 Femborgs and History |
Evolution
Jesse and I have often discussed our own personal future integration with technology. He is much more eager to put micromachines beneath the skin; he can't wait for the medical technology to catch up to his imagination. I have not been so certain. Machines are unreliable I say. So are bodies he says. I can't argue there. But I think about having surgery everytime my hard disk crashed. I'd be living in the hospital. This is the fear, of melding imperfect technologies into my body, of forever trying to fix the problems that the last fix created.
Are there dangers to cyborg enhancement? There are dangers implicit in any new technology. The way to dilute the danger is to face it head on, to embrace it with a healthy dose of caution. I'm too intrigued with the possibilities to allow fear to have the upper hand. And I can rationally look around at the many reliable, stable, simple technologies that support us everyday. My microwave has never crashed, actually my microwave is probably over 20 years old and it functions just fine. My cell phone has never crashed either. And perhaps if I had a set of passive transponders permanently embedded in my arm, and a key reader on all my locks, I wouldn't waste so much of my life searching for my keys.
If you could rebuild yourself with technology where would you start? If you could easily and safely implant functional technology into your body, what would you choose to add, something that you would always want easily accessible, readily available?
One of my colleagues once said "I used to be afraid of sewing machines, until I realized: it's just another power tool." She understands power tools. They suit her requirements. We are often defined by the tools we use. It relates to our economic status, our vocations, our gender identity. We have now begun to wear our tools, as aspect and expressions of our own personas.
The computer is one of my
tools. A blue & white mac G3 named Titania to be specific, named after
the queen of the fairies. She allows me to extend my presence around the
globe. 
She
allows me to manipulate my environment, to carve my dreams from images
of my realities. I experience separation anxiety when I'm away from Titania.
I'm not kidding... I feel incomplete and unprepared, without access to
my files, my software tools, my personal configurations. I plan to upgrad
to a laptop to help remedy this problem. I will name him Oberon.
I talk to Titania like I talk to myself... Not expecting a response, but just to make the point heard.When I'm stressed out, so is she: when I'm under a deadline she crashes 5 times more often.
Titania
functions as a doorway, an opening, a point of connection. At the junction
where we meet, boundaries could blur. The boundaries will blur. The questions
are only how far and how fast. And what, exactly, will be the result.
Just by calling her "tool", I set up a master / slave relationship.
It seems natural. I use her. She serves me. But I believe this attitude
needs to change for successful cybernetic integration.
Even with all the major advances
in artificial intelligence, there are still those who see "true" computer
intelligence as an unattainable goal. My question is: since computer intelligence
may not look anything like human intelligence, or may not be measurable
in the same terms, how do we know our computers aren't already quite cognizant?
How many of you have ever gotten the feeling that your computer had a
mind of it's own, or that it in some way feeds off of your energy? If
we try to simply enslave our machines, they may eventually become smart
enough to revolt. But if we try to put them in control they could develop
their own agendas. This is NOT just science fiction. Changes are coming,
and they're coming fast. The trick is integration. Man and machine should
not be viewed as a strict duality. The editors of "The Cyborg Handbook"
note that the accelerating integration of machines into cultures, lives
and bodies has already progressed beyond partnership into a symbiotic
interaction: "The cyborg lives only through the symbiosis of ostensible
opposites always in tension." Ostensible opposites. They suggest that
the existence of the cyborg on our cultural landscape subverts traditional
Hegelian dualism through extension: cultural evolution is no longer a
process of thesis:antithesis:synthesis but thesis:antithesis:synthesis:prosthesis.
The evolution of the human race will no longer rely on procreation but
on construction, on our extension of our abilities through our technology.
I had an epiphany the day my archeology professor referred to the hand
ax as early technology. If a hand ax were technology, then so is a fork.
So is a pencil, a constructed tool with the purpose of expanding our abilities
by allowing us to record information.
It's clear that human evolution
has been all about our expanding toolset and our stored knowledgebase
for some time. Our technology is how we adapt, whether adapting ourselves
or our environment . Technology is our future evolution. A recent article
in wired warned that the future smart technologies, such as AI and nanotechnologies,
will make humans obsolete. But creating an intimate link between ourselves
and our machines, so that they begin to understand they need us as much
as we need them, I believe is the way we're going to keep ourselves as
part of the evolutionary equation.
The
Psymbiote is my techno lust. My fascination with machines. My dependency
on them. And yours. We all have a psymbiote gestating inside of us, and
it will be a personal matter for each one of us whether or not to encourage
the seed to maturity, and whether to birth this hybridization from the
inside out or from the outside in.
The Psymbiote speaks through
me: can you hear her?
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Femborgs and History |