03 Jan 2023

Robot: What is my purpose?

Rick: You pass butter.

Robot: Oh my God...

Rick: Yeah, welcome to the club, pal.

-- Rick & Morty, S01E09, Something Ricked This Way Comes

Then what are modern-day humans? 

Are we somewhere between early Homo Sapiens and Terminator?

Is that even an appropriately framed spectrum? Are they separate camps? Is there a clear line between humans, cyborgs, and androids? 

When is a human considered a cyborg? When is a cyborg considered an android? To go full circle, at what point is an Android considered human?

You might need a Doctorate in Philosophy to answer these questions, and I would argue, even that's not enough to draw any definitive lines in the sand because the issue is so incredibly nuanced.

That's human of me to even want to draw clear distinctions between these categories.

For what, to make it easier for my brain to comprehend these ideas? To communicate these ideas?

I'll introduce a little humility and leave these terms appropriately vague for now. A healthy level of skepticism is needed to move on from here.

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First let's analyze the definition of a cyborg:  "a person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body." 

• Does a cyborg have to be a person? What if it's a dog? Does a canine cyborg appropriately describe such an organism? or would a dog just be a cyborg?

  • • Cybernetic organism sounds like it applies to all organisms, why is the definition limited to humans?

• Is the definition limited to the physical? What about the mental?

  • • Is mental ability considered a physical ability since the mind is part of the body?

    • Do we need to consider the mind and body the same or is a mind-body duality useful for our definitions?

• What are normal human limitations? The average across a species? My intuition points to Mode (the number that occurs most often in a data set) as the most reliable metric for determining "normal."

  • • Is early Homo Sapiens' use of a spear considered an enhancement to normal human limitations?

• Mechanical elements? Is electrical considered mechanical in this case?

  • • Is a strictly neural link enhancement considered mechanical? What if the processing hardware sits outside of the body?

• Built into the body? What if it's external to the body? Why does the capacity to extend normal human limitations start and end with the body? Where is the cutoff between a tool and cybernetic enhancement?

  • • Is a prosthetic limb part of the body? Or is situated such that it gives the illusion of being part of the body? Even procedures like osseointegration (the direct structural and functional connection between living bone and the surface of a load-bearing implant) are used for things like prosthetic limbs and dental implants.

    • Are these technologies really fusions or are they just situated within the bone so that they're sturdy enough to support a load?

    • Do dental implants, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, cochlear implants, and steel plates really extend human limits beyond "normal" limitations? Or do they bring us back up to baseline?

• Where is the cutoff between a tool and a cybernetic enhancement?

  • • Is someone using a laptop considered enhanced? Or are they accessing a system/tool external to the body?

    • Does the information accessed through the internet enhance our physical body? Does it detract from it? Are we built to handle this type of information overload?

    • What's the difference between using running water in your house and using the internet? Aren't both systems set up for easy access to water and information? Would we consider a city's water system to be a cybernetic enhancement?

• What about questions outside of the definition itself?

  • • Does a well-balanced diet extend a person's physical abilities? Do the benefits of a nutritious diet extend the mechanical elements within the body? How is that different from a synthetic enhancement? Is a nutritious diet considered "normal?"

    • Does improving muscle mass, speed, power, and agility via exercise and nutrition considered an enhancement?

Phew. Confused yet?

Mirriam-Webster defines osseointegration as "the firm anchoring of a surgical implant (as in dentistry or in bone surgery) by the grown of bone around it without fibrous tissue formation at the interface."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osseointegration