools or stimuli which endow us with powers and abilities we could never achieve in isolation. Certainly there is a closer coupling between the cyborg and its parts, but the posthuman is unbounded and free to match the appropriate tool to the task.
You highlight an interesting perspective here Daniel, that prosthetics primarily function to normalise the human, where a human might be perceived to be deficient. I certainly think there is much in the cyborg and ‘transhuman’ fantasy that preserves the human as an ideal unitary form, which technology must uphold. It seems as if prosthetic limbs preserve the *idea* of a ‘fully formed human’; the technology allows us to ‘correct’ what we see as something not fully formed. What you cleverly highlight here is how the cyborgian idea of prosthesis, whilst attempting to transgress boundaries, often actually serves to maintain the status quo by re-establishing our notions of what the human form *should* be.
For me, the posthuman set outs to trouble what we understood as ‘human’ in the first place; challenging dualisms such as organic/inorganic, internal/external; question just what the ‘us’ is. Where you define ‘a closer coupling between the cyborg and its parts’, the posthuman perspective would surely say the cyborg *is* its parts, rather than preserving a subjectivity ‘behind’ the components. Great post Daniel!
That’s an interesting point I missed, the posthuman perspective viewing the cyborg as the entire sum of its parts rather than a consciousness plus a set of deeply integrated tools. It gets me thinking about upgrades. If a cyborg upgrades its parts, is it still the same entity? Or does the modified functionality offered by the new parts also modify the being itself? Perhaps part of the distinction between the cyborg and the posthuman is a type of mind-body problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-body_problem
An interesting avenue to explore. Thanks Jeremy.
Perhaps part of the distinction between the cyborg and the posthuman is a type of mind-body problem?
Indeed. Steve Fuller suggests the mid-body problem has been replaced by ‘those who, on the one hand, would continue to anchor humanity in our carbon-based bodies or those who, on the other, would leverage humanity into more durable silicon-based containers’ (2011, p3)
Fuller, S. (2011). Humanity 2.0: What it means to be Human, past present and future (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan)
Fuller seems like an interesting character. I haven’t been able to get a hold of the text but I have found some rather stylish promotional videos on youtube. In the past I would have agreed with him, especially after reading Bart Kosko’s Fuzzy Future many years ago where he describes the surgical process of a gradual, neuron by neuron (hence fuzzy) transfer of consciousness into silicon. Nowadays however I think I would lean more towards Hayles view that attempting to move consciousness must necessarily modify it in some way, ie “even assuming such a separation was possible, how could anyone think
that consciousness in an entirely different medium would remain unchanged, as if it had no connection with embodiment?” (Hayles, 1999, quoted in Badmington, 2003). If our consciousness is formed and matures within the physical body, then moving it to some other medium would most likely be an extremely traumatic experience indeed.