Last week the only reading we had was the introduction from Andy Clark’s book “Natural Born Cyborgs”. It was a very interesting read and definitely opened my eyes up to the technology around us, even if I slightly disagree with his use of the term cyborg. Essentially, the point of Clark’s introduction is to lay the foundation for proving that we are “natural-born cyborgs” (3), and he does so very convincingly.
Clark explains that the human brain can go “where no animal brains have gone before” (5) because of the great power our brains have. He also uses the line “smart thinkers whose boundaries are simply not those of skin and skull” (5) to describe what humans might be. So as he establishes, as I think most people can agree, that humans have brains that are highly developed, the key to being a natural born cyborg is that we are basically using our brains to manipulate things, or tools. His best example is that our brain is “acting in concert with pen and paper” (6), so that our brain cannot do most math by itself, but employs tools to get the answer. I do agree with this because after you get past very basic multiplications, for example 34*892, it would near impossible do to in your head, but fairly trivial with a pen and paper. So the brain in some way is retaining an ability to manipulate tools to find it’s answers without having them stored. I think this is a lot like how to study for some exams, where it would be foolish to memorize everything, but if you know the main concepts you can derive the specifics during the exam.
So I think Clark is using the reasoning that humans are natural born cyborgs because we are always using tools or machines to live our daily lives. Just like movie cyborgs, such as Terminator and RoboCop, are dependant on machines to live, in many ways Clark argues we are too. Clearly not to the extreme as the movie cyborgs, but almost everything we do now is using tools and machines such as cell phones and computers, or even glasses and prosthetic limbs. By using Clark’s definition to define how humans are natural born cyborgs, I think it is hard to argue against. There is no doubt we are becoming more and more dependent on technology.
However I think there is a negative connotation often associated with the term cyborg, and we discussed after watching the Matrix in class on Tuesday how there is definitely a fear of technology taking over, or a fear of losing control over what we are. I see why these fears are there, but I simply think we need not worry. Much for the same reasons we are natural born cyborgs according to Clark, is why we do not have to fear technology overtaking us. All the tools we use are created by the human mind. Humans use tool after tool to create better tools, ultimately for the purpose of using them. As long as we have the human mind, with its reasoning and tool-using capacities, I do not think there is any problems. I disagree with Clark’s use of the term cyborg because of this. We are not dependant upon most of our tools for survival like one thinks when hearing the term cyborg, and even the stuff which we are dependant on like a pacemaker is a creation from the human mind. Unlike the idea of RoboCop where his body was put together to save his life, humans are born with only the human brain, and then use tools throughout their lives as the brain tells us to. It is interesting to think about how the brain works, but I just think that humans are tool-users, which should not be considered the same thing as a cyborg that is dependent on technology. We are not dependant on it as much as we are and always have been users who exploit it.
Lastly, here is a link to a YouTube video that is quite strange but does cover a few of the same things Clark tries to say in a vastly different medium. I could not embed it because it was disabled on this movie butcheck it out if you have 3 or 4 minutes.
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