Are we already cyborgs?

The Terminator Cyborg
Google Images

Benjamin Wittes and Jane Chong think we're already cyborgs, and so does the US Supreme Court:

In June 2014, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Riley v. California, in which the justices unanimously ruled that police officers may not, without a warrant, search the data on a cell phone seized during an arrest. Writing for eight justices, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that "modern cell phones . . . are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy."(1)

This may be the first time the Supreme Court has explicitly contemplated the cyborg in case law—admittedly as a kind of metaphor. But the idea that the law will have to accommodate the integration of technology into the human being has actually been kicking around for a while.

Wittes and Chong offer this example in their very readable article "Our Cyborg Future: Law and Policy Implications (pdf)" (Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, September 2014). They go on to discuss the larger implications for privacy and our probable reinterpretation of what should be considered "private."

I've long considered a cyborg to require physical integration of a person and a machine, but a significant number of thinkers disagree with me and consider possession of a smartphone by an individual to mean that that person is already a cyborg. Maybe so, but there's something about physical integration of person and machine that crosses a threshold not crossed by some individual holding a smartphone.

(1) "573 U.S. Supreme Court [Riley v. California] ([June] 2014). Justice Alito wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment."

"We have to rethink ourselves..."

Michael Wesch's Savage Mind

Linking people into the web...

(Image from Kansas State University Anthropology Program)

One of those old Baylor friends whom I met in the NoZe Brothers, Ken Askew, occasionally sends me messages that are also to my ken askew.

Only a few days ago, Ken sent this message directly to me because he had neglected to include me on his "cc" (i.e., virtual "carbon copy," by which one message can go to multiple recipients):

Subject: RE: Brilliant
Meant to cc you on this originally. K
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless
Handheld with little keys, so pardon any typos.

I stared at this message. Nothing else of substance seemed written. "Okay, Ken," I muttered, "what did you mean to cc me for?"

Only when I scrolled down did I find this You Tube address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

After briefly hesitating (after all, Ken was a NoZe Brother), I cautiously clicked and watched a delightful and flashy but thought-provoking presentation -- titled "The Machine is Us/ing Us" -- on how our digital approach to writing is changing the way that we compose both our texts and ourselves.

As the video begins, a hand holding a pencil appears and quickly scribbles:

Text is linear

Unsatisfied, the hand adds "uni":

Text is unilinear

Reconsidering again, the hand then scribbles "said to be" under the words "is unilinear" and adds a caret to indicate the proper place between "is" and "unilinear."

The hand then quickly writes "often" before "said," but immediately turns the pencil over and erases the entire phrase "often said to be."

And then ... but perhaps you can imagine where this is going. Whether you can or you can't, see the video and be amazed at the brilliant performance, which is -- as I said -- thought-provoking . . . though perhaps somewhat more flashy that substantive.

Do we really have to rethink so many things simply because we're hyperlinking? Do we need to fundamentally rethink who we are? Is cybernetics reshaping us into a cyborg?

Is the internet conscious?

Watch the video to see for yourselves if you haven't already seen it, then go look at Michael Wesch's webpage for the Anthropology Department at Kansas State University or check him out on the anthropology blog Savage Minds.