Cyborg Evolution
November 18, 2010 by Marie Leadbetter
***contains a possible spoiler about Battlestar Galactica (BSG), so watch it all before you read****
I have, over the past couple of weeks, been reading the primary readings on Cyborgs. The warning that they were hard work wasn’t undue. I started with Haraway’s ‘the Cyborg Manifesto’ which at 33 pages, covering something quite complicated in really quite florid language, I stalled on several times. I’m still not sure I understand it. I live tweeted my attempts at reading it, but looking back I’m still not sure…I will come back to that one, I think…
The picture I chose for this post is from the remake of Battlestar Galactica and seems to reflect some of the discussions. This is perhaps unsurprising, as it’s a TV show about the fallout of a war between Robots (Cylons) & Humans, complicated by the addition of Robots who look (and increasingly, act) human.
The concept of a Cyborg is a construct which allows some interesting discussions on virtual realities, embodiment & identity; even evolution. It’s the good basis for a story, mostly a reconstructed story told about other mythical creatures such as Minotaurs as discussed in Shields (2006). Many of these stories are told to reflect humanity. The way we react to these hybrid, unusual creatures that threaten our views of what is normal (thinking of D.A.R.Y.L., A.I, Edward Scissorhands, Frankenstein, Pinnochio) reflects the best and worst in us. Are they monsters, to be feared? Are they just like us after all?
The discussion about where the Cyborg would come from is an interesting one. Would they represent a newly evolved human? In BSG the original Cylons were made by humans, eventually fought for supremacy and all but destroyed the Human race. At the end of the series, humans get an opportunity to have another go at building a society and the surviving humans decide to eschew all technologies and take their chances with nature. However, flash forward thousands of years and again, technology is everywhere (as, essentially, it comes from nature in the first place and reflects natural processes). This is clearly a warning – that if we will insist on “making tools for the mind that advance humankind.” (the Apple mission statement) then eventually, this technology will take us on, and might win.
Essentially a large part of these discussions are about embodiment. Are your experiences about where you are right now and what you consider to be ‘natural’? Unpicking what is natural is an interesting thread, something i’m not going to do now but has actually come up in other discussions. Lots of naturally occurring things aren’t good for us…
Or does it mean living, as Hayles discusses in ‘Embodied Virtuality’ (99) with the view that you are just information and this is downloadable? Essentially that an experience had without your body is as good as without, that there’s no difference.
They’re interesting concepts to play with; the answer to both being ‘Clearly not’. But where is the line…?
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