Forums → WEPR → We are all cyborgs now

There's a related worry in philosophy in the field of extended cognition. The basic thought here is that there's an intuition that cognition takes place within the skull. So all of your cognitive processes, achievements, and states can be found in your head.

But there are some obvious counterexamples to this. Suppose a mathematician uses a chalk board or notepad to help work out complex equations. Now there is a very real sense in which her cognitive processes are taking place outside of her head.

Enter in technology - especially the smart phone. Anything that you don't know, you can just look up in a mater of seconds. This creates a worry for how we view the value of knowledge, reliable informants, and understanding.

So it used to be that reliable informants were ones who had knowledge of a particular field - or, at least, of a fact. But now anyone with a smart phone can become a reliable informant about lots of things. And since they have fairly immediate access to that information, we might be able to run an argument that they know this information.

But this raises a larger point. Why study or work understand anything at all when a wealth of information is literally in your pocket (or in your hand taking a picture the wrong way**). So, as epistemic agents, maybe our time would be better spent getting better at Googling things rather than learning new things about the world around us.

** As a side note, please, for the love of God, turn your phone like a camera when you take photos or video. Unless you're taking a picture of something really tall, there's no need for that nonsense.

But this raises a larger point. Why study or work understand anything at all when a wealth of information is literally in your pocket [...]

But there are some obvious counterexamples to this. Suppose a mathematician uses a chalk board or notepad to help work out complex equations. Now there is a very real sense in which her cognitive processes are taking place outside of her head.

But this raises a larger point. Why study or work understand anything at all when a wealth of information is literally in your pocket (or in your hand taking a picture the wrong way**). So, as epistemic agents, maybe our time would be better spent getting better at Googling things rather than learning new things about the world around us.

And I'm not even talking about the obvious security and privacy issues.

i find this a interesting topic. but i'm not entirely sure what the question is.

is it a question if it will happen? if it already happens? till what extent it does or can happen? if it will be available for the common man at some point or now? if we need to stop it from happening? and beside that do i not know what "it" stands for in these questions... does "it" refer to existing technology, possible theoretic technology, or fiction technology. and if someone could give a clear example of such technology, then that would be very appreciated. =)

But this raises a larger point. Why study or work understand anything at all when a wealth of information is literally in your pocket (or in your hand taking a picture the wrong way**). So, as epistemic agents, maybe our time would be better spent getting better at Googling things rather than learning new things about the world around us.

Well, it's not like we fully understand everything there is in the universe. We study and learn and think in order to answer the unanswered, which we wouldn't be able to find on Google.

As a side note, please, for the love of God, turn your phone like a camera when you take photos or video. Unless you're taking a picture of something really tall, there's no need for that nonsense.

But why do that unless you're taking a picture of something really wide?

@partydevil There is a clear question at the very beginning: Are you a transhumanist? Link to wiki article on transhumanism included so you can get an idea of what this is about. I especially want to discuss all around enhancing technologies, their benefits and detriments; everything you noted in your post seems interesting to discuss. Enhancing technologies can be present or future; present (more or less) would be things like fitness/health trackers, smart watches/clothes that track your pulse, temperature, sugar level, etc., data which are sent to your phone for analysis to tell you how you are doing. You can see an example of benefits and detriments in the second link of the OP. Future can be anything within the realm of the possible, like lenses for increased vision, implanted microchip that measures all that can be measured in your body, implanted hormone-'dispenser', stuff like that. That is why I mentioned cyborgs; according to wikipedia a cyborg is part organic and part biomechatronic. Like someone with a pacemaker, for instance.
.
An interesting question I see with transhumanism which you could try to answer is, do you think a human v2.0 is something we should strive for, or do you think we should try to stay as organic as we can unless for medical purposes where it can save life (or maybe not even then)?

oke, tbh that wiki article is written in a pretty boring way. i cant really keep up (or should i say "down") with it. so, just to be clear. if i wear this Athos fitness suite with all it's measurements of my body etc. does that make me transhuman? i mean having a pacemaker sure is cyborgy. it keeps your body running. (playing god, a religious person might say.) it does in some way improve your body abilities. so calling that transhuman is oke i guess (beside the obvious discrimination this word can be used for in a later state of course.) but a suite like that from Athos, or a cellphone or whatever other device, merely gives you loads of information. but it doesn't improve you, you have to do the improving yourself. so i see those things as waste information. with or without the device the result is the same. in this case i wouldn't say it's "cyborg" the technology doesn't make you better like a pacemaker does.

i certainly believe tho that we will be able to give people new bodies at some point in the future (at least for some rich dudes). that when you are born some dna is taken and from that they build you a new body. and when you get old and your 1st body starts to become a problem. then they can fix stuff using the 2nd body. i dunno if a brain-transplantation would ever be possible, but why not aim for that! =P

as for a terminator like cyborg... if they can do a brain-transplantation... why not attach machinery while your at it..? xD

implanted hormone-'dispenser'

do you think a human v2.0 is something we should strive for

as for the part, if we need to strive for it... i don't think we should. but don't ban it either. let people free in going for it or not. look at it like when scientists use themselves as test subject when they cant find volunteers.

for medical purposes where it can save life (or maybe not even then)?

now see, what is a human v2.0? or, when?

Let's clear up some terminology. First, a transhumanist is a person who think that we should strive to use technological advances to improve our capacities and abilities. Someone who reaches this state isn't a transhuman - they are want's called a posthuman. This is an individual who has overcome what the transhumanists identify as the human condition. According to the wiki article, this obtains when an individual reaches a point at which their "basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

I think this definition is where things get interesting - both from an analytic point of view and an ethical one. So the thought is that the individual is, in an obvious way, no longer human. I don't particularly care for this definition, because it carries some biological tones with it. To me, this implies that the individual is either a different species or lacks some sort of biological definition of 'human', such as DNA.

Instead, I think we should the posthuman as one who cannot be classified as living under the constraints of the human condition. The difficulty here is that there a number of features that make us uniquely human. Mortality seems an obvious candidate (though almost all organisms are mortal in the relevant sense). So other things might include rationality, consciousness, moral agency, or even final value qua human.

This is where the ethics of transhumanism comes in. Should we really be striving to augment ourselves in such a way that we lose these uniquely human qualities? I would suggests that this is pretty obviously a terrible idea.

But that brings us back to your original question - what on Earth is a posthuman and what exactly is the goal of transhumanism? Put in terms that we've just seen, transhumanism seems like an awful idea. And this brings up a problem I have with the entire transhumanist approach. There isn't a clear offering of any necessary or sufficient conditions for when an entity is to be considered a posthuman. The claim we have before us is that it's obvious. Okay, fair enough, but this doesn't tell us what qualities that thing will have. An ant is obviously not human, but I wouldn't want to augment myself in such a way that I wind up becoming an ant.

In short, transhumanism just isn't clear enough to be a compelling approach to anything. At best, it's completely opaque and unmotivated. At worst, it's just a terrible idea.

Cyborgs, yes. Transhumans, never!

@Moegreche

This is an individual who has overcome what the transhumanists identify as the human condition. According to the wiki article, this obtains when an individual reaches a point at which their "basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

Yet I find your comment about not wanting to wind up as an ant silly.

Yeah, you're right. That was me being, well, silly. I was reading this state of being 'no longer unambiguously human' as a sufficient condition for being a posthuman. But it's obviously just a necessary condition, so my ant comment was completely uncharitable.

While I do think that the transhumanist platform is more or less void of content, let's put those worries aside. The real question that I'm fascinated by is whether a posthuman would be, by our lights, a moral agent.

So here's the thought. If a posthuman is unambiguously non-human, is that individual a moral agent? In losing the status of human, do they also lose the status of personhood? In other words, what do owe (in an ethical sense) a transhuman? And can they be help morally blameworthy for their actions?

My intuition here is that they can (and should) be held morally blameworthy for their actions. But I'm not sure about what (if anything) we would owe a transhuman. So if I see a child transhuman drowning in a shallow pond, and I can - at no risk to myself - save that child, should I wade in and save it? Thinking about this question with a person - a human child - the answer is an obvious 'yes'. I might even make the claim that I am obliged to save the child. But the answer seems less clear if it's a transhuman child. Or is that just me?

So here's the thought. If a posthuman is unambiguously non-human, is that individual a moral agent? In losing the status of human, do they also lose the status of personhood? In other words, what do owe (in an ethical sense) a transhuman? And can they be help morally blameworthy for their actions?

However I sensed while writing that there may be several areas of uncertainty. I can imagine that a posthuman might be emotionally altered, which might have severe consequences on its behaviour. I felt there was more, but I forgot Either way I suppose it again depends on the technical details of the posthuman...

I just realised we do have a precise example of a posthuman. While they only represent one among many possible posthuman developments, the Borg from Star Trek definitely fit the necessary requirements. As you can see right at the beginning of the article, it says the Borg are 'cybernetic organisms' whose ultimate goal is 'achieving perfection'. This is exactly what transhumanism is about, right?
.
The interesting question is now: are the Borg moral agents? In the series they have the role of recurrent antagonists, so intuitively one would say No. The question is further complicated by the fact that the Borg are a collective consciousness unlike us. Yet I am not sure that this is enough to exclude moral responsibility.

is this technology that makes one cyborg or transhuman or human 2.0?

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cancer-patient-receives-3d-printed-titanium-ribcage

is this technology that makes one cyborg or transhuman or human 2.0?

I also think it does not make the patient a cyborg, as while technology was needed to produce the prosthesis, it does not contain any technology itself; it is 'simply' a piece of titanium. It is closer to a wooden leg in principle than to a biomechatronic part like a fully functional hand prosthesis, or a working pacemaker.

However, 3D-printing replacement body parts for medical use certainly has its place in the transhumanist progress 'scheme', if there is one. It is maybe not transhumanist per se as its primary objective is medical; but I guess you could say it makes the patient a very early kind of transhuman.

As a sidenote, I find that case a fascinating example of how you can put 3D printing to great use. There are other aspects of that technology that I am not so fond of, but as with every technology it has its positive and negative sides. The way it has been used to print, for example, skull caps or in that case parts of a ribcage are definitely one of the positive aspects; and 3D-printing soft tissues is also underway. I'm sure transhumanists see a lot of potential in that technology for their ideologies, too.