Both Frankenstein and the Visible Human Project show the use of technology to re-define human body – to mix and match our organs with that of animals or machines so as to make us a whole new breed of humans. It is therefore important to know what it really means to be a human. So does an empty body which shells all our organs and our brain defines us as a human, or having conscious, emotions and being able to think rationally make us one?
Anne Cranny Francis compares the human body created in the image of God to human body which has been incorporated with technology. She uses Terminator and compared him to God and shows us that they are not that different. She states that ‘the body of Christ is cut and pierced and nailed to a cross in a monstrous act of prosthesis in which this prosthetic attachment of the tortured body to the wooden artefact of the cross constituted a cyborg’. (Cranny-Francis, 2006) Similarly, the VHP shows the body of Jernigan being cut up and put together again digitally. After Jesus Christ was persecuted, He still lives on according to the Christians and this is similar to Jernigan, in which his body is digitally brought back to life after his death. Therefore, Anne Cranny-Francis is trying to put forward the fact that what makes us human ‘is not identified with or through our body, (but that) the essence of the person is the free-roaming ‘mind’ or consciousness’. (Cranny-Francis, 2006) If humans are still able to think and feel, then technology has not redefined us. This article is interesting as it makes use of famous sci-fi films which show the human characteristics of cyborg. Terminator, a man embodied in machines, ‘pierces his own flesh repeatedly to save the innocent’ (Cranny-Francis, 2006) which shows the similarity of human and cyborg.
Charles T. Rubin uses 4 different books to present to us the different views of ‘researchers in the field of robotics, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology’. (T. Rubin, 2006, p.64) These researchers have different ideas to how technology has benefitted the world and should technology be used liberally to improve the health and our quality of life. From this article, I realised that technology will never overshine the functions of human body. For example, Naam pointed out that technology can ‘extend the capacities of sight for the healthy, allowing (us) to see parts of the spectrum now invisible to us’. (T. Rubin, 2006, p.69) However, Chorost who has the firsthand experience of being a cyborg notes that although his implants allow him to hear ‘closer to normal’ but it ‘does not allow him to hear dog highs or whale lows’. (T. Rubin, 2006, p.69) Technology thus has not enhanced our pure human body but only help those who has flaws in their human body. Charles, however, counter-argued that the lure of the power of technology can overpower our human mind and thereby allowing the ‘embodiment of intelligence into machines rather than man’. (T. Rubin, 2006, p.64) I choose this article because it shows two side of the argument – one being that technology is only useful to those who have flaws in their body and the other one being that in the real world, we are able to inventing better technology which will be able to enhance the functions of not only the body, but also the mind of a human being thus blurring the identity of human.
Wrye Sententia reviewed a book by Michael Chorost, a Cochlear-implant patient, who is able to provide a personal account about his feelings about being a cyborg. In this article, it shows that being a cyborg does not allow one to be more powerful, on the contrary, ‘Chorost describes in detail the fragility of his technological self- and the precarious humanity at risk (and) recounts his pain in the way that organic humans do’. (Sententia, 2006, p.94) This clearly shows that being a hybrid of man and machine does not take away one’s conscious and emotions, and thereby we are still a human with limitations. Chorost advocates that advancement in medical technology is still important for those people who have the need to ‘fix their disabilities’. (Sententia, 2006, p.94) This article shows that having awareness is still what defines us as human, and that technology is unable to take away our emotions from us.
Catherine Waldby uses the Visible Human Project (VHP) to show how technology has infiltrated into our human lives. As Catherine Waldby wrote, ‘a technology now exists which can transform a fleshly body in real space into a digital body in virtual space.’ (Waldby, 1996) The VHP has shown that modern medical technology is able to penetrate through the human body, and producing images of our inner organs. The success of the VHP shows that technology is also able to revive a dead person in the digital world. This is a disturbing fact because technology has not only taken over our everyday lives but also us when our bodies are unable to function. VHP also shows how our body is reinterpreted whereby technology has actually pushed up the limits of the human bodies. Without technology, one will think that a human body is only useful when it can move and function properly. The fact is that technology has overpowered our human abilities and redefines our capability even when we are dead. I choose this article because it is a credible scholarly article and it shows how technology has allowed us to function like a human in the digital world when we are dead.
Chuck Meyer is trying to assert to us that it is not wise in trying to ‘fully define what human identity is’ but instead try to ‘recognise and accept the partiality and contradictions that cyborg identity contains’. (Chuck, 1997) I do agree that it is hard to distinguish humans from cyborg when ‘computers are becoming an extension of the human bodies’ (Chuck, 1997) and that humans do rely a lot on technology to get through their lives. According to Donna Haraway, it is indeed a confusing route to take when one tries to set apart the boundaries between human and cyborg and I guess one has to accept that there is a shift in human identity to becoming more of a cyborg. I choose this article because it gives a new point of view to my argument – that we should stop trying to define what it means to be human and to accept that humans are not able to survive without technology in today’s world. This article will support the previous article that technology although blurred the identity of human, but it is something that human cannot do without due to all the advantages that technology has brought to us.
References
Cranny-Francis, Anne. ‘Somatic Technologies: Embodiment, New Technologies and the Undead’. Scan: A Journal of Media Arts Culture 3 (3).
< journal_id="84">. (2006). Accessed 29th August 2008.
Meyer, Chuck. ‘Human Identity in the Age of Computers – Cyborg Identities’.
Sententia,Wrye. ‘Prosthetic Perception: Turn on, Tune in, Tune out (and then hit Replay)’. Journal of Evolution and Technology 15 (1).
T. Rubin, Charles. ‘The Rhetoric of Extinction’. The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society 11.
Waldby, Catherine. ‘Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny’, Murdoch University WA. <>. (August 1996) Accessed 27th August 2008.
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