2. “From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually
reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human.” Discuss critically.
Catherine Waldby wrote a paper with concern to the Visible Human Project (VHP), and discusses the fact that a technology such as new biotechnologies exists. It can transform fleshly body form from real space into a digital body in the virtual space. Virtual space is still considered as a new technocultural product. The possibilities of the project are still being further explored and developed. Waldby highlights the fact that the human body then becomes the ‘object of terror and fascination’ as the body has been prosthetically enhanced ‘at the expense of their invasion and technical reorganization, and their vulnerability to medicine's often violent epistemophilia.’ She concludes that human frailty has now been reduced to a mechanical existence, one which can be mapped and manipulated in a virtual space through modern day technologies. Therefore, Waldby’s article reinforces the idea that the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human. Waldby’s article has a detailed discussion of the Visible Human Project; her works are both credible and reliable.
G Gillett’s article ‘Cyborg and moral identity’, discusses how neuroscience and technological medicine have created an increasing concern for humans to face unavoidable existence of cyborgs. A cyborg articulates partly human and partly machine composites. Further discussions state that humans living a cybernetic life would have supplemented their own abilities with the use of common artificial devices. Human’s cognitive capacities have been routinely enhanced by the use of technological advances. G Gillett explores several seniors where the ‘balance between human and humanoid machine shifts’. It involves an individual’s moral status in deciding how far one would allow them to be integrated with technological advances in perfecting their health. To certain extend, this article has underline the fact that humans are partly cyborgs and they are living cybernetic lives.
James A. Marcum’s article discussed that most of us have mechanized bodies and it is due to a rise in modern technology. Through technology it has created a machine world, ‘a world of interconnected machines in which the patient’s body is but another anonymous and exchanged component.’ The machine-worlds consist of the heart-lung machines, the dialysis machines and the positron emission tomography. These machines have assisted physicians in defining the patient’s body in terms of mechanization. He also states that the mechanized body is a joint of two hybrid forms of the human body: the molecular body and the cyborg body. With the aid of machines, it is easier for physicians to diagnose patient’s illness, through that it aims to improve patient’s health and ultimately from dying. James A. Marcum brings another view point of embodied person creating their individual life-worlds. The life-world is described by an individual’s daily activities and routines, instead of the physical universe that science illustrates. An embodied person’s body is not defined as a possessed object; rather it is a combined unity of the mind and body. The article concludes the definition of illness in individuals within two separate worlds. In term of a mechanized body, medical professions provide a comprehension of illness from the patient’s diseased part. While for the embodied person, the patient provides the understanding of sickness in terms of a dysfunction life-world. This article has been useful in discussing several aspects of integrating modern medicine and technology with the human body.
Kevin Warwick’s article discusses the question on what or who around us isn’t a cyborg. Citing from Donna Haraway’s works, he states the definition of a cyborg contravenes the human and machine distinction. When there is a connection between technology and human nervous systems, an ethical dilemma is form. Not only does it affect the nature of an individual it also raises the question of what it means to be “I” and “self”. In other words, are they considered as part human part machine? Dissimilar from human intelligence, he states that machines have become more intelligent over the years. Machines have greater advantages over humans; they have capable abilities to sense the world in hundreds of dimensions through infrared, ultra violet and etc. Therefore, through the distinguish advantages of machine’s intelligence; one is able to become a cyborg. By linking the human brain to a computer brain, an individual is able to excel in work performance. For example, humans will have the ability to use the computer for rapid math’s equations and understand the world in multi dimensionality. This article has highlighted several ethical questions on whether humans should be upgraded into cyborgs which includes the benefits of all the enhanced capabilities. Moreover, would cyborg values, morals and ethics be similar to human’s values, morals and ethics?
Evert Hoogendoorn’s article on ‘Cyberbodies’ had an interesting introduction that describes himself as a game character being defeated in a war zone stimulation game in cyberspace. This paper seeks to research on what happens to our bodies when people enter cyberspace. Cyberspace is defined by two separate places, distance from each other, being connected trough telegraph and then become part of the same space. Through this, information can be sent and received outside this space. This is commonly known as the internet. He further describes the space in cyberspace as not real but virtual. He analyses the terminology of cyberbodies and states that, part of our lives is lived in cyberspace; in which our bodies cannot enter thus leaving them behind in the concrete world. Cyberspace users’ identities are then immediately represented by other forms. Such as a game character and an IP address. Due to this, cyberspace users do not make a switch of a different body to represent themselves; instead they extend the physical body to a cyber body. In other words, they become a cyborg. He cited Donna Haraway’s work in ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, describing a Cyborg as a composite of machine and organism. He concludes that there is often a wrong perception of an individual’s body that is presented in Cyberspace is being defined from the representation of the true self existence in the actual world. This article has given a different point of view on how humans have a different representation of themselves with a cyberbody.
In conclusion, all these articles have given me a better understanding of how technology has integrated with human existence in creating cyborgs. Thus, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human.
Bibliography:
Catherine Waldby ‘Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny’
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/Uncanny.html#Heading5 (Accessed 1 October 2008)
Evert Hoogendoorn (2003) ‘Cyberbodies’ Technobodies in Cyberspace’
http://everthoogendoorn.nl/I%20just%20got%20killed.pdf (Accessed 1 October 2008)
G Gillett (2006) ‘Cyborgs and moral identity’ Journal of Medical Ethics 32:79-83
http://www.jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/32/2/79 (Accessed 29 September 2008)
James A.Marcum ‘Mechanized Bodies or Embodied Persons?’ Alternative Models of the Patient’s Body in Modern Medicine’
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/mso/hid/hid2/hid03pap/Marcum-paper.pdf (Accessed 1 October 2008)
KevinWarwick (2003) ‘Cyborg morals, cyborg values, cyborg ethics’ Ethics and Information Technology 5: 131-137, http://aarquitecturadopecado.files.wordpress.com/2006/03/fulltext.pdf (Accessed 30 September 2008)
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