Cyborg

A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, that is an organism which adds to or enhances its abilities by using technology.^[1] Speculative cyborgs are frequently portrayed with a fine granularity mixture of organic and mechanical (synthetic) parts, such as the Borg in the Star Trek franchise.

Overview

According to some definitions of the term, the metaphysical and physical attachments humanity has with even the most basic technologies have already made us cyborgs.^[2] In a typical example, a human fitted with a heart pacemaker or an insulin pump (if the person has diabetes) might be considered a cyborg, since s/he is incapable of surviving without the mechanical part. Contact lenses and hearing aids are two more common and less dramatic examples of fitting humans with technology to enhance their biological capabilities. Permanent versions -- intraocular lenses and cochlear implants respectively -- are also available.

James Litten coined the term cyborgation to describe the action or process of becoming a cyborg, although nowadays it is common to see cyborgization, however it is becoming increasingly more common to see Cyberization in its place in recent years.

The prefix "cyber" is also used to address human-technology mixtures in the abstract. This includes artifacts that may not popularly be considered technology. Pen and paper, for example, as well as speech, language. Augmented with these technologies, and connected in communication with people in other times and places, a person becomes capable of much more than they were before. This is like computers, which gain power by using Internet protocols to connect with other computers. Cybernetic technologies include highways, pipes, electrical wiring, buildings, electrical plants, libraries, and other infrastructure that we hardly notice, but which are critical parts of the cybernetics that we work within.

Bruce Sterling suggested an idea of alternative cyborg called Omar, which is made not by using internal implants, but by using external shell (e.g. a powered exoskeleton).^{[citation needed]} (Bruce Sterling: Cicada Queen). If human cyborgs are classically perceived as traditionally human externally while synthetic internally, an Omar looks inhuman externally but contains a human internally.

History

File:Gs026.jpg

Motoko Kusanagi, a total cyborg in Ghost in the Shell

The concept of a man-machine mixture was widespread in science fiction before World War II. In 1908 Jean de la Hire introduced Nyctalope (perhaps the first true superhero was also the first literary cyborg) in the novel "L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l'Eau" ("The man who can live in water"). Edmond Hamilton presented space explorers with a mixture of organic and machine parts in his novel "The Comet Doom" in 1928. He later featured the talking, living brain of an old scientist, Simon Wright, floating around in a transparent case, in all the adventures of his famous hero, Captain Future. In the short story "No Woman Born" in 1944, C. L. Moore wrote of Deirdre, a dancer, whose body was burned completely and whose brain was placed in a faceless but beautiful and supple mechanical body.

The term was created by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in 1960 to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who could survive in extraterrestrial environments:

For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term ‘Cyborg’.
— Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline^[3]

Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to take place. A designer of physiological instrumentation and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland State Hospital in New York.

A book titled Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer was published by Doubleday in 2001. Some of the ideas in the book were incorporated into the 35mm motion picture film Cyberman.

File:Ghost in the Shell Manga - Total Cyborg.jpeg

Bridging theory and speculation: an illustration of biomechanical differences between partial and total cyborgs by Masamune Shirow (Read right-to-left)

Individual cyborgs

Generally, the term "cyborg" is used to refer to a man or woman with bionic, or robotic, implants.

Today, the C-LEG system is used to replace human legs that were amputated because of injury or illness. The use of sensors in the artificial leg aids in walking significantly. These are the first real steps towards the next generation of cyborgs.

Social cyborgs

More broadly, the full term "cybernetic organism" is used to describe larger networks of communication and control. For example, cities, networks of roads, networks of software, corporations, markets, governments, and the collection of these things together. A corporation can be considered as an artificial intelligence that makes use of replaceable human components to function. People at all ranks can be considered replaceable agents of their functionally intelligent government institutions, whether such a view is desirable or not.

Examples

Non-fiction

File:Claudia Mitchell - first thought-controlled prosthetic limb.jpg

Claudia Mitchell using a thought-controlled prosthetic arm

Fiction

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Seven of Nine, a Borg in Star Trek: Voyager

Most works in the cyberpunk genre include cyborgs.

In 1966, Kit Pedler, a medical scientist, created the Cybermen, a race of cyborgs, for the TV program Doctor Who based on his concerns about science changing and threatening humanity. The Cybermen were a race who had replaced much of their bodies with mechanical prostheses and were now emotionless creatures driven only by logic.

Isaac Asimov's short story "The Bicentennial Man" explored cybernetic concepts. The central character is NDR, a robot who begins to modify himself with organic components. His explorations lead to breakthroughs in human medicine via artificial organs and prosthetics. By the end of the story, there is little physical difference between the body of the hero, now called Andrew, and humans equipped with advanced prosthetics, save for the presence of Andrew's artificial positronic brain. Asimov also explored the idea of the cyborg in relation to robots in his short story "Segregationist", collected in The Complete Robot.

The 1972 science fiction novel Cyborg, by Martin Caidin, told the story of a man whose damaged body parts are replaced by mechanical devices. This novel was later adapted into a TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, in 1973.

The 1987 science fiction action film Robocop features a cyborg protagonist. After being killed by a criminal gang, police officer Alex Murphy is transformed by a private company into a cyborg cop. Murphy's brain and face are preserved, but the rest of the body is replaced by machine parts. The transformation is used to explore the theme of reification and identity.

A popular NES game, known as Metroid, the main featured character was thought to be a cyborg until presented at the completion to be a fully human female.

References

^ Technology as extension of human functional architecture by Alexander Chislenko
^ A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century by Donna Haraway
^ Manfred E. Clynes, and Nathan S. Kline, (1960) "Cyborgs and space," Astronautics, September, pp. 26-27 and 74-75; reprinted in Gray, Mentor, and Figueroa-Sarriera, eds., The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 29-34. (hardback: ISBN 0-415-90848-5; paperback: ISBN 0-415-90849-3)
^ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/folder/jan_21_rush_talking_about_his_hearing.guest.html

Cyborg: digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer, (2001), Steve Mann with Hal Niedzviecki, ISBN 0-385-65825-7 (A paperback version also exists, ISBN 0-385-65826-5)
The Oxford English dictionary. 2nd ed. edited by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner.Oxford : Clarendon Press ; Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. Vol 4 p. 188.
The science fiction handbook for readers and writers. By George S. Elrick. Chicago : Chicago Review Press, 1978. p. 77.
The science fiction encyclopaedia. General editor, Peter Nicholls, associate editor, John Clute, technical editor, Carolyn Eardley, contributing editors, Malcolm Edwards, Brian Stableford. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1979. p. 151.
Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell Footnotes, (1991) Kodansha ISBN 4-7700-2919-5
Yoshito Ikada, Bio Materials: an approach to Artificial Organs (バイオマテリアル: 人工臓器へのアプローチ)

External links

The open-source programmable chip Electroencephalography project
The programmable chip Electroencephalography project BLog
The programmable chip Electroencephalography project open circuits wiki
The programmable chip Electroencephalography project WikiCities wiki
The open-source Electroencephalography project
TransVision: Transhumanism Conference, 2004
Cyberman reviews
Cyborgblog
Cyborg Fantasies
Animal Machines A look at past attempts to marry technology with biology
Are you a cyborg? by Alexander Chislenko
Are you ready for the cyborg consumer?
Futures wiki, Cyborg
Wetware Technology

[1] Technology as extension of human functional architecture by Alexander Chislenko

[2] A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century by Donna Haraway

[3] Manfred E. Clynes, and Nathan S. Kline, (1960) "Cyborgs and space," Astronautics, September, pp. 26-27 and 74-75; reprinted in Gray, Mentor, and Figueroa-Sarriera, eds., The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 29-34. (hardback: ISBN 0-415-90848-5; paperback: ISBN 0-415-90849-3)

[4] ttp://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/folder/jan_21_rush_talking_about_his_hearing.guest.html

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