Between every built objects and networks, we, humans are profoundly surrounded by the advancement of technology. Due to the intense interaction with the machine and technologies, the boundaries of the reality and technology have become nearly indistinguishable. After attending the third workshop and reading some of my friends’ blogs, I have realized that most of us that is the youth from the 21st generations’ are so attached with technologies and electronic devices that we all are now well on the way of becoming cyborgs (Kull 2001).
While describing Cyborgs or the tendencies of us being cyborgs, we must first look at the meaning of it. When we use the terminology ‘Cyborg’, the most common and traditional thinking that appears in our mind is the famous movie ‘The Terminator’, where actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the hybrid of human and a machine.
Going through the definition, a ‘Cyborg’ is an amalgamation of organism and machine in the sense that it consists both the parts of virtual world as wells as the reality (Haraway 2006). In recent decades human enhancement technologies has been popular in every field such as drugs such as Prozoc or Ritlin are used for the personality enhancement and for sports enhancement drugs have been popular which has proliferated the normal functionality of the brain. Furthermore, technology has also brought artificial heart valves, pacemaker in medical field, which has proven as bliss (Doede 2009).
However, does that mean that only a person whose flesh and machine has been physically attached, is called a cyborg?
For instance, we are so dependent on the technology that even to dial a friends’ number, we subconsciously look into our cell phone instead of memorizing it or even calculating two-digit number, which could be easily done with human brain itself, we use calculators.
Therefore, does that conventional definition of cyborg still applies to the reality? How about the cyborgian nature that we constantly show in our daily life?
Yes, there is a hidden but pervasive linkage between the mental processes of human being with the modern tools and technology. Hence, according to Walker et al. (2016), any technology that provides you an advantage on functioning any simple thing or superiority over somebody else to propagate is Cyborgism.
So, with the understanding of Cyborgian nature, there arises a fundamental question that while in the process of making machines similar to human being (such as robots) are we also making human as a fictional character of science? The technology has reached to the point where we can say that we are loosing the identity of bionic human in the race of creating a cyborg with a robotic nature (Haney 2006). Even the president of US had addressed in his speech that human should not loose control and their identity with the technology or machine.
Hence, in this posthuman era, we should not forget that machines are only the tools that are invented to solve the complex issues of the world. Hence, it completely depend upon us that we maintain the fine line between technology and reality or to make it disappear entirely.
Reference
Doede, B, 2009, Transhumanism, technology, and the future: posthumanity emerging or sub-humanity descending?, Appraisal, 7(3).
Haney, WS, 2006, Cyberculture, cyborgs and science fiction: consciousness and the posthuman (Vol. 2), Rodopi.
Haraway, D, 2006, ‘A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late 20th century’, The international handbook of virtual learning environments, pp. 117–158.
Kull, A, 2001, ‘The cyborg as an interpretation of culture-Nature’, Zygon®, 36(1), pp. 49–56.
Walker, A, Walker, KS and Carruthers, S, 2016, Super you: how technology is revolutionizing what it means to be human, Que Publishing.
