WEBVTT - When We Think About Cyborgs 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:15.400 dot com. Hey you wasn't the stuff to blow your mind. 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.000 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Sager. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:24.440 So Robert sideboard the words cyborg. You hear that, What 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.200 does it mean to you? What is it? What pops 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.160 up immediately? Well, you know, I'm it kind of depends 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.400 on how far back in my own time when I 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:34.760 go like, I can't help but instantly go back to 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:40.000 being a kid, where cyborg meant terminator, cyborg meant RoboCop. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.320 And so you and I are both children of the eighties, 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.680 and that's cyborgs were at their height of popularity, probably right, Yeah, 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.839 this idea that like, there's a machine, but it's it's 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.000 got at least a little bit of humanity to it, 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.959 but nothing nothing that's going to hold it back too 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.120 much from being like a you know, a terrorizing robot 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.880 or this this this brutal metal, all badass. Yeah, I 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.160 U and I tease this a little bit on social media, 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.960 but for me, I immediately go to a comic book 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:14.319 character named Cyborg, and it's a character that it was 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.880 first created in the seventies, and that's you know, seventies eighties, 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.240 that's when I was reading these comic books. Uh. He 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.360 is an African American character who becomes a cyborg because 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.520 he's in some kind of like athletic accident or a 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.160 car accident or something, and his dad is like a 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.760 cyber next genius and rebuilds his body and he becomes 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.040 a superhero and joins the Teen Titans. A lot of 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.120 people out there may know this character from the Teen 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.840 Titans cartoon show in the last decade. Yeah, my nephew 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.119 was telling me all about Cyborg and I was hanging 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.360 out with him in the past few months, and it 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.240 was kind of I was impressed because it sounds like 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.040 Teen Titans has done a good job of sort of 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.640 giving a thoughtful treatment of Cyborg, Like what does it 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.160 mean that this character is a little bit machine and 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.880 a little bit human kind of middle it's kind of 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.840 I mean, the cartoon is more of a comedy. But 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.480 so the caveat I wanted to place on this is, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.720 you know, d C is rolling out its big summer 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.359 blockbuster universe of superhero movies, and Cyborg is going to 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.040 have his own movie and he's going to be in 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.400 the Justice League. Movies and I haven't seen it, but 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.080 I guess that Batman v. Superman movie spoilers like hints 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.760 at him in somewhere. Uh So, I kept thinking as 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:28.480 we were doing the research for this episode, which if 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:30.959 you guys out there haven't guessed by now, is about cyborgs, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.720 uh it, I kept thinking, you know, the people who 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.080 are writing and doing all the pre production on that 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.200 cyborg tent pole movie right now, I really hope they 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.760 listened to this episode because we've got a lot of 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.600 interesting themes going on here with the idea of cyborgs 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.400 in general, and and that is what this episode is 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.200 going to revolve around. Now. Certainly, we've had episodes in 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.720 the past that have dealt with sort of like mind 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.799 machine interfaces, including Joe and I did one in the 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.359 past few months. I'll make sure we linked to that 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.480 on the landing page for this episode, and it will 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.440 be doing episodes in the future. I'm sure about cybernetic enhancements, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:11.640 prosthetic loombs, etcetera. But this episode is, as the title implies, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.320 it's about what do we think about when we think 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.360 about cyboards. What is the meaning of cyborg as a 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.400 word and as a trope and as a metaphor for 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.600 understanding the human experience. Yeah, and what I especially got 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.640 out of it is that cyborg in general, there's a 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.440 lot of philosophical arguments to make that we're already cyborgs, 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:37.240 and that it is sort of like the natural evolution 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.200 towards trans humanism, which is another thing we talked about 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.520 on this show quite a bit. Uh. And I want 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.840 to read a quote by Donna Harroway, who we're going 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.600 to talk about later, but this really struck me as 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.960 being crucial to us kind of thinking throughout the episode 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.480 about she says, technology is not neutral. We are inside 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.000 of what we make, and it is inside of us. 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.840 We're living in a world of connections, and it mat 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.720 rs which ones get made and unmade. So she's not 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.240 just talking about like you know, pop sci fi, you 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.680 plug a USB poured into your ear, cyborg, that kind 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.120 of connection. She's talking about like cultural connections as well, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.840 and sort of how we define reality based on that. Yeah, 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.360 So I think that that is just in general, let's 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.600 try to hold onto that while we're talking about all 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.640 this stuff. You two out there think now that unt mean, 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:28.760 you know, cast aside your sci fi ideas as well, 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.240 because yeah, I think she even I can't remember she 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.239 if she mentioned RoboCop in her money, and she definitely 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.000 mentions some of the sci fi visions of cyborg because 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.640 that's part of the metaphor. And we will, you know, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.080 if we haven't thoroughly satiated your pop culture cyborg references, 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.960 will make them more throughout the episode. But there's too many, 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.680 I think, maybe to get them all. Yeah, yeah, they're 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.839 just they're rampant, especially in the wake of Terminator and RoboCop. 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.600 Just just dealing with films alone, there's so many fabulously 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.360 horrible be movies with cyboards and yeah, totally. But before 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.839 we get into the the word cyborg and where that 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.839 comes from, uh, let's talk a little bit about cybernetics, 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.360 which one of the core papers here. It comes from 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.000 m T mathematician Norbert Liner, who wrote Cybernetics or Control 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.680 and Communication in the Animal and Machine Back And this 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.039 is a work to dealt with information theory with a 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.680 focus on feedback and the similarities between a vast group 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.800 of different phenomena from everything from throwing a ball to 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.840 running a company to launching launching a missile. It's all 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.839 about you're doing things, you're getting feedback, and that allows 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.640 you to uh for rational control of everything from machines 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.039 to economic systems to communities. Uh, and even a way 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.440 to arguably tackle WI coul problems. UM use the term 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.160 we could problems, but essentially that was kind of the 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.880 area was getting into. Yeah. And I think one thing 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.000 that's important to keep in mind about Weiner's research, or 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.120 I guess just it's not really research as much as 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.200 just sort of like a general like pitch for the future, 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.200 saying like this is a field, this is an approach 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.120 that we can use to advance and to understand. He's 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.720 coming right on the heels of World War two. Uh, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:18.080 and he is very much in particular considering cybernetics systems 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:23.159 as being constituted by flows of information. And there's a 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.400 really great article by a woman named Katherine Hales uh 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.240 and she's she's at it, or at least this is 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:30.880 hosted at u c l A. She may not be 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.200 there anymore, but just faculty and uh. She's basically looking 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.920 at like the idea of Winer's like version of cyborg 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.680 ism and how it mixes with sort of liberal humanism 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.080 as well. And she is my understanding, maybe not a 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.120 student of but a disciple of Donna Harroway, who we're 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.960 going to talk about extensively later. Um. But basically, the 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.279 Winer version goes like this, right, and we're we're gonna 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.320 use this analogy a lot. I think if a blind 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.400 man is used in a cane, is he a cyborg? 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.279 And the Winer argument would say yes, because it's about 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.400 the flow of information, right. The flow of information going 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.480 through the cane is building reality for the blind man, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.720 therefore it makes him a cyborg. The other argument he 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.400 would probably make is a deaf person using a hearing 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.120 aid is a cyborg? Right, yeah, And that is going 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.080 to be a recurring theme, like to what to what 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.880 extent is this individual cyborg? And I think this strong 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:29.800 case to be made that, Yeah, when you are even 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.840 basic tool use use cybernetic, it's inherently cybernetic. And when 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.280 we're inherently cybernetic organism. I'm wearing contact lenses right now, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.480 that probably makes me a cyborg. Yeah yeah, So, and 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.040 that also involves like dental low work. You know, you're 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.120 wearing a time piece on your farm, wearable computing, um. 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:51.800 And you can of course get into This isn't even 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.880 getting into the smartphone. Yeah. The whole smartphone thing is 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:59.600 just like mind blowing lee cybernetic. I should also throw 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.480 in it. He took the name Cybernettics from the Greek 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:07.040 word kuber mettes, which means steersman. Uh. And you can 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.320 think of just sort of the classic image of you know, 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.680 a helmsman at a boat, uh, you know, taking the 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.960 taking the old raft across the river sticks. Right. Yeah, 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.560 that's what I was thinking of immediately. Why is that 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.120 like the first helmsman I go to his death? Yeah, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.120 I mean it's a great helmsman. He has an important 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.080 because he always gets across. Yeah, the Coxswain of the dead. Uh. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.760 But it's essentially here, the steersman is depending on a 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:34.760 constant flow of information and that governs the interface. So yeah, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.800 one of Winer's you know, big arguments is uh. And 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.640 he doesn't I don't think maybe make this explicitly, but 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.240 you know, basically it comes across as our cyborgs modifications 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.080 that are intended to compensate for deficiencies. So I just 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:53.160 mentioned my contacts deficient eyesight, so I wear contacts, right, 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.679 Or are they interventions that are designed to enhance our 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.600 normal functioning. Right, So I'm you know, I don't know 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.080 of this, but are there a lot of people who 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.959 wear contact lenses to give themselves better than vision? Um, well, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.520 it's not necessarily good if that happens, because my my 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:15.000 eyesight changed, and it apparently occasionally, like I fight gets 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.960 like it improves, which throws your contacts out of whack. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.400 And so that's what happened to me. So I'd actually 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.800 get my prescription taken down a little bit. Okay, Yeah, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.840 well that's interesting. Okay, So but yeah, so basically we're 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.920 looking at this as like, is it is it both? 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.120 I think it is. I think it's both. It's both 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.640 enhancing our our pre existing abilities but also compensating for 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.560 deficiencies that we have. Yeah, and there's like a blur somewhere. 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.960 But because deficiency and how do you define what's like 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.000 the what is the ideal human experience that we are 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:52.040 either correcting for or going beyond? Uh that Like there's 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.360 no there's no just a template for the human. There's 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.960 no basic human, right, so that line is just always 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.240 going to be distorted. Yeah, and Haroway, who we're going 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.960 to talk about later, it's very important to this, uh, 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.880 she adds in a distinction that is beyond you know, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.720 cybernetics is beyond anything that fuses the device with a 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:17.720 biological organism. It replaces cognition and neural feedback, so it 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.359 challenges the difference between us as humans and us as animals. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.800 So maybe that's a way that we can draw the 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.439 deficiency enhancement line, although again depends on what animal you're 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.200 comparing yourself. Plenty of examples of animals that use tools, 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.959 and including many primates crows, Jo and I are discussed 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.480 in recent episodes. So so yeah, even when when you 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.400 start applying tool use to the scenario, you can make 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.160 a case that there are plenty of cybernetical um, you know, 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.600 animals out there. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's something to keep 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.679 in mind as well. It's not just a human phenomenon. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.480 So the last bit from Hails that I think is 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.160 important to consider when you're looking at Weiner is she 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:00.400 makes the argument that Weiner is sort of conflicted between 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:05.959 his uh somewhat humanistic endeavor that he envisions for cybernetics 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.960 and his use or proposal of use of them as 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.880 being effective killing machines for the military. So there's a 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.280 little bit of a contradiction there that she points out, 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.839 and again I would say, well, can they be both? 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:25.160 And clearly the Department of Defense would hope so, because, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.680 as we'll talk about, millions and millions of dollars have 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.400 gone into us developing cyborgs for warfare. Well, it kind 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:32.800 of gets down to the fact if you were if 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.480 you're going to repair or you know, or augment human 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.199 form your change, you're also augmenting everything that is human, 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.199 both the good stuff and the bad stuff. So so, hey, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.880 a blind man can read a book again perhaps, but 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.560 also maybe a blind man can shoot lasers out of 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.400 his eyes at the enemy. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.199 like a lot of the research that we're seeing that's 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.319 sort of in its infancy with brain computer interfaces, that's 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.040 where it's at right now, right where it's like, we're 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.280 developing this so that like maybe a person who's missing 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.120 a limb can move a robotic limb with their mind, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.000 but the application moves on from there. Right there, a 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.920 person with their mind could control a missile or something. Now, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.439 it's important note that nowadays very few people call themselves 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.240 cyberneticists in the you know, the original sense of the word, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.239 because cybernetics kind of petered out as a scientific discipline 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.400 for a few different reasons. So it branched off into 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.280 more promising fields of cognitive science and robotics, but it 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.480 also lost on funding. It couldn't deal with the ultimate 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:38.040 gap between organic and mechanic mechanisms of control and communication. 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.760 And the first cyborg recorded in history was a white 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.880 lab rat that was experimented on at New York's Rockland 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.720 State Hospital in the late fifties, so that's a good 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.920 ten years after Winer's making his proposals, uh, And basically 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.000 it had a tiny osmatic pump that was implanted inside 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.880 its body that injected controlled the control old doses of 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.679 chemicals into it to sort of regulate its physical systems. 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.720 And of course this is interesting though because it then 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.040 again draws this back to what is a cyboard because 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.560 perhaps you could because just mentioning the pharmaceuticals, like the 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.400 first human to take a drug, be it you know, 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.520 something that I've found in woods or certainly are our 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.840 modern pharmacological world, like that is kind of inherently cybernetic. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.200 You're changing who you are and and creating this new, 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.720 perhaps ideal, idealized version of who you are. So I'm 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.160 on a penny dreadful kick, as as you guys out 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:33.920 there might know, I've been talking about it a lot 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.320 on the show lately. And uh, there's this great quote 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.160 where the Victor Frankenstein on the show is a drug 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.120 addict and he's I'm assuming it's harrowin or some opiate 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.000 that he's constantly injecting into himself. He gives this big 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.040 speech about why it's okay because basically the body is 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.120 just a bunch of biological and chemicot chemical processes and 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.479 all he's doing is either accelerating or decelerating those processes 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.880 with the you know, the narcotics. He's a lying to himself. 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.360 So you can sort of look at drug use in 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.920 general as cybernetics. As you're saying, Yeah, indeed, all right, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.240 now at this point in the narrative, we're going to 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.400 fast forward to nineteen sixty. Now important note here this 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.040 is a year before Earth put the first human being 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.240 in space, or more specifically, you know, Soviet Union put 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.840 the first thing in space. But yeah, it's especially important 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.640 because what we're going to be talking about is a 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:31.120 paper proposed by manfred E Kleines and Nathan S. Klein. 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.880 They have very similar lesson insformer with the C ladder 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.880 with a K and it's called cyb worgs in space. 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:39.800 And I know that sounds like it would be a joke, 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.120 but hey, it was in nineteen sixty and they were 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.840 pitching a legitimate idea for making space travel easier. Yeah, 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:50.320 and pitching an overall idea, specific ideas and sort of 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:54.200 a philosophy of how to approach taking humans into space. 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.840 Because the model that ultimately one out and the model 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.000 we're still using today, we've put sending humans to stay. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.160 It is like, all right, look at the human being, 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.200 Look at Homo sapiens. This is an organism that is 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.600 evolved not only to live on Earth, but to live 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.800 in a very slim layer of Earth's atmosphere under certain conditions. 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.320 We can't. There's places on Earth where we go and 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.160 we die. So the environmental constraints are very important for 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.040 human life. So what we've been doing is we've been 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.880 taking humans and sending them into space in a capsualized 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.400 version of their own environment, or as much as one 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:32.120 as we can manage to replicate Earth's environment, and take 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.280 that replication with us. Yeah, it's and in a way, 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.840 it's kind of like I'm gonna move from Ohio to Florida, 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.560 but I'm going to make sure that I have all 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.800 I'm bringing Ohio with me, and it's going to be 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.800 like an encapsulated Ohio in flier. Yeah. You dig up 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.720 like a chunk of Ohio and then move it to 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.200 Florida and plant it there. My thermostat is always going 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.840 to keep things Ohio. Um so what clines incline where 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.600 are doing here? Is that? Well? How about we we 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.800 do the the opposite. How about instead of bringing Ohio 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.680 to Florida, what is as much as is humanly possible 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:15.160 or or trans humanly possible, you become a Floridian? What events? 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.320 To what extent can we take a human send them 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.320 into space and change the human so that they can 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.280 actually live in space, or at least they can better 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:31.160 manage what is an imperfect representation of Earth's environment and 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.160 what we're getting at here too. And those of you 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.560 out there who are sci fi fans are probably well 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.320 aware of this, But this is a trope that has 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.960 been used in science fiction, probably before these guys pitched 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.240 this idea. But but sort of the am I man 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.320 or am I machine? Conundrum? And where you know, where 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.000 do I begin? And where does the machine and kind 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.720 of thing that we've seen in pop culture fiction for 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.240 decades now, right. But but these guys, what's fast adating 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.000 to me about this is they pitched this whole thing 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:03.960 about like this is a great way to go to space, 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.800 and there's not one moment where they think about the 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.639 ethical quandary of like what's left over of the human 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.920 being that they're putting all this stuff. Well, they do, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:14.760 and I think part of it is, you know, you 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.679 have to to to bear in mind like the time period, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.879 you know, because putting humans in space was instill it 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:27.720 still is a just tremendously difficult endeavor. And they were saying, hey, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.280 you want to climb the mountain, here's a way, here 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.359 are some possibilities. This is these are some ways you 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.560 can climb the mountain. And you know, it's it's very 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.000 matter of fact. Now granted we've we've steered away from 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.040 from what they outlined, but but you know, I still 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.320 think it's a it's a valid argument. Um, maybe it's 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.560 an argument that ultimately defeats the idea of sending humans 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.199 into space. Uh, you know, long term, but are they 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.360 human anymore? Right or right side word? Or if you're 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.480 having to make all these changes to the human body, 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.639 like does it? Then why are you doing it? To 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.600 begin with? They're saying that this is a means to 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.639 an end, that if you want humans to go into space, 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.520 if you want us to expand beyond this world, then 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:10.960 you have to change what humans are. And this is 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:12.960 a means to an end. Not that we want to 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.439 become cyborgs, but if this is what you want to be, 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.240 this is what you have to Transcending Earth's boundaries are 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.159 the most important thing for us, and we should be 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.040 willing to commit these acts. Um. And the way that 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.680 they start is with a very basic idea, which is respiration. Right, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.199 we we breathe uh, And they say, well, you know, 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.200 for instance, you wear scuba masks when you go swimming underwater. 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.399 Why wouldn't you you know, change your respiration somehow for 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.320 outer space. Their example or metaphor, I guess, is what 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.520 if a fish was intelligent enough to engineer itself something 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.280 that allowed it to live on land and breathe air. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.600 And what was fascinating to me about that was I 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.640 probably talked about this on the show before at least 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.000 talk to you about it. There's this really great Japanese 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.359 manga horror called Geo that's all about fish climbing up 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.600 out of the ocean and they're like strapped into these 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.200 exoskeletons that like keep them alive, and they scuttle around 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.640 and attack people, and it is one of the most 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.280 horrifying images I can ever think of. So these guys 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.800 back in nineteen sixty, we're basically pitching that and saying like, yeah, 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:26.040 let's do that. But but to human beings, uh. And 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:29.960 it comes down to efficiency, right, Like these guys were 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.440 ultimately about efficiently getting into space, especially when you consider, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.600 and we've talked about this before, especially on our Space 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.720 Mirrors episode or or also our episode about space weapons, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.119 how tremendously expensive it is to propel any mass in 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.840 outer space, right, And they talk about human fuel as 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.240 being sort of a detriment. And when they say human fuel, 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.919 what they mean is precisely ten pounds per day, and 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.159 that's two pounds of oxygen to breathe, four pounds of 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.600 fluids to dre and four pounds of food to eat. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:04.959 So that's the way that they look at it is 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.320 like the same way that you would look at like, well, 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.000 we need fuel for our space shuttle, right, and how 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:11.520 much that way is and how much it will cost 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.000 to fly that up. They're considering the human fuel. Yeah, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.679 and it's ultimately like the human engineering problem. It's not 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.600 only the engineering problem of the vessel, but the just 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:24.440 the engineering problem of the human. Yeah, and space. I mean, 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:26.439 I gotta say, like I wrote an episode for our 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.399 video series brain Stuff one time that was all about 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.120 what space would do to the human body and all 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.520 the horrible ways in which you would die if you 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.639 were just exposed to uh space without a suit or 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.720 anything like that. And it's it's pretty vicious. Uh So 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.560 for them, what they were looking at was not just 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:47.760 the purpose of the cyborg as being to mitigate those effects, 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:52.000 but also to take care of those problems automatically and unconsciously, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.679 right that the cyborg wouldn't be thinking about doing it 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.560 as they were doing it. And this is this paper 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.639 is where the word si board comes from. They coined it. 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.440 So um as we're talking about their their work here, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.240 realized that these guys are the granddaddies of all the 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:12.639 ridiculous or um you know, real world ideas that come 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.600 out of it. But we can see that we're already 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.600 getting away from Winer's idea of cyborg just being about 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.400 the flow of information. So I'm gonna read a quick 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.840 quote from Cyborgs and Space to just give you a 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:33.080 taste here, Uh feel like muppet style like Cyborgs and Space, Well, 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.320 maybe no one can put some sort of echo hopefully. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.000 Quote what are some of the devices necessary for creating 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.040 self regulating man machine systems. This self regulation must function 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.919 without the benefit of consciousness in order to cooperate with 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:52.359 the body's own autonomous homeostatic controls. For the exo genuously 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:58.040 extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.560 we propose the term cyboord work. The cyborg deliberately incorporates 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.000 exogeneous components, extending the self regulatory control function of the 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.440 organism in order to adapt to new environments. So that's 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.240 basically their thesis statement. They're starting off and saying like, 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:16.480 all right, this is what we're proposing. May seem a 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.200 little outlandish, but here, let us give you some examples. 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.199