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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it is

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Speaker 1: vault time. We shall enter. The door hangs open, the

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Speaker 1: void calls, Uh, what have we got today, Robert? Oh? Well,

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Speaker 1: this this week we have cyborgs. This is an episode

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Speaker 1: that I did with Christian back in April nineteen to

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Speaker 1: be specific. And yeah, it's a fun discussion of just this,

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Speaker 1: this kind of a morphous idea of cyborgs, right, because

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Speaker 1: we all we all have our favorite, right the movie

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Speaker 1: Cyborg Albert Hyoune movie Cyborg with Jean Claude van Dam. Yes,

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Speaker 1: clearly that's everybody's favorite. But then also a few other,

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Speaker 1: you know, small independent films like like RoboCop and the

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Speaker 1: Terminator films, you know, um, and and also by mentioning that,

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Speaker 1: I mean some of you are already probably arguing in

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Speaker 1: your mind and making well with RoboCop really a cyborg

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Speaker 1: or was he just a robot that they put a

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Speaker 1: face on as a testament to a fallen cop. Do

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Speaker 1: you you and our seemed colleague Christian Sega address these

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Speaker 1: questions in the episode, Yeah, a little bit, because ultimately

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Speaker 1: it is kind of an amorphous Torrent term this, this

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Speaker 1: term cyborgs. So we talked about like where it came from,

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Speaker 1: like some of its origins in our considerations of of

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Speaker 1: travel beyond our planet, of of changing astronauts uh to

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Speaker 1: better uh survive the harsh conditions of outer space, as

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Speaker 1: well as how the the idea of of of the

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Speaker 1: cyborg has been taken up as as kind of a

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Speaker 1: metaphor for say, feminist identity. Oh interesting, I don't think

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Speaker 1: I've ever heard of it that way that. Now I

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Speaker 1: feel like I gotta listen to this. Yeah, well I

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Speaker 1: figure out what you guys talked about. Well, yeah, let's

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Speaker 1: let's do let's all dive in and explore the world

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Speaker 1: of cyborgs. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Brown and

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Speaker 1: I am Christian Sager. So Robert sideboard the words cyborg.

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Speaker 1: Do you hear that? What does it mean to you?

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Speaker 1: What is it? What pops up immediately? Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: it kind of depends on how far back in my

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Speaker 1: own timeline I go like, I can't help but instantly

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Speaker 1: go back to being a kid where Cyborg meant terminator,

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Speaker 1: cyborg meant RoboCop. And so you and I are both

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Speaker 1: children of the eighties, and that's what cyborgs were at

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Speaker 1: their height of popularity, probably right. Yeah, this idea that like,

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Speaker 1: there's a machine, but it's it's got at least a

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Speaker 1: little bit of humanity to it, but nothing, nothing was

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Speaker 1: going to hold it back too much from being like

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Speaker 1: a you know, a terrorizing robot or this this this

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Speaker 1: brutal metal badass. Yeah, I and I tease this a

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Speaker 1: little bit on social media, but for me, I immediately

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Speaker 1: go to a comic book character named Cyborg and it's

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Speaker 1: a character that it was first created in the seven

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Speaker 1: these and that's you know, seventies eighties, that's when I

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Speaker 1: was reading these comic books. Uh. He is an African

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Speaker 1: American character who becomes a cyborg because he's in some

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Speaker 1: kind of like athletic accident or a car accident or something,

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Speaker 1: and his dad is like a cyber next genius and

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Speaker 1: rebuilds his body and he becomes a superhero joins the

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Speaker 1: Teen Titans. A lot of people out there may know

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Speaker 1: this character from the Teen Titans cartoon show in the

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Speaker 1: last decade. Yeah, my nephew was telling me all about Cyborg.

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Speaker 1: I was hanging out with him in the past few months,

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Speaker 1: and it was kind of I was impressed because it

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Speaker 1: sounds like Teen Titans has done a good job of

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Speaker 1: sort of giving a thoughtful treatment of Cyborg, Like what

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Speaker 1: does it mean that this character is a little bit

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Speaker 1: machine and a little bit human. It's kind of I mean,

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Speaker 1: the cartoon is more of a comedy, but so the

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Speaker 1: caveat they wanted to place on this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: d C is rolling out its big summer blockbuster universe

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Speaker 1: of superhero movies, and Cyborg is going to have his

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Speaker 1: own movie, and he's going to be in the Justice

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Speaker 1: League movies. And I haven't seen it, but I guess

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Speaker 1: that Batman v. Superman movie spoilers like hints at him

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Speaker 1: in somewhere. Uh So I kept thinking, as we were

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Speaker 1: doing the research for this episode, which if you guys

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Speaker 1: out there haven't guessed by now, is about cyborgs uh,

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Speaker 1: I kept thinking, you know, the people who are writing

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Speaker 1: and doing all the preproduction on that Cyborg tent pole

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Speaker 1: movie right now, I really hope they listen to this

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Speaker 1: episode because we've got a lot of interesting themes going

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Speaker 1: on here with the idea of cyborgs in general, and

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Speaker 1: and that is what this episode is going to revolve around. Now,

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Speaker 1: certainly we've had episodes in the past that have dealt

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Speaker 1: with sort of like mind machine interfaces, including Joe and

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Speaker 1: I did one in the past few months. I'll make

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Speaker 1: sure we linked to that on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode, and it will be doing episodes in the future.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure about cybernetic enhancements, prosthetic limbs, etcetera. But this

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Speaker 1: episode is, as the title implies, it's about what do

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Speaker 1: we think about when we think about cybords. What is

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Speaker 1: the the meaning of cyborg as a word and as

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Speaker 1: a trope and as a metaphor for understanding the human experience. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and what I especially got out of it is that

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Speaker 1: cyborg in general, there's a lot of philosophical arguments to

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Speaker 1: make that we're already cyborgs, and that it is sort

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Speaker 1: of like the natural evolution towards trans humanism, which is

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Speaker 1: another thing we talked about on this show quite a bit. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And I want to read a quote by Donna Harroway,

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Speaker 1: who we're going to talk about later, but this really

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Speaker 1: struck me as being crucial to us kind of thinking

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Speaker 1: throughout the episode about she says technology is not neutral.

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Speaker 1: We are inside of what we make, and it is

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Speaker 1: inside of us. We're living in a world of connections,

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Speaker 1: and it matters which ones get made and unmade. So

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Speaker 1: she's not just talking about like, you know, pop sci fi,

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Speaker 1: you plug a USB poured into your ear, cyborg, that

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Speaker 1: kind of connection. She's talking about like cultural connections as well,

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Speaker 1: and sort of how we fine reality based on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I think that that is just in general, let's

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Speaker 1: try to hold onto that while we're talking about all

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Speaker 1: this stuff you two out there. Yeah, Now that doesn't mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, cast aside your sci fi ideas as well,

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Speaker 1: because a helpful Yeah, I think she even I can't

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Speaker 1: remember she if she mentioned RoboCop in her money, And

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Speaker 1: she definitely mentions some of the sci fi visions of

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Speaker 1: cyborg because that's part of the metaphor. And we will,

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Speaker 1: you know, if we haven't thoroughly satiated your pop culture

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Speaker 1: cyborg references, will make some more throughout the episode. But

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Speaker 1: there's too many, I think, maybe to get them all. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're just they're rampant, especially in the wake of Terminator

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Speaker 1: and RoboCop. Just just dealing with films alone. There's so

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Speaker 1: many fabulously horrible be movies with cyboards and yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into the word cyborg and where

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Speaker 1: that comes from, uh, let's talk a little bit about cybernetics,

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Speaker 1: which one of the core papers here. It comes from

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Speaker 1: m T mathematician Norbert Winer, who wrote Cybernetics or cont

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Speaker 1: Role and Communication in the Animal and Machine Back And

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Speaker 1: this is a work that dealt with information theory with

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Speaker 1: a focus on feedback and the similarities between a vast

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Speaker 1: group of different phenomena from everything from throwing a ball

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Speaker 1: to running a company to launching launching a missile. It's

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Speaker 1: all about you're doing things, you're getting feedback and that

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Speaker 1: allows you to uh for rational control of everything from

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Speaker 1: machines to economic systems to communities. Uh and even a

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Speaker 1: way to arguably tackle wicked problems. UM. I use the

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Speaker 1: term we could problems, but essentially that was kind of

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Speaker 1: the the area was getting into. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: one thing that's important to keep in mind about Winer's research,

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Speaker 1: or I guess just it's not really research as much

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Speaker 1: as just sort of like a general like pitch for

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Speaker 1: the future, right, saying like this is a field, this

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Speaker 1: is an approach that we can use to advance and

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Speaker 1: to understand. He's coming right on the heels of World

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Speaker 1: War two. Uh. And he is very much in particular

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Speaker 1: considering cybernetics systems as being constituted by flows of information.

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Speaker 1: And there's a really great article by a woman named

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Speaker 1: Catherine Hales uh and she's she's at it, or at

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Speaker 1: least this is hosted at u c l A. She

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Speaker 1: may not be there anymore but just faculty and uh.

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Speaker 1: She's basically looking at like the idea of Winer's like

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Speaker 1: version of cyborg ism and how it mixes with sort

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Speaker 1: of liberal humanism as well. And she is, my understanding,

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Speaker 1: maybe not a student of but a disciple of Donna Harroway,

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Speaker 1: who we're going to talk about extensively later. Um. But basically,

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Speaker 1: the Winer version goes like this, right, and we're we're

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Speaker 1: gonna use this analogy a lot. I think if a

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Speaker 1: blind man is using a cane, is he a cyborg?

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Speaker 1: And the Winer argument would say yes, because it's about

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Speaker 1: the flow of information, right. The flow of information going

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Speaker 1: through the cane is building reality for the blind man.

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Speaker 1: Therefore it makes him a cyborg. The other argument he

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Speaker 1: would probably make is a deaf person using a hearing

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Speaker 1: aid cyborg, right, yeah, And that is going to be

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Speaker 1: a recurring theme, like to what, to what extent is

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Speaker 1: this individual cyborg? And I think this strong case to

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Speaker 1: be made that, Yeah, when you are even basic tool

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Speaker 1: use is cybernetic, it's inherently cybernetic. And when we're inherently

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Speaker 1: cybernetic organism, I'm wearing contact lenses right now, that probably

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Speaker 1: makes me a cyborg. Yeah, yeah, so, and that also

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Speaker 1: involves like dental work. You know, you're wearing a time

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Speaker 1: piece on your arm, wearable computing, um, and you can

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Speaker 1: of course get into this isn't even getting into the smartphone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the whole smartphone thing is just like mind blowing lee cybernetic.

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Speaker 1: I should also throw in that he took the name

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Speaker 1: cybernetics from the Greek word kuber mettes, which means steersman. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you can think of just sort of the classic

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Speaker 1: image of you know, a helmsman at a boat, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, taking the taking the old raft across the

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Speaker 1: river sticks. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of immediately.

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Speaker 1: Why is that like the first helms when I go

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Speaker 1: to his death. Yeah, I mean he's a great helms

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Speaker 1: and he has an important because he always gets across. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Coxswain of the dead. Uh. But is essentially here

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Speaker 1: the Steersman is depending on a constant flow of information

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Speaker 1: and that governs the interface. So yeah, one of Winer's

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Speaker 1: you know, big arguments is uh, and he doesn't I

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Speaker 1: don't think maybe make this explicitly, but you know, basically

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Speaker 1: it comes across as our cyborgs modifications that are intended

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Speaker 1: to compensate for deficiencies. So I just mentioned my contacts

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Speaker 1: deficient eyesight, So I wear contacts, right? Or are they

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Speaker 1: interventions that are designed to enhance our normal functioning? Right? So?

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Speaker 1: I mean I don't know of this, but are there

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who wear contact lenses to give

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Speaker 1: themselves better than vision? Um, well, it's not necessarily good

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Speaker 1: if that happens, because my my eyesight changed and it

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Speaker 1: apparently occasionally like eyesight gets like it prove, which throws

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Speaker 1: your contacts out of whack. And so that's what happened

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Speaker 1: to me. So I actually get my prescription taken down

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Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh okay, Yeah, well that's interesting. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so but yeah, so basically we're looking at this a

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Speaker 1: is like, is it is it both? I think it is.

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Speaker 1: I think it's both. It's both enhancing our our pre

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Speaker 1: existing abilities but also compensating for deficiencies that we have. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then there's like a blur somewhere in between, because

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Speaker 1: because how do you define deficiency and how do you

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Speaker 1: define what's like the what is the ideal human experience

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Speaker 1: that we are either correcting for or going beyond? Uh, Like,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no just a template for the human.

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Speaker 1: There's no basic human, right, so that line is just

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Speaker 1: always going to be distorted. Yeah, and Harroway who we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about later. It's very important to this. Uh,

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Speaker 1: she adds in a distinction that is beyond you know,

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Speaker 1: cybernetics is beyond anything that fuses the device with a

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Speaker 1: biological organism. It replaces cognition and neural feedback. So it

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Speaker 1: challenges the difference between us as humans and us as animals.

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Speaker 1: So maybe that's a way that we can draw the

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Speaker 1: deficiency enhancement line, although again depends on what animal you're

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Speaker 1: comparing yourself. Plenty of examples of animals that use tools,

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Speaker 1: including many primates, um crows, Joe and I are discussed

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Speaker 1: in recent episodes. So so yeah, even when when you

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Speaker 1: a case that there are plenty of cybernetical um, you know,

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Speaker 1: animals out there. Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah, that's something to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind as well. It's not just a human phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: So the last bit from Hails that I think is

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Speaker 1: important to consider when you're looking at Weiner is she

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Speaker 1: makes the argument that Weiner is sort of conflicted between

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Speaker 1: his uh somewhat humanistic endeavor that Heat envisions for cybernetics

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Speaker 1: and his use or proposal of use of them as

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Speaker 1: being effective killing machines for the military. So there's a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a contradiction there that she points out.

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Speaker 1: And again I would say, well, can they be both?

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Speaker 1: And clearly the Department of Defense would hope so, because

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about, millions and millions of dollars have

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Speaker 1: gone into us developing cyborgs for warfare. Well, it kind

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Speaker 1: of gets down to the fact if you were if

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Speaker 1: you're going to repair or or augment the human form

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Speaker 1: your change, you're also augmenting everything that is human, both

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Speaker 1: the good stuff and the bad stuff. So so, hey,

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Speaker 1: a blind man can read a book again perhaps, but

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Speaker 1: also maybe a blind man can shoot lasers out of

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Speaker 1: his eyes at the enemy. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the research that we're seeing that's

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Speaker 1: sort of in its infancy with brain computer interfaces. That's

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Speaker 1: where it's at right now, right where it's like, we're

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Speaker 1: developing this so that like maybe a person who's missing

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Speaker 1: a limb can move a robotic limb with their mind,

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Speaker 1: but the application moves on from there. Right there, a

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Speaker 1: person with their mind could control a missile or something. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's important to note that nowadays very few people call

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Speaker 1: themselves cyberneticists in the you know, the original sense of

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Speaker 1: the word, because cybernetics kind of petered out as a

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Speaker 1: scientific discipline for a few different reasons. So it branched

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Speaker 1: off into more promising fields of cognitive science and robotics,

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Speaker 1: but it also lost on funding. It couldn't deal with

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Speaker 1: the ultimate gap between organic and mechanic mechanisms of control

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Speaker 1: and communication. And the first cyborg recorded in history was

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Speaker 1: a white lab rat that was experimented on at New

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Speaker 1: York's Rockland State Hospital in the late fifties. So that's

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Speaker 1: a good ten years after Winer's making his proposals. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And basically it had a tiny osmatic pump that was

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Speaker 1: implanted inside its body that injected controlled the controlled doses

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Speaker 1: of chemicals into it to sort of regulate its physical systems.

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Speaker 1: And of course this is interesting though because it then

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Speaker 1: again draws us back to what is a cyborg because

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Speaker 1: perhaps you could because just mentioning the pharmaceuticals, like the

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Speaker 1: first human to take a drug, be it, you know,

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Speaker 1: something that the found owned in the woods, or certainly

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Speaker 1: are our modern pharmacological world like that is kind of

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Speaker 1: inherently cybernetic. You're changing who you are and and creating

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Speaker 1: this new, perhaps ideal, idealized version with who you are.

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Speaker 1: So I'm on a penny dreadful kick, as as you

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Speaker 1: guys out there might know, I've been talking about it

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Speaker 1: a lot on the show lately. And Uh, there's this

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Speaker 1: great quote where the Victor Frankenstein on the show is

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Speaker 1: a drug addict and he's I'm assuming it's heroin or

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Speaker 1: some opiate that he's constantly injecting into himself. He gives

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Speaker 1: this big speech about why it's okay because basically the

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Speaker 1: body is just a bunch of biological and chemiclot chemical processes,

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Speaker 1: and all he's doing is either accelerating or decelerating those

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Speaker 1: processes with the you know, the narcotics he's applying to himself.

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Speaker 1: So you could sort of look at drug use in

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Speaker 1: general as cybernetics, as you're saying, Yeah, indeed, all right

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Speaker 1: now at this point in the narrative, we're going to

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Speaker 1: fast forward to nineteen sixty. Now important note here this

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Speaker 1: is a year before Earth to put the first human

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Speaker 1: being in space, or more specifically, in Soviet Union, put

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Speaker 1: the first thing in space. But yeah, it's especially important

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Speaker 1: because what we're going to be talking about is a

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Speaker 1: paper proposed by Manfred E. Kleines and Nathan S. Klein.

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Speaker 1: They have very similar lesson informer with a C ladder

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Speaker 1: with a K, and it's called Cyborgs in Space. And

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Speaker 1: I know that sounds like it would be a joke,

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Speaker 1: but hey, it was in nineteen sixty and they were

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Speaker 1: pitching a legitimate idea for making space travel easier. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and pitching an overall idea, specific ideas and sort of

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Speaker 1: a philosophy of how to approach taking humans into space.

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Speaker 1: Because the model that ultimately one out and the model

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Speaker 1: we're still using today with put sending humans into space

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Speaker 1: is like, all right, look at the human being, Look

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Speaker 1: at Homo sapiens. This is an organism that is evolved

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Speaker 1: not only to live on Earth, but to live in

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Speaker 1: a very slim layer of Earth's atmosphere under certain conditions.

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Speaker 1: We can't. There's places on Earth where we go and

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Speaker 1: we die. Yes, So the vironmental constraints are very important

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Speaker 1: for human life. So what we've been doing is we've

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Speaker 1: been taking humans and sending them into space in a

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Speaker 1: capsualized version of their own environment or as much as

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Speaker 1: one as we can manage to try to replicate Earth's environment,

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Speaker 1: and take that replication with us. Yeah, it's and in

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Speaker 1: a way, it's kind of like I'm gonna move from

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Speaker 1: Ohio to Florida, but I'm going to make sure that

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Speaker 1: i have all I'm bringing Ohio with me, and it's

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Speaker 1: going to be like an encapsulated Ohio in Florida. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you dig up like a chunk of Ohio and then

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Speaker 1: move it to Florida and plant it there. My thermostat

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Speaker 1: is always going to keep things Ohio. Um, so what

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Speaker 1: clins incline? We're arguing here is that. Well, how about

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Speaker 1: we we do the the opposite. How about instead of

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Speaker 1: bringing Ohio to Florida, what is as much as is

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Speaker 1: humanly possible or or trans humanly possible, you become a Floridian?

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Speaker 1: What even to what extent can we take a human,

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Speaker 1: send them into space and change the human so that

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Speaker 1: they can actually live in space, or at least they

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Speaker 1: can better manage what is an imperfect representation of Earth's environment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and what we're getting at here too. And those of

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Speaker 1: you out there who are sci fi fans are probably

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Speaker 1: well aware of this, But this is a trope that

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Speaker 1: has been used in science fiction probably before these guys

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Speaker 1: pitched this idea. But but sort of the am I

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Speaker 1: man or am I machine conundrum and where you know,

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Speaker 1: where do I begin? And where does the machine and

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Speaker 1: kind of thing that we've seen in pop culture fiction

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Speaker 1: for decades now, right. But but these guys, what's fascinating

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Speaker 1: to me about this is they pitched this whole thing

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Speaker 1: about like this is a great way to go to space,

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Speaker 1: and there's not one moment where they think about the

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Speaker 1: ethical quandary of like what's left over of the human

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Speaker 1: being that they're putting all this stuff into well they do,

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Speaker 1: and I think part of it is, you know, you

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Speaker 1: have to to to bear in mind like the time period,

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Speaker 1: you know, because putting humans in space was instill it

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Speaker 1: still is a just tremendously difficult endeavor. And they were saying, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you want to climb the mountain, Here is a way,

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Speaker 1: Here are some possibilities. This is these are some ways

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Speaker 1: you can climb the mountain. And you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: very matter of fact. Now granted we've we've steered away

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Speaker 1: from from what they outlined, but but you know, I

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Speaker 1: still think it's a it's a valid argument. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: an argument that ultimately defeats the idea of sending humans

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Speaker 1: into space, Uh, you know, long term, but are they

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Speaker 1: human anymore? Right or right cyborg? Or if you're having

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Speaker 1: to make all these changes to the human body, like

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Speaker 1: does it, then why are you doing it to begin with?

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Speaker 1: They're saying that this is a means to an end,

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Speaker 1: that if you want humans to go into space, if

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Speaker 1: you want us to expand beyond this world, then you

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Speaker 1: have to change what humans are. And this is a

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Speaker 1: means to an end. Not that we want to become cyborgs,

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Speaker 1: but if this is what you want to be, this

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Speaker 1: is what you have to Transcending Earth's boundaries are the

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Speaker 1: most important thing for us, and we should be willing

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Speaker 1: to commit these acts. Um. And the way that they

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Speaker 1: start is with a very basic idea, which is respiration, Right,

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Speaker 1: we we breathe uh. And they say, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: for instance, you wear scuba masks when you go swimming underwater.

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Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you you know, change your respiration somehow for

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Speaker 1: outer space? Their example or metaphor, I guess, is what

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Speaker 1: if a fish was intelligent enough to engineer itself something

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Speaker 1: that allowed it to live on land and breathe air.

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Speaker 1: And what was fascinating to me about that was, Um,

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Speaker 1: I've probably talked about this on the show before, or

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Speaker 1: at least talk to you about it. There's this really

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Speaker 1: great Japanese manga horror called Geo that's all about fish

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Speaker 1: climbing up out of the ocean and they're like strapped

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Speaker 1: into these exoskeletons that like keep them alive, and they

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Speaker 1: scuttle around and attack people, and it is one of

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Speaker 1: the most horrifying images I can ever think of. So

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Speaker 1: these guys back in nineteen sixty we're basically pitching that

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Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, let's do that, but but to human beings. Yeah, uh,

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Speaker 1: And it comes down to efficiency, right, Like these guys

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Speaker 1: were ultimately about efficiently getting into space, especially when you consider,

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Speaker 1: and we've talked about this before, especially on our Space

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Speaker 1: Mirrors episode or or also our episode about space weapons,

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Speaker 1: how tremendously expensive it is to propel any mass and

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Speaker 1: outer space. Right. And they talk about human fuel as

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Speaker 1: being sort of a detriment. And when they say human fuel,

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Speaker 1: what they mean is precisely ten pounds per day. And

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Speaker 1: that's two pounds of oxygen to breathe, four pounds of

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Speaker 1: fluids to drink, and four pounds of food to eat.

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Speaker 1: So that's the way that they look at it is

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Speaker 1: like the same way that you would look at like,

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Speaker 1: well we need fuel for our space shuttle, right, and

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Speaker 1: how much that way is and how much it will

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Speaker 1: cost to fly that up. They're considering the human fuel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's ultimately like the human engineering problem. It's not

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Speaker 1: only the engineering problem of the vessel, but the just

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Speaker 1: the engineering problem of the human Yeah, and space. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I gotta say, like I wrote an episode for our

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Speaker 1: video series brain Stuff one time that was all about

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Speaker 1: what space would do to the human body and all

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Speaker 1: the horrible ways in which you would die if you

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Speaker 1: were just exposed to uh space without a suit or

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Speaker 1: anything like that, and it's it's pretty vicious. Uh So

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Speaker 1: for them, what they were looking at was not just

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Speaker 1: the purpose of the cyborg as being to mitigate those effects,

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Speaker 1: but also to take care of those problems automatically and unconsciously,

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Speaker 1: right that the cyborg wouldn't be thinking about doing it

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Speaker 1: as they were doing it. And this is this paper

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Speaker 1: is where the word cyborg comes from. They coined it.

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Speaker 1: So um, as we're talking about their their work here,

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Speaker 1: realized that these guys are the granddaddies of all the

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Speaker 1: ridiculous or um you know, real world ideas that come

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Speaker 1: out of this. But we can see that we're already

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Speaker 1: getting away from Winer's idea of cyborg just being about

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Speaker 1: the flow of information. Right, So I'm gonna read a

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Speaker 1: quick quote from Cyborgs and Space to give you a

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Speaker 1: taste here. Um feel like like muppet style like cyber space. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe no one can put some sort of echo hopefully. Quote,

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Speaker 1: what are some of the devices necessary for creating self

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Speaker 1: regulating man machine systems. This self regulation must function without

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Speaker 1: the benefit of consciousness in order to cooperate with the

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Speaker 1: body's own autonomous homeostatic controls. For the EXO genuously extended

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Speaker 1: organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we

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00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: propose the term cyborg. The cyborg deliberately incorporates exogeneous components,

426
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: extending the self regulatory control function of the organism in

427
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 1: order to adapt to new environments. So that's basically their

428
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 1: thesis statement. They're starting off and saying like, all right,

429
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: this is what we're proposed zing. May seem a little outlandish,

430
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: but here, let us give you some examples. And when

431
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: you read through the document, they they go through one

432
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: by one of like, here's some cool things we could

433
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: do to the human body. Right, Yeah, it's a very

434
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: readable document, So I'm created anyone that's interested to seek

435
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 1: it out for themselves. Well include a link on the

436
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode. But some of the ideas

437
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: that they roll out involved the following. First off, drug

438
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: induced wakefulness, which is of actually this is one of

439
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 1: the things that we see utilized in modern human space travel.

440
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,439
Speaker 1: Uh and and this next one calls back to that

441
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: White rat. They want to implant osmatic pressure pump capsules

442
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: in the body that could sense and control mechanisms to

443
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: automatically administer everything from astronauts speed to hibernation inducing pituitary drugs.

444
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: So and it's and certainly some of these um, these

445
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical products are are utilized by astronauts, but this would

446
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: be a situation where they wouldn't have to think about

447
00:24:57,040 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: taking it. It would just happen to their body. What

448
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:04,880
Speaker 1: astronauts speed is, um I just sounds like the best speed.

449
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: It's like but it's dried. It's like it's like astronite

450
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: ice cream. Yeah, well they're going to get the good stuff. Um.

451
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: I did a blog post years back off to I

452
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 1: have to link to it on the landing page for

453
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: this episode because there was a list available of the

454
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: various pharmaceuticals that are available, say on board a space

455
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 1: shuttle or then space Shuttle or the I S s okay, alright,

456
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 1: the next recommendation replace the lung with inverse fuel cells.

457
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: They also talked about altering plumbing our bodies plumbing. I'm assuming,

458
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: uh so that wastewater goes through a filter and right

459
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: back into your blood. Sounds kind of like a still

460
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: suit to me. Yeah, yeah, definitely, like a like a

461
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 1: a bioengineered still suit. They also talked about enzyme tinkering

462
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: to create anaerobic organisms, in other words, astronauts that don't

463
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: require air or can live in different atmospheres. They would

464
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 1: also drain your ear fluid or fill them up to

465
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: up with weightlessness. Okay. Also electronic electric slash drug cardigo

466
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: vascular control drugs that would prevent muscle atrophy. I wonder

467
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: if that's I don't know enough about that topic, but

468
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's something they do. Um, I haven't.

469
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: I looked at the research recently, but it's still that's

470
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: vicorse still very much in an area of interest. It

471
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: seems like it would be, especially those guys who are

472
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,880
Speaker 1: up there for like a year at a time. Uh.

473
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: They've also talked about lower press body pressure engineering lower

474
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: body pressure in the human body, kind of I like

475
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: to think, to facilitate naked spacewalks sort of but essentially

476
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: saying all right, we can't maybe we can't actually put

477
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: a person out there in the void because the void

478
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: is just I mean, the void is death and it's

479
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: but maybe we can make the human body a little less.

480
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: Uh you know explosion e god. Yeah, yeah, space does not.

481
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 1: Space will kill you. Uh. Engineering of a light sensitive,

482
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: chemically regulated system which would adjust to its own reflectance

483
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: so as to maintain the temperature desires. We're basically talking

484
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: about like a light regulation system of of of the

485
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: temperature of the body. And that's another thing, because like

486
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: space can go from like being like incredibly hot to

487
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: being so cold it'll freeze you dead. Uh, it just

488
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 1: in the blink of a shadow, right, Yeah, you need

489
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: to be able to absorb solar radiation when necessary, but

490
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: also to reflect it when it's just going to cook you. Yeah. Wow,

491
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: I'm trying to imagine what this cyborg would look like.

492
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 1: I wonder if I wonder if over the years if

493
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: anybody has like taken their recipe for the space cyborg

494
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,719
Speaker 1: and like developed that out somehow and some fan art

495
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't know, I would I

496
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: would love to see it. One piece of fiction that

497
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: that always comes to mind when I when I think

498
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: about this paper was a Clifford Symic novel that came

499
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: out called The Werewolf Principle Um And it's essentially a

500
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: space werewolf story. But the The idea here is that

501
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: we engineered human that would go into space and would

502
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: rapidly adapt to life and other worlds. And uh so

503
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: the space traveler goes to other worlds, adapts into these

504
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,719
Speaker 1: different forms that allow him to live in these strange environments,

505
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: and then when he returns to Earth, he will sometimes

506
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: shift into these forms. So he's changing into a quote

507
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: unquote werewolf. But the werewolf is actually a form that

508
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: he adapted in another world another two in order to

509
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: live there, and it's no longer acceptable in Earth's environment

510
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 1: and society, right, like, because he probably makes them eat

511
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: people or something. Yeah, it's been a while since I've

512
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: read it, but it's a pretty trippy book. It has

513
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: also has flying houses and brownies, as in like the

514
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: little fairies, those brownies, because it just turns out that,

515
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: oh yeah, brownies exist. Like It's like it's like humans

516
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: advanced to the point where they realize they realize, oh yeah,

517
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: there are brownies. They live out there in the woods

518
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: and occasionally we can glimpse them. Yeah, this does sound fascinating,

519
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: right Alright, So needles to say, as we already pointed out,

520
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: uh NASA did not take all these recommendations to heart

521
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: and um, so there's a certain amount of space between uh,

522
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: cyborgs in space and where we are now. The Atlantic

523
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: magazine's Alexis c. Magical caught up with the co author

524
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: Manford Eclins back in two thousand and ten, and by

525
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: the way, as of this recording, Clients is still kicking

526
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: at age ninety. This climbs with a c uh. One

527
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: of the things that Magical points out is that many

528
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: uses of cyborgs seem to view the human machine hybrid

529
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: as as an end point. So like we're gonna get

530
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: to the point where we become the cyborg but uh

531
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: and and and maybe as a compromise as well. But

532
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: Clients saw it as as that means to the to

533
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 1: an end quote, a way of enlarging the human experience. Yeah,

534
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: I highly recommend if you're interested in what we're talking

535
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: about in this episode, go hunt down matt Icles Atlantic piece.

536
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. Basically what he gets out from talking

537
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: with Clients is that Kleins saw cyb words as a

538
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: means to enlarging the human experience. It wasn't just about

539
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: space for him, and he was focused in particular on

540
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: expanding our brains relationship with the world, And to me,

541
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: like I wrote in my notes, isn't that trans humanism?

542
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: Like this guy sounds like he's the father of trans

543
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: humanism to me. Uh And, and I know out there

544
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been asking us to do

545
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: an episode. I think we're gonna if we do, we're

546
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: gonna have to do a two parter on trans humanism.

547
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: It's just such a deep topic and clearly interests us uh.

548
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: And So his focus after the whole you know space proposal,

549
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: was on humans communicating without words, because, as he put it,

550
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: language is messy and ambiguous. And what struck me about

551
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: this is if if you know anything about like in

552
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: the sixties, around this time that he was making these

553
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: proposed this is when post structuralism really erupted in communications

554
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: studies and linguistics, and it's essentially, you know, it's, oh God.

555
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: I can't simplify post structuralism into one sentence, but I

556
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: would say his statement of because language is messy and

557
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: ambiguous is a nice lead in for post structuralism. So

558
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: he was thinking about cyborg ways to get us there,

559
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: and that leads us to Donna Harroway eventually. But he

560
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: also did. He invented this machine that he talks to

561
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: Magical about called the Computer of Average Transience. And apparently

562
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: what this thing did was cancel noise impulses in the

563
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: brain and translated them into averages of their impulses. Um.

564
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: And the argument is basically like, when we're talking about

565
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: these electrical impulses that he mean, he means language, like

566
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: how language is encoded in the brain. Uh, but words

567
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: don't have averages, right. You can't say, like, the word

568
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: cyborg is five points x, so let's round it up

569
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,239
Speaker 1: to six, right, or or or the average of you know,

570
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 1: in between whatever two different numbers gives you a number

571
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: in between, It gives you a word in between two words. Right. Um,

572
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: So he's not only does it seem like he is

573
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: talking about transhumanism at a very early age, and he's

574
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: talking about post structuralism, but then he's talking about math

575
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: as language, which is really interesting. Yeah, and and certainly

576
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: essential to any kind of bridge between organic So yeah,

577
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: definitely machine. Yeah, which leads us it both connects back

578
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: to Weiner's whole flow of information thing about being a cyborg,

579
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: but then leads us further down the road of sort

580
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: of the philosophy of what it would mean to be

581
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: a cyborg. Indeed, so we've already touched on, you know,

582
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: a little bit on what we call a cyborg. You know,

583
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: the blind man with a cane, a monkey with the stick, glasses,

584
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: contact lenses. Um, I would and I, as I've said,

585
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: virtually all tool use counts, like not only because we're

586
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,959
Speaker 1: picking up and using something, but it all a lot

587
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: of it comes down to our body schema, our brain's

588
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: conception of our body's position in space. Uh. You know,

589
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: just that alone entails some pretty complex mental processing, you know,

590
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: just to say this is where I am, this is

591
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: this is the space around me. And I have kind

592
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: of like this virtual version of in my head of

593
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: in a virtual idea of what my body consists of

594
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: what are its limits? Uh, you know, what are my

595
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: limits of control? Uh? So our brains are constantly processing

596
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: sense feedback to establish where our limbs are at any

597
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: given moment. And here's the crazy part. When we wield

598
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: a hammer, when we wield a sword, when we you know,

599
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: use one of those reachy clow things to get a

600
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: can off of a shelf, extensions, Yeah, our body schema

601
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: updates to include that as part of our bodies. So

602
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: on a very neuroscientific level, we're we're already cyborgs, and

603
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: likewise our memory adapts to use the Internet via transactive memory.

604
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: We effort Lislee outsourced the remembrance of data. This is

605
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: something that I thought about a lot as we were

606
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: researching this episode that, uh, I don't know about you

607
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: or the listeners, but I have definitely found in the

608
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: last ten to fifteen years that like, not only do

609
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: I have more information available at my fingertips than I

610
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: ever would have before, but at the same time, like,

611
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: because my brain only has so much RAM, I have

612
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: to offload some of that into the cloud, right And

613
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I can't particularly remember that right now.

614
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: I'll put it in Google Docs, or I'll I'll let

615
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: Wikipedia hold onto that for me for now, and I

616
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 1: won't memorize. I don't know, like, uh, you know where

617
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart's from or something some like casual bit of

618
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: trivial knowledge. Yeah, it's the same phenomenon that it allows

619
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: or enables like one number of a you know, romantic compulse.

620
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: The couple say to forget like an important date. They

621
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: forget it because I'm like a subconscious level. They know

622
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: the other individual will remember it, So why should It's

623
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 1: just pure economics, right, Why should all members of this

624
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: group of of interconnected humans a part of this network.

625
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: Why should all nodes on the network carry that data?

626
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense they should collectively carry it. Yeah. Absolutely,

627
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: And subsequently we end up with IICL or Google Calendar

628
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: or whatever your your platform of choice. Yes. Right, if

629
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: you want to know what it's like to have a

630
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: cybernetic implant in your brain, you already have it. It's

631
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: called spell check. I was on my way to work

632
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: this morning. I'm on the train, riding in my phone

633
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: buzzes and I pick it up. My cope, is this

634
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: a text message? Nope, it was my phone reminding me

635
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: that we were recording this episode this morning because it's

636
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: on my calendar. And of course this isn't even getting

637
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: into the whole realm of say, biomedical implants, etcetera. Yeah,

638
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: I mean Klein's incline had a very particular obsession. And

639
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: again we go back to this we talked about it

640
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: with with Winer, right, that there's an obsession for science

641
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: in the mill terry, with this combination of machine and

642
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: man and what it comes down to is how can

643
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: we escape our annoying bodies? Basically? Right? And uh and man,

644
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: this was a great time for ideas. Uh. Not only

645
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 1: does their paper coincide with the you know what I

646
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: was talking about with post structuralism, but it also coincides

647
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: with something so completely on the other side of it,

648
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: which is the Silver Age of comic books. Uh. And

649
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: in particular. You know, I'm not going to go into

650
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: a whole rant about the Silver Age and explain comics,

651
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: but the Silver Age was very much about superheroes that

652
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: were science oriented, that we're sort of above and beyond

653
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: what the human body could do, right, and so like

654
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 1: the first Silver Age superhero character is often cited as

655
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: being the Flash, and of course the the the dream

656
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: of the Flash, right is that he can move faster,

657
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: He can do everything faster than we can, because oh,

658
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: these bodies are so slow, they're limited, right. Uh. And

659
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: it's bringing in history and man together in a way

660
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: that it sounds like the military was very interested in.

661
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:08,479
Speaker 1: This was when we get into uh, clins incline. Their

662
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,839
Speaker 1: paper had a lot of influence in millions of US

663
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: Air Force dollars were spent developing exoskeletons, robot arms, biofeedback devices,

664
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: and more. I mean, we are obsessed with this dream.

665
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: That's why it showed up in our pop culture over

666
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: and over again. Uh, the six million Dollar Man, the

667
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: Bionic Woman. Right. I think if we were both a

668
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: little older, like those would be the example. Yeah. Yeah

669
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: for me, Like, uh, you know you mentioned RoboCop. I

670
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: think of like, um, surely Star Trek and Doctor who

671
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: had their own iterations of cyborgs. But again, like it was,

672
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: it ultimately comes down to that whole like uh, like

673
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: they're they're agonizing over the am I Man or am

674
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: I Machine? Where do I you know, where do I exist?

675
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: In comics? Uh? This character that was just recently portrayed

676
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: by Paul Bettany in the Avengers movie, The Vision is

677
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: an android and he there's this classic comic book cover

678
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: with the Vision and it says even an android can cry. Ah. Yeah,

679
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: I mean it all comes down to you to to

680
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: what extent is a is a cyborg either an advancement

681
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: of the human condition, a lessening of the human condition,

682
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: or somewhere nicely neutral in the middle. Yeah. I want

683
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: to mention one more thing from that Atlantic piece. Um,

684
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: the authors spoke with Clins and Clients presented just another

685
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: wonderful example of what it might mean to be a

686
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: cyborg and what it means to perhaps you know, already

687
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: be a cyborg. And that he presented the example of

688
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: a cyborg implant that's part of our naturally occurring anatomy.

689
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this before. Really, I was like, oh, wow,

690
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: that's creepy. I'll give you a second to see if

691
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: you can guess what it is, listeners, it's the lens

692
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: of the eye. I'm going to read the quote. The

693
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: lens is not in any way part of the body,

694
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: except that it happens to be there. In fact, it

695
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: has no normal blood supply. It does have liquid surrounding it,

696
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: but there is no blood supply because if you had

697
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: blood going through the lens, you wouldn't see too well.

698
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: Nature has taken care of it. The biological control and

699
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: invention of the lens is a beautiful and fantastic thing. Yeah,

700
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: and he the way he talks about it, he and

701
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the author of the

702
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: Atlantic piece or Clients himself, but basically says that our

703
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: control over the lens of our eye is the nearest

704
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: thing that we have to telekinesis Wow. Yeah, because we're talking.

705
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: You know, it's a conscious movement of the body, but

706
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: it's the only one not tied to the brain by

707
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: neural feedback. You see the results of thinking it's something,

708
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: you're thinking at it, and it happens, but there's no

709
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: muscular feedback from from those muscles that activate the curvature

710
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: of the lens. It's exactly what they were talking about

711
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: with their whole space proposal, right that we have no

712
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: knowledge of it operating automatically on its own, and just

713
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: because we think a thing, it happens. There's no feedback,

714
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 1: and it's just it just does it thinks and that

715
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: big gun pops out of it exactly right. Yeah, all right,

716
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come

717
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: back we will launch into some ethical quandaries about cyborgs

718
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: and into even indeed into the idea of cyborg feminism.

719
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we're gonna talk a little

720
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: bit about cyborg ethics. Um, there is a British cyberneticist

721
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: by the name of Kevin Warwick, and a number of

722
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 1: you that follow sort of trans human topics. You may

723
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: be familiar with him thanks to his series of Captain

724
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: Cyborg experiments, and these generally involved like placing chips in

725
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 1: his body and sort of exploring, you know, early examples

726
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: of what it is to be a human cyborg based

727
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: on circuitry. But he's also done some thinking about the

728
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: ethics of it. Particularly he's he's asked if humans will

729
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: one day be required to upgrade to a cybernetic state

730
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: to become cyborgs, or if they'll be be able to

731
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: live their lives in a primitive state, which he likens

732
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: to that of a chimpanzee living in the shadow of

733
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 1: a human. I imagine that that is probably like the

734
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: the heart flutter that a lot of people had when

735
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 1: Google Glass hit the scene a couple of years ago. Remember, like,

736
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 1: oh God, I'm gonna have to wear that to interact

737
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 1: with society. No, No, I'll go live on a farm

738
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 1: somewhere and I will not participate in Google Glass. And

739
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: luckily it didn't pan out for anybody. It's kind of

740
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: like when you encounter somebody who doesn't have a smartphone,

741
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: and which is to a large extent, I applaud those

742
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: individuals who who do that, but you also you sort

743
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: of act yourself, like how do you how do you

744
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 1: live your life like that? How? You know? How? Like

745
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 1: we grow so accustomed to being just constantly plugged in,

746
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 1: and when we're not plugged in, it it takes something

747
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: out of you. Like when I went on vacation at

748
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year and my smartphone didn't work

749
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: for a week, it was a little panicky. I was.

750
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 1: I felt a little panicky at first. I had to

751
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: sort of adjust to this new freedom of not being

752
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: shackled to this device and all its augmentation. I remember

753
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: being in my early twenties and I didn't have a

754
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: cell phone, and I was like, I hate that everybody's

755
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: on these cell phones all the time and they just

756
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: walk around and talking and texting and not paying attention

757
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: to the world around them. And I said something to

758
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 1: a friend one time, like I'll never get a cell

759
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: phone until they can implant them in your skull. And then, like,

760
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: you know, cut to fifteen years later, and I've got

761
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,399
Speaker 1: a smartphone just like everybody else, and it is kind

762
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: of implanted. Yeah, exactly, it pretty much is. Yeah, But

763
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: a lot of individuals have have have studied, have written

764
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 1: about the idea of cyborg ethics. One cool paper that

765
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: we ran across is one titled Cyborgs and Moral Identity

766
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: by Grant Gillette, published in two thousand six in the

767
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: Journal of Medical Ethics, and it explored several different ethical

768
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 1: cyborg andres. It's a fun paper, very readal. The author

769
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: lays out some quote unquote fanciful cases. They often kind

770
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: of tread into black mirror kind of territory. I'm glad

771
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: that you noticed that as well. Yeah. As I was

772
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: reading through it, I was like, man, this guy is

773
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: just pitching black Mirror episode after episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

774
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: And they all kind of come down to the same question.

775
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 1: If we cybernetically enhance a human, if we cybernetically enhance

776
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: the brain, then to what extent is the resulting mind

777
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: the resulting person still human? Some of the some of

778
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: the exam I'm gonna roll through some of the examples here. Um,

779
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: I'm not your favorite. One is the last one, Yeah,

780
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 1: the last one is the one we'll talk about in

781
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: More Death, because that's the problem of right. So he

782
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: discussed discusses neuro reconstruction of a three year old severe

783
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: brain injury. It ends up changing who the three year

784
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: old is, but the three old three year old gets

785
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: to to live, okay. And I think most people can

786
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 1: get okay with that one because it's like you saved

787
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: a life, right, and it's not perfect, but you saved alright.

788
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: The next cybernetic eyes for the blind, the Jordy Leaforge scenario.

789
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: Everybody's cool with Jordy. Another one, extensive brain injury and

790
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 1: then replacement with micro networks. So this is like the

791
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: natural evolution of brain computer interfaces. Yeah, and saying like, oh,

792
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: there's damage to the brain, but we can fix it

793
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: with with this new technology, all right. And again we're

794
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: treating at the wound. We're treating an injury. Everybody's generally

795
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: okay with that. An unborn child with an incompletely formed brain,

796
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: and then doctors grow that brain out with cybernetic techniques

797
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: to ensure the child is born with a working brain.

798
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 1: This one's a lot that sounds like the beginning of

799
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 1: a horror story to me. Well, yeah, I guess it

800
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 1: could be. But or but you could also say that

801
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: it forestalls the the real life horror story child. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,

802
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: So I think this one, this one, yeah, this is

803
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: a little more problematic because you're you're changing the the

804
00:44:56,440 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 1: the human in utero, creating a cyborg in utero. And

805
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 1: then and then you have to ask to what extent

806
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: is the resulting child still the child? But yeah, right,

807
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: but then there's the the Peggy story, and you want

808
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: to take this one, sure, yeah, this is so, this

809
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:14,959
Speaker 1: is the one that the most felt like a black

810
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: Mirror episode to me. And and genuinely, as I'm reading

811
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: this academic article the twist to this story, i went, oh,

812
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 1: like it's said, it's sent shivers that might spend like

813
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,879
Speaker 1: the twist to one of those old like horror comics.

814
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 1: All right, so, uh, basically, the idea here is that

815
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: Bob and Peggy are a couple and they have problems. Uh,

816
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 1: Peggy's depressed, right, and uh so they rent Cybo help,

817
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: which isn't like an android that's customized to come in

818
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: and be compassionate and take care of Peggy and kind

819
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: of like help her get beyond her depression. Her presence

820
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: cheers everybody up, and Peggy undergoes neuropsychi psychiatric treatments and

821
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: becomes her old self. Right. And one of the keys

822
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: here is that the the android has these like symbols

823
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: on the back of her skull that show like which

824
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: which features she's been loaded with? And I think it's

825
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: like there's some for like artistic abilities, and the most

826
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: important one is is is one that allows the android

827
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: to to show compassion. Yeah, so Bob and Peggy they say, hey,

828
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: everything's fine. Now, Peggy's fine, she had this procedure was good. Yeah,

829
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:31,760
Speaker 1: so they'll say, well, we don't need the android anymore.

830
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: They send her back to the plant. Uh. And at

831
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: the end of it, Bob is like stroking Peggy's hair

832
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 1: or something like that, and he notices that she's got

833
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: the raised embossed indentations of lettering the same way that

834
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: the android did on the back of her head. So

835
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: it's implied, wait, what did that android do to my

836
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: wife when I wasn't home? Right? Oh yeah, there's like

837
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: a thing in there where he takes an extended business

838
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: trip and that's when and when he gets back is

839
00:46:57,600 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: when he notices that. So it's a little a little

840
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: bit like Efford Wives. Right, there's a there's a very

841
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: very much like a sexist theme here as well, But

842
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: ultimately this one is more problematic, right because what happened

843
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: to Peggy, what happened to the old Peggy? Was that

844
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: the real Peggy? And is the new Peggy the new Peggy? Yeah?

845
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: Where's Peggy? Also says something and I don't know if

846
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: this is just Grant g letter or us how we

847
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: approach this topic, but like how we think of depression too,

848
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: as like that's a thing you cure. Yeah, we have

849
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: a robot come in and just fix it. Yeah. He

850
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: makes two main observations with all of these. At one,

851
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: we are less concerned with the cybernetic components of the

852
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: if the of the person, if they seem peripheral or

853
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: somewhat incidental to their psychological identity or character. Okay, so

854
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,240
Speaker 1: we're cool with augmentations. That's no big deal because certainly

855
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 1: you apply that to real life. We augment ourselves all

856
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: the time. The type of coffees an augmentation, pair of

857
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: glasses an augmentation, but generally you don't. People may joke

858
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: about their not the selves until they have that cup

859
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: of coffee, but nobody actually believes that. You know, what's

860
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: cybernetic for me taking a shower? Yeah, Like I was

861
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: thinking about that this weekend, Like what did people do

862
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: before showers? Because if I don't have a shower. I

863
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: feel exhausted and tired and gross. But then like you're

864
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: getting that shower and it's just boom, I'm ready for

865
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: the day. I don't know what it is. I'm the

866
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: same way. His second observation is that quote we are

867
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 1: more concerned where a non human mode of relationship or

868
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: reaction or response to others emergence. So that's pretty basic,

869
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: right when when you're when when the result seems non

870
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: human or the relationship is not seems non human, then

871
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: we're saying, Okay, what's what's wrong? This is not a

872
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 1: cybernetic scenario I can get behind. So Gillette like proposing

873
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: all of these fictional scenarios is basically getting at his

874
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: big question, which is how should we morally treat a cyborg? Right,

875
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 1: we still treat each other well. We like to think

876
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: we do as moral agents when we're interacting with each

877
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: other through diaries or computers or even antidepressants. Right now, again,

878
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: I say I like to think we two and then

879
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,320
Speaker 1: like go take a look at some YouTube comments. Sometimes

880
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,479
Speaker 1: I don't know that they're necessarily moral agencies that play there.

881
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: But his argument is if we're ethical and moral to

882
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,959
Speaker 1: one another through those things, shouldn't we do the same

883
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: thing if our brain is somehow connected to technology. Yeah,

884
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, the Peggy example, especially if the morning

885
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: you chew on it because you have the android who

886
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: is fake and it's just you know, a servant that

887
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,920
Speaker 1: is then turned back over, but of the same things

888
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: that that that make her seem genuine, like the same

889
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 1: sort of uh, you know, emotional programming. If that same

890
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: programming is used to quote unquote fix Peggy, then is

891
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 1: Peggy fake now too? And then by but then if

892
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:59,280
Speaker 1: the reverse is true, then was the android a real

893
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: person as well? What does it mean to be human?

894
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be non human? You know what?

895
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:10,359
Speaker 1: This is a perfect segue into the Donna Harroway uh conundrum,

896
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: the cyborg manifesto. We're talking about Peggy and her depression

897
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 1: and her female identity and whether or not it changes

898
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: or is the same if she gets somehow computerized. That

899
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: leads right into Harroway. Yes, we are now somewhere around

900
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: nineteen five and we're talking about a cyborg manifesto by

901
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: Donna J. Harraway. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of the

902
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: History of Consciousness Department and feminist Studies department at the

903
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: University of California, Santa Cruz. They have a History of

904
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:48,840
Speaker 1: Consciousness department, or they did, who knows if they're funding

905
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: is still available. But that's pretty cool. So let's just

906
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: get this out of the way. We both read, or

907
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 1: in my case, attempted to read the Cyborg Manifesto. It's

908
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 1: dense reading. I will warn you out there, people. Uh.

909
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: Hairway has written this in a very kind of postmodern

910
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: philosophical styling that it doesn't necessarily read like your traditional

911
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 1: academic paper in that it, you know, it doesn't set

912
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: up a methodology for you and then walking through an

913
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: experiment and tell you what the conclusions were. A lot

914
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:24,919
Speaker 1: of it is her riffing on the ideas of what

915
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: being a cyborg means. Yeah, and you kind of have

916
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 1: to unravel what she means and what her argument here

917
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 1: is as well. But ultimately it's Uh, it's a very

918
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:40,879
Speaker 1: compelling argument and one that probably beautifully transforms and illuminates

919
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,879
Speaker 1: the idea of cyborder that we've been discussing this whole episode. Yeah,

920
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: I find it particularly useful. Uh. And in nine seven,

921
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:52,359
Speaker 1: UH Robert found an article in Wired Is written by

922
00:51:52,400 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 1: Harri Kun's rue that basically deconstructs hairway cyborg manifesto and

923
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: explains it much better. Uh, let's see if we can

924
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: take a stab at it here. But you know what,

925
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 1: let's start with that quote, just to give our listeners

926
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:10,879
Speaker 1: an idea of what kind of reading material it is.

927
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: Quote by the late twentieth century, our time a mythic time.

928
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: We're all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.

929
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 1: In short, we're cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology. It

930
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image

931
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: of both imagination and material reality. The relations between organism

932
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: and machine has been a border war. Yeah, okay, I

933
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 1: think it's fair to say. And this is written in

934
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: the notes here. What the hell does that mean? Uh?

935
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 1: This is what I got out of reading it directly.

936
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: But then let's turn to that Wired article to see

937
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: if we can unpack it a little bit more so.

938
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: First of all, she sees cyborgs everywhere, and keep in

939
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: mind share at this in which, you know, as we

940
00:52:57,480 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, that's when we were growing up seeing

941
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: them in pop culture every right, But she sees them

942
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,399
Speaker 1: in war. She sees them in sets, she sees them

943
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 1: in medicine. Uh. In her thesis is essentially that cyborgs

944
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: are a fiction that maps out our social and bodily

945
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 1: reality that that can suggest what she calls fruitful couplings.

946
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: And I think what she means by fruitful couplings are

947
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: sort of like a redefinition of identity in such a

948
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: way that is beneficial to the individual. We'll see, we'll

949
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: see if I'm right about that or not. But yeah,

950
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: we're all chimeras, right, and in particular that's important to her.

951
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: And this is where it's not a cyber feminism or

952
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: cyborg feminism is not her term, but it comes out

953
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: of this paper. Cyborgs are post gender beings, right, or

954
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 1: at least they're capable of being so. Uh. And going

955
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 1: back all the way to us talking about Winer and

956
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 1: Catherine Hayes paper about him, Harroway sees cyborgs as being

957
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: inherently a confluence of both militarism and capitalism. And she

958
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 1: breaks down. She says, there's three boundaries that come into

959
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: play when we're talking about cyborgs. There's the human versus

960
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: animal boundary, There's the organism versus machine boundary, and then

961
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: there's the physical and non physical boundary. And I guess

962
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: like that one to me gets us back to that

963
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:26,359
Speaker 1: like flow of information thing, right, Yeah, that's the non

964
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: physical Yeah, the flow of information, the network of information. Um,

965
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: that's very essential to all of this. But again a

966
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: lot of you are probably wondering what the hell does

967
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: that mean? Uh? And so let's turn to that come

968
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: through article he profiled and chatted with Haraway for that

969
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 1: piece and the one of the more useful examples that

970
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 1: he brings up, and this is one where he's talking

971
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:52,320
Speaker 1: to her about this is the example of doping in sports. Okay,

972
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: So Haraway sees this as just revelent because training, quote,

973
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: training and technology make every Olympian a node in an

974
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:06,840
Speaker 1: in an international technoculture network. So winning an Olympic foot

975
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,840
Speaker 1: race isn't just about running fast or running faster because

976
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: you took this particular medication. It's about quote, the interaction

977
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:21,160
Speaker 1: of medicine, diet, training practices, clothing and equipment, manufacturer and manufacture,

978
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:25,360
Speaker 1: visualization and time keeping. In other words, like that that

979
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: that Olympic runner is the product of this, this vast

980
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 1: interconnected system, These ideas of what a runner is and

981
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 1: all of these technologies that make it possible and it's

982
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: all artificial to her, right, like all of that is

983
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: an example of being a cyborg. She even goes so

984
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:42,919
Speaker 1: far as to point out that before the Civil War,

985
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:46,200
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. Before the Civil War, there weren't

986
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 1: right and left shoes. You just had shoes. Uh, And

987
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: that the the invention of a right shoe and a

988
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: left shoe, you know, was essentially yes, it was for comfortability,

989
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: but also to you know, maximize walking and run. Yeah,

990
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: to say nothing of reebok pomps exactly, all those all

991
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 1: those sweet hoops that you're and so Harroway actually addresses

992
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 1: the feminism thing here, and it basically comes down to

993
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 1: that she doesn't buy into that version of feminism that

994
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,760
Speaker 1: is she calls quote goddess feminism, where man, I really

995
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:23,720
Speaker 1: want Kristen and Caroline away on this our our colleagues

996
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: who do stuff mom. Now, I thought about that. I

997
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: did a quick search. I don't think they've covered this

998
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,279
Speaker 1: topic before, but I think it would be perfect, it

999
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Uh So, Anyway, she doesn't she didn't

1000
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: buy into that the the the kind of idea that

1001
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 1: you you shake off the modern world and somehow connect

1002
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: to Mother Earth. Right. Instead, she sees that the realities

1003
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 1: of modern life include a relationship between people and technology,

1004
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: and this is such an intimate relationship between those things

1005
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: that it's impossible to tell where we begin in the end.

1006
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: So again we're getting back to that science fiction cyborg

1007
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:00,799
Speaker 1: and thinking of like episode of Star Trek the Next

1008
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: Generation with data, right, But he's like, am I human?

1009
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: Am I in android? As opposed to the board model,

1010
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 1: which is very much like look, you can see the

1011
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 1: human part is the white skin stuff and then the

1012
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 1: rest is just all you know, trip to lows madness.

1013
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 1: So for her, one of the fundamentals about cyborgs and

1014
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:30,160
Speaker 1: how we're connected to modern society is one of our

1015
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: most important commodities. It's a commodity that you're listening to

1016
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:34,919
Speaker 1: right now, and that Robert and I make a living

1017
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: off of information. Uh, cyborgs are information machines, right, So

1018
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: I think like in a way we could say, like

1019
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: if you out there right now are listening to podcasts

1020
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: like I do. You've got your phone, there's some kind

1021
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: of platform on it, it's running, uh the MP three file,

1022
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: and you're listening to us talk about cyborgs while you're

1023
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 1: doing whatever, your laundry, your commute, uh, you know, whatever

1024
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:03,560
Speaker 1: your exer sizing. Uh. That is making you into an

1025
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: information machine. And we're part of that information machine. Yeah, indeed. Um. So,

1026
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 1: like one of the ideas here too, is that there's

1027
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:13,920
Speaker 1: there's no longer a dichotomy of natural and artificial in

1028
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: our world. Everything is chimera, everything is cyborg. And here's

1029
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: the thing. There's no natural order. There's only the order

1030
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: of reinvention. We are all the new Peggy. Um, and

1031
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:27,000
Speaker 1: we can be any version of Peggy that we want

1032
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah. And this, uh, this is where it

1033
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: gets really relevant, I think, to modern day society. Right. So,

1034
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: Haroway further goes into it by talking about erotic fascination

1035
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: with cyborgs. She refers to quote the violation of boundaries

1036
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: by a cyborg as a pleasurable tight coupling between parts

1037
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: that are not supposed to touch. And I read that,

1038
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: and I thought of and I hope you haven't seen this,

1039
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 1: and I don't wish it upon any of our audience.

1040
00:58:55,840 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 1: But the episode of Torchwood, the TV show that is

1041
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: called cyber Woman, have you seen this? I may have

1042
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: watched this one. It's just like first second, yeah, first season,

1043
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 1: it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, I did watch this one and

1044
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: it's and it's you know, basically the premises in the

1045
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: Dr Hugh universe or these cyborgs called cybermen, and they

1046
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 1: just look like big kind of like robots, but they've

1047
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: got like human brains in them or some some organic

1048
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 1: parts in them. And uh, somewhere along the line they

1049
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: this woman was made into a cyber woman, and so

1050
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 1: she's like conflicted with between man and machine. But the

1051
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: design that they did for this episode is just so

1052
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 1: insulting to this poor actress's basically wearing like a cyborg bikini. Uh.

1053
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: And and and it really to me, I was like, oh,

1054
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: there's that erotic fascination with the pleasurable tight coupling of

1055
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 1: the cyborg right like like clearly somebody who had access

1056
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: to the BBC's uh finances, was like, this is what

1057
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: our viewers want. They want to see this half naked

1058
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 1: cyborg lady. And to me, that leads us to the

1059
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: real heart of it, the heart of Harroway's argument, the

1060
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: trans humanism everything we've been talking about here today, and

1061
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: this comes via Hales and she says, the cyborg becomes

1062
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 1: the stage on which are performed contestation about body boundaries

1063
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: that have often marked class, ethnic, and cultural differences. So

1064
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 1: we're looking at a complex hybridization that's going to get

1065
01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: rid of our old fashioned concepts of what is natural

1066
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: versus what is artificial? Right Like, so again, like this

1067
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 1: is what I imagined Harroway was thinking of. Breast implants

1068
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 1: was probably what she was thinking of when she was

1069
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:50,680
Speaker 1: thinking about the like the erotic fascination of cyborgs. Uh.

1070
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: But it throws away binary concepts like gender. Right. And

1071
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:59,439
Speaker 1: as we're recording this, it made me think of what's

1072
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 1: going on in with Carolina right now with this law

1073
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: that's got a lot of people upset on both sides

1074
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:11,400
Speaker 1: about transgender people and public restrooms. Uh. And you know,

1075
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 1: wherever you fall on that, that is a transition from

1076
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 1: a binary duality that is totally freaking people out right. Uh.

1077
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning. Like when you think about

1078
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: the cyborg transition that our whole world is going through

1079
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: right now, get ready for infinite identities, like any possible combination.

1080
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,560
Speaker 1: We're just squeamish right now about something that doesn't fit

1081
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: into one of our two categories. Right for restrooms, cyborg

1082
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: ism makes an infinite possibility of identities available or genders available, right, Yeah, indeed.

1083
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:58,480
Speaker 1: I mean it also reminds me of the recent episode

1084
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: that we did on hyper religion. Uh. And some I

1085
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: think we've had conversations about this as well, about religious

1086
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:06,440
Speaker 1: beliefs that are, you know, kind of the salad bar

1087
01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 1: approach to religion. It's like a lot of us are

1088
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:12,760
Speaker 1: engaging in a kind of cybernetic religion instead of saying like,

1089
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:15,760
Speaker 1: this is an absolute truth. And instead of saying this

1090
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 1: is an absolute truth, we're saying, you know, I'm going

1091
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: to build my truth out of this element and this

1092
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 1: element and this element and create the kind of cyber

1093
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:30,439
Speaker 1: cyborg um worldview that makes the most sense to me. Yeah, totally. Uh.

1094
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:33,560
Speaker 1: And and Harroway actually has a quote that actually makes

1095
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:37,760
Speaker 1: sense to me, uh, with regards to this, especially to absolutes.

1096
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:42,200
Speaker 1: She says, good or bad nature, or nurture right or wrong,

1097
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: it's messier than that. And that's that's a great way

1098
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 1: to put it, Like, it's messier than that. So if

1099
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:52,040
Speaker 1: you're gnashing your teeth one way or the other over

1100
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 1: what's going on in North Carolina right now, it's messier

1101
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: than that. And then there's the networked aspect of all

1102
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 1: of this. So we're not isolated individuals within our own

1103
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: skulls were essentially part of the matrix. We're we're all

1104
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: part of that massive battery. And that's that's not a

1105
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 1: bad thing. That's one of the things that she drives

1106
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 1: home is that we are we are, we are, we

1107
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 1: are all networked together, and that's something that should uh

1108
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:20,920
Speaker 1: that we should pay more attention to and not district card. Yeah.

1109
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 1: So that subsequently, out of all of Harroway's ideas, is

1110
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:28,280
Speaker 1: where we get cyber feminism from. And this is not

1111
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: her term, that's right, and this means that there is

1112
01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:35,960
Speaker 1: no natural role quote unquote natural for a female in society,

1113
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:38,400
Speaker 1: that we're past that, and that we're already kind of

1114
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 1: of post human in that respect, and I think kanz

1115
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: Ru sums it up nicely in that Wired paper from

1116
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 1: n quote. Feminists around the world have seized on this possibility.

1117
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: Cyber feminism is based on the idea that, in conjunction

1118
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 1: with technology, it's possible to construct your identity, your sexuality,

1119
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: even your gender, just as you please. And that is

1120
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 1: kind of I think the appeal of trans humanism. This

1121
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 1: is the point where I think we're moving from cyborg

1122
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 1: to trans human, right, or at least the conceptions. Maybe

1123
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:13,560
Speaker 1: they're the same thing when you get down to it, right,

1124
01:04:13,560 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: I'd be curious what harroway has take is on that.

1125
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's what we're talking about, is really kind

1126
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 1: of evolving your identity beyond what is considered your natural state. Right.

1127
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 1: And of course this also ties into the whole area

1128
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:30,240
Speaker 1: of race and racial identity um, which is certainly certainly

1129
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,919
Speaker 1: falls under that messy category that Harroway um laid out

1130
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:37,760
Speaker 1: in her paper. Because you know, there are aspects of

1131
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 1: racial and trans racial identity that we're very open to

1132
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: exploring and in our our modern culture. There are other

1133
01:04:45,440 --> 01:04:47,640
Speaker 1: areas that are a lot more taboo, like, for instance,

1134
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:51,560
Speaker 1: identifying as African American if you are in fact of

1135
01:04:51,640 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 1: Caucasian descent, Like this brings to mind, uh, the story

1136
01:04:55,960 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: of a c p UM leader Rachel dolisal but came

1137
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 1: out in recent years. Yeah, the specific example here being

1138
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 1: that but she was born Caucasian to a Caucasian family,

1139
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:10,760
Speaker 1: but that she was portraying herself, yeah, and said that

1140
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 1: she identified as African American. Uh. Yeah, and this was

1141
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: an idea that basically nobody was comfortable with. Yeah, everybody,

1142
01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:23,160
Speaker 1: the media and and so harroway. You know, she says, well,

1143
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:28,240
Speaker 1: but everything can be reconstructed between technology and biology, right,

1144
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 1: so then everything's up for grabs identity wise, So all

1145
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: basic assumptions about quote unquote how things are come into question.

1146
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 1: So she you know, whether we're talking about identity, ethnicity, gender,

1147
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 1: all of it is fluid. And here's the part, right, like,

1148
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 1: like we see examples like that pop up or the

1149
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:52,040
Speaker 1: North Carolina restroom thing pop up, and and it's like

1150
01:05:52,080 --> 01:05:55,960
Speaker 1: they seem like they're blips. We cannot escape this. This

1151
01:05:56,040 --> 01:05:59,640
Speaker 1: is where humanity is heading. And it's just these are

1152
01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: kind lake I guess, growing pains along the way. Yeah,

1153
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: I mean it makes me think of pretty much any

1154
01:06:07,400 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 1: kind of trans human topic makes me think of in

1155
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: in Banks Culture series. In in that setting, the humans

1156
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 1: of the culture they live these extra long lives. There

1157
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:23,360
Speaker 1: they're able to consciously and perhaps subconsciously administer various levels

1158
01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:25,840
Speaker 1: of pharmaceuticals into their own body to to to meet

1159
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:28,400
Speaker 1: whatever their needs are. But they also throughout their long lives,

1160
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:31,160
Speaker 1: they'll change their own gender. Uh, they will change their

1161
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:33,720
Speaker 1: they may decide they need wings, They might want to

1162
01:06:33,720 --> 01:06:36,520
Speaker 1: sort of change species. They might want to live in

1163
01:06:36,520 --> 01:06:39,640
Speaker 1: a virtual environment instead of a physical one. And uh,

1164
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:42,600
Speaker 1: I can I can't remember remember a specific example, but

1165
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 1: I can well imagine an individual in the culture changing

1166
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: their race and it being no big deal either. But

1167
01:06:49,760 --> 01:06:53,040
Speaker 1: we're not quite there yet. Uh, for a number of reasons.

1168
01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: Maybe that'll Yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm stretching a

1169
01:06:55,120 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 1: little too far here, but maybe that will be We

1170
01:06:57,400 --> 01:06:59,680
Speaker 1: we visit this idea often on the show. A couple

1171
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 1: of hun your years from now, people will look back

1172
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:04,800
Speaker 1: at us and be like, they were just so uptight. Yeah,

1173
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:09,760
Speaker 1: they were so stuck on their identities, their singular identities. Uh,

1174
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:14,080
Speaker 1: and now we're all cyborgs. Well put, well put. Now.

1175
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:16,480
Speaker 1: We don't have time to go into into all these

1176
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:18,040
Speaker 1: in this episode, but I do want to to to

1177
01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 1: mention that hard waits work has been tremendously influential on

1178
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:25,800
Speaker 1: individuals and a number of different disciplines. She's an influenced

1179
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:31,280
Speaker 1: views on science, economics, computer development, thermodynamics, information theory. So yeah,

1180
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:32,960
Speaker 1: you can you can go online and you can look

1181
01:07:33,040 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: up cyborg economics and it is a thing that people

1182
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 1: have written about um rather exhaustively. Yeah, and so you know,

1183
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 1: here's how I want I want to close it out

1184
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:47,120
Speaker 1: how we started off. So somebody out there is writing

1185
01:07:47,200 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 1: screenplay right now for DC's Cyborg movie. Uh, and I

1186
01:07:52,920 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of potential there. I don't knowing,

1187
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,160
Speaker 1: knowing what I know about superhero movies and in particular

1188
01:07:59,200 --> 01:08:01,640
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers super her movies, I'm not you know, I

1189
01:08:01,640 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of high hopes that they're going

1190
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:06,720
Speaker 1: to particularly address Donna Harroway's themes, for instance, in the

1191
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:10,000
Speaker 1: Cyborg movie. But hey, if you're listening and you're working

1192
01:08:10,040 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: on the Cyborg movie, maybe think about the fluidity I've

1193
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:18,200
Speaker 1: identity that Cyborg could have or the flow of information

1194
01:08:18,280 --> 01:08:20,400
Speaker 1: that seems to me like something that they'll probably tap

1195
01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:24,240
Speaker 1: into their like real excited about the idea of humanity

1196
01:08:24,600 --> 01:08:28,840
Speaker 1: connecting with machines and using information is like power in

1197
01:08:28,880 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.

1198
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: But the character is African American? Right, is that explored

1199
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:36,800
Speaker 1: at all in the comics, Like the idea that like

1200
01:08:36,840 --> 01:08:40,640
Speaker 1: the transformation of Really, I don't, I don't remember it

1201
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:46,120
Speaker 1: ever being explored as like, uh, it's not specifically like ethnically, No,

1202
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:50,840
Speaker 1: there is a point where he transcends being human and

1203
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:54,280
Speaker 1: he sort of becomes like the T one thousand, he

1204
01:08:54,320 --> 01:08:58,599
Speaker 1: turns into this like gold liquid metal. Uh. And that

1205
01:08:58,800 --> 01:09:01,680
Speaker 1: I think that I think is maybe somebody's saying like,

1206
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 1: oh well, the natural extension for the cyborg thing would

1207
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:08,320
Speaker 1: be that it would be beyond the identity of of

1208
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:11,280
Speaker 1: of being African American, or of being even human. Right,

1209
01:09:11,600 --> 01:09:14,519
Speaker 1: But he was so recognizable in the other form that

1210
01:09:14,520 --> 01:09:17,240
Speaker 1: they brought him back around to the to the form

1211
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:19,360
Speaker 1: that will be in the movie. You gotta put something

1212
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 1: on the comic book cover. Oh yeah, yeah exactly. Um.

1213
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,040
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's going to go into outer space,

1214
01:09:25,120 --> 01:09:28,479
Speaker 1: if there's gonna be a little nod declines incline there

1215
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: with the outer space stuff, and then you know, surely

1216
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: I would imagine they would talk about the ethics, uh,

1217
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:39,320
Speaker 1: surrounding it, how he will be treated. What I'm concerned about, though,

1218
01:09:39,360 --> 01:09:41,599
Speaker 1: is that it's going to end up being like all

1219
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 1: that nineteen eighties cyborg fiction we carry up with, which

1220
01:09:44,600 --> 01:09:49,639
Speaker 1: is just you know, agonizing over humanity. Is human anymore?

1221
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:52,080
Speaker 1: Is he not? And a gun comes out of his legs,

1222
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:55,840
Speaker 1: right exactly. All right, Well, we will see, we will see. Yeah, yeah,

1223
01:09:55,840 --> 01:09:57,559
Speaker 1: I hope they incorporate some of those ideas that would

1224
01:09:57,560 --> 01:09:59,920
Speaker 1: be that would be very cool. Well, uh, you know,

1225
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:03,000
Speaker 1: I think we've done a pretty good job of tackling

1226
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:08,639
Speaker 1: the theory the philosophy of cyborgs. We maybe didn't get

1227
01:10:08,640 --> 01:10:12,160
Speaker 1: into the technology that you might be interested in, but

1228
01:10:12,360 --> 01:10:14,680
Speaker 1: you know, out there, let us know, let us know

1229
01:10:14,720 --> 01:10:18,559
Speaker 1: what you know about cyborgs that we missed. Uh, you know,

1230
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:22,960
Speaker 1: what do you think about harroway and uh, cyberfeminism or

1231
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:27,160
Speaker 1: the ethics surrounding this, uh, the black mirror style Peggy

1232
01:10:27,280 --> 01:10:32,040
Speaker 1: android as wife scenario? Yeah, indeed. And one thing I

1233
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:34,840
Speaker 1: would love to hear is, first of all, I would

1234
01:10:34,840 --> 01:10:37,000
Speaker 1: love to hear people take what you what we've talked

1235
01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:39,559
Speaker 1: about in this episode and apply that to like a

1236
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,720
Speaker 1: night bad nineteen eighties cyborg and give us a like

1237
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:47,559
Speaker 1: nice intelligent read on that simple character. Or likewise, if

1238
01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 1: you can think of an example of a really intelligent

1239
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:54,719
Speaker 1: treatment of of cyborgs in fiction does tie into this material,

1240
01:10:55,080 --> 01:10:58,200
Speaker 1: I would definitely want to hear about that. Man, there's

1241
01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:01,120
Speaker 1: a there was a missed opportunity when they remade RoboCop,

1242
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:03,600
Speaker 1: they had a lot of opportunity to dive into some

1243
01:11:03,640 --> 01:11:05,600
Speaker 1: of this stuff, but they just kind of remade it.

1244
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:07,679
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I haven't seen that one yet. It's not bad,

1245
01:11:07,720 --> 01:11:10,960
Speaker 1: but it's just, you know, it's pretty much just a remake.

1246
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:12,639
Speaker 1: And then they have more c g I, so there's

1247
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:14,840
Speaker 1: a lot more crazy gun play because I remember the

1248
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: original exported a little bit like the whole bit. Maybe

1249
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:19,000
Speaker 1: it was in the sequel where they were like, oh, well,

1250
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 1: this isn't him, this is just this is a tribute

1251
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:24,240
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, that wasn't there. So hey,

1252
01:11:24,280 --> 01:11:25,519
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, pull that

1253
01:11:25,600 --> 01:11:28,360
Speaker 1: cybernetic enhancement out of your pocket. Head on over to

1254
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:30,120
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where we'll

1255
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:32,920
Speaker 1: find all the episodes. You'll find videos, you'll find blog posts,

1256
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 1: you'll find links out to our social media accounts like Twitter, Tumbler, Facebook,

1257
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:41,280
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And you could use the old fashioned cybernetic

1258
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:43,960
Speaker 1: way of getting in touch with us, write us an email.

1259
01:11:44,160 --> 01:11:46,439
Speaker 1: You could use it on a desktop computer or a

1260
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: mobile device, or maybe with your mind. We are at

1261
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