Cyborg future?

[CaptainDonovin]

Just read about Neil Harbisson, born with a condition that only allowed him to see in black and white, who says he is a cyborg. He had a device permanently attached to his head that allows him to 'hear' colors.

http://soundcloud.com/bbc-world-service/im-a-human-with-an-antennae

My question is how far do we (those of us reading this) think the blending of human & technology will go? We have artificial limbs & hearing devices among other things to help people, will that be the extinct of it or will we add things to just better ourselves, i.e. a chip implanted to help make oneself smarter by downloading info right to your brain. I sure could use that one.

Thoughts?

 

[Metryq]

a chip implanted to help make oneself smarter by downloading info right to your brain.

Ready access to information via a "cyberbrain" implant (a la GHOST IN THE SHELL) will not necessarily make one "smarter." I know lots of people who have memorized vast quantities of esorteric information, or long passages from books, yet couldn't hit the floor with their proverbial hats.

(The cyberbrains in GITS are the equivalent of implanted smartphones, allowing one to access information from databases, make "cybercomm" calls to others like high-tech telepathy, etc.)

The actual implanting of knowledge or skills, as seen in THE MATRIX or James P. Hogan's THE MULTIPLEX MAN, may one day be possible, but we have one very big technical hurdle first. We don't know how consciousness ties into matter, although cases like that of Phineas Gage show a correlation. (In other words, Occam's razor is biased against the notion of "souls" or some other incorporeal seat of consciousness.) Many people simplistically believe that thought and memory are no more than electro-chemical "bits" in a squishy, biological computer. Similar ideas have occurred throughout history based on contemporary technologies. So far, no golems, cuckoo clocks or computers have demanded their rights as individuals.

(This is a TREK forum, so it must be said: "Brain and brain! What is brain?")

The "brain in a box" might be very possible as our technology improves. There are endless examples in sci-fi: Colin Kapp's "Gottlos", Frederik Pohl's MAN PLUS, the Daleks from DOCTOR WHO, and first person player Casey from the videogame THE DAEDALUS ENCOUNTER.

But will we ever move our consciousnesses into machines, then graduate to completely incorporeal creatures of "pure energy" (a nonsense term popular with sci-fi writers) as in TREK's "Errand of Mercy" or Arthur C. Clarke's poetic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY?

 

[rhubarbodendron]

It depends on your definition of cyborg, I guess. After all, we are already using a lot of artificial devices:
Dental implants made of real teeth, gold or ceramic were already used in Egypt and ancient Rome. As were gold or silver plates as replacements for parts of the skull after a major trepanation or head injury.
Today we have artificial bones, joints, some external replacements for internal organs (iron lungs, dialysis machines and insuline pumps) and even use plastic spare parts to repair hearts. Not to mention breast implants and I hear that in the US and South America they now do bottom implants *shakes head in disbelief*
We can even bridge injured nerves (not very satisfactorily, though, afaik) nowadays

I think that perhaps one day we can replace pretty much everything but in my opinion it will always be impossible to replace the brain of a person. Too many vital functions controlled from there. Plus you couldn't duplicate a personality.
Everything else will propably be replaceable. We might all end up like Neil R. Jones' Professor Jameson. (Excellent read, btw. Highly recommendable)

 

[Santaman]

Here in The Netherlands we just replaced someone's entire skull, I guess that is pretty cyborg-ish..
The replacement skull was 3D printed on site.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/03/dutch_hospital_gives_patient_n.php

 

[varek]

I am in favor of prosthetics, to replace destroyed or missing parts. But, we shouldn't go around intentionally creating cyborgs or artificial humans who want to improve themselves, like the Bashirs.