Guiding Question: ‘Why should our bodies end at the skin?’ asks Donna Haraway (p.36, Manifesto). Discuss the idea of skin in relation to how we might imagine our future embodiment.
1.Parthan, Baiju, “The Cyborgs Are... Coming” Life Positive Magazine
http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/evolution/technology/cyborg.asp (accessed 15 March 2011)
Nowadays, the advancement of science and technology affect our view of lives, body and the machine.With the change in the properties of the machine, we change our attitude remarkably. In our future, the author thinks our brain can in an entirely artificial body, just like the other parts in our body. Besides, the author also mentions Gibson’s man-machine symbiosis that means people connected to the Internet through the surgically-implanted chips in order to be capable of wireless communication with the Net. And it is a direction that we are moving towards in future.
In addition, since the machine is continued to develop rapidly, it miniaturizes the structure as well as increases its functionality. Thus, the human intelligence can be upgraded through the machine into a human body and it may a viable approach.
However, the human brain is enormously complex connections among our billions of neurons. If you want people's thoughts shifted to the machine, it involves the two processes which are 'migration through silicon' or ‘uploading’. ‘Once a mind is successfully transferred on to silicon, one could modify that mind by increasing the scope of the senses or even add new senses.’ Then, it will change people’s memory and the way of living in past, present and the future. In the end, we will combine with intelligent machines, and coexist with them in this world as our future.
2.Joy, Bill. "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us". Wired 8.04 (2000). pp.1-11.
http://www. wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html (accessed 16 March 2011)
This journal article is mainly about our future embodiment that if the computer scientists develop successfully the intelligent machines that can replace human beings to do all the things and better than human beings can do, it will occur two cases in our human future.
First one is that our fate finally is controlled by the machines and we are dependent on their decision because we believe them can make a better decision than the humankind one. In order to be effective to control those machines that keeps their complicated system running, we will not capable of making them intelligently. Eventually, we cannot just turn the machines off as we will rely on them too much that turning them off would correspond to suicide.
And the second one is that, human work will be redundant as the advanced elite will have more power to control over the masses. The elite may simply decide to exterminate people’s humanity or reduce the birth rate until they become extinct. At that stage, the machine is a leading role that humankind is purposeless with their living and forces to have a healthy hobby to keep busy. The status of humankind will have been declined to the status of domestic animals.
3.Ben-Tov, Sharona. “The Cyborg and American Technological Transcendence”. “The artificial paradise: science fiction and American reality”. pp145-147.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=AtLBNHh6WWwC&pg=PA146&dq=%22why+should+our+bodies+end+at+the+skin?%22&hl=zh-TW&ei=PYODTaXUNtDzceP84JED&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22why%20should%20our%20bodies%20end%20at%20the%20skin%3F%22&f=false (accessed 16 March 2011)
This chapter is a good introductory study for people to understand the concept of “skin” from Haraway as well as to guide your thinking about cyborg embodiment. The most important thing is that the image of the “skin” is not talking about human skin with various senses and the cognition, but it is “a passive shell between the Cartesian self and the object world”.
Besides, it talks about Haraway’s idea that many people are alive because of the prosthetic devices and techniques, and then Moravec queries that whether the artificial organs and other body parts will be better than the any originals of humankind or not. And he triggers off a question from Haraway that if there is a possibility to achieve the mind-body dualism, separates our brain from our body. Furthermore, he believes that scientists can be inspired by robot bodies to achieve the high technological transcendence. “It is not a science fiction but, rather, a leading expert’s thoughts about how cyborgs would actually be made”.
4.Ward, Peter. “The Future of Man--How Will Evolution Change Humans?” Scientific American Magazine (2009) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-future-of-man (accessed 14 March 2011)
At the beginning of the article, it explores our species evolved from the past to the present. We are just like the other organisms that our body shape and our behaviour underwent the dramatic changes when our species first appeared. Some scholars believe that human evolution has fundamentally stopped. With the advancement of the society, however, we follow the species from a subtle change.
To the end of the article is also a key point that is talking about the ultimately evolution of human as well as it is one of the several ways that human in the future will adopt, which is man and machine symbiosis. That is about a relationship between manipulating and being manipulated. We may link to our bodies and the robot or uploaded our minds into the computer. Integration of production machines and the collective intelligence of the human brain may or may not retain the human characteristics that we can now recognize as a human.
Advanced artificial intelligence can package the various components of human cognition and re-combination of these components, things and makes us no longer is human. “For example, the quality that give human life much of its meaning— humour, love, game-playing, art, sex, dancing.” In future, “as much as we build them to meet human needs, we have structured our own lives and behaviour to meet theirs.”
5.The Future of Human Evolution Website: The Future – Post Human Future s. Humans Future Organisation. http://www.humansfuture.org/future_post_human_futures.php.htm (accessed 14 March 2011)
We will be the second most intelligent organisms on Earth and the number one ranking is the computer. In the paper, it discussed the future of humanity and it urged us to evolve into different species as materials and cybernetic technology advance. The first is that homo cyberneticus. Since the development of silicon chips in 1995 that can directly interface to human nerve cells, science and technology integrate into our lives. And technology integrates into our bodies inside through the way of implantation, putting the silicon chips into our human skin. Then, many people are willing to accept their genetic improvement because of the enhancement that it can reinforce their ability as well as their offspring.
Besides, the second species is that the Homo hybridus. When a direct link from the computer into the human brain can be achieved, the thought transmits to us to communicate not only with machines but with other people. We will be able to enjoy the sense of sharing with others. Thus, we evolved to Homo machines. Due to human brain gradually further into the world of the machine, it will become apparent that the organic body is unnecessary. In the future, the new species retained some elements of early humans, but a lot more intelligent.
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