Natural-born cyborgs
Natural-born cyborgs: minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence Andy Clark
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.
ISBN: 0195148665
DDC: 303.4834
LCC: T14.5
Summary:
"In Natural-Born Cyborgs, Clark argues that what makes humans so
different from other species is our capacity to fully incorporate
tools and supporting cultural practices into our existence.
Technology as simple as writing on a sketchpad, as familiar as Google
or a cellular phone, and as potentially revolutionary as
mind-extending neural implants - all exploit our brains'
astonishingly plastic nature. Our minds are primed to seek out and
incorporate nonbiological resources, so that we actually think and
feel through our best technologies. Drawing on his expertise in
cognitive science, Clark demonstrates that our sense of self and of
physical presence can be expanded to a remarkable extent, placing the
long-existing telephone and the emerging technology of telepresence
on the same continuum.
He explores ways in which we have adapted our lives to make use of
technology (the measurement of time, for example, has wrought
enormous changes in human existence), as well as ways in which
increasingly fluid technologies can adapt to individual users during
normal use. Bio-technological unions, Clark argues, are evolving with
a speed never seen before in history. As we enter an age of wearable
computers, sensory augmentation, wireless devices, intelligent
environments, thought-controlled prosthetics, and rapid-fire
information search and retrieval, the line between the user and her
tools grows thinner day by day. "This double whammy of plastic brains
and increasingly responsive and well-fitted tools creates an
unprecedented opportunity for ever-closer kinds of human-machine
merger," he writes, arguing that such a merger is entirely
natural."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Ch. 1. Cyborgs Unplugged -- Ch. 2. Technologies to Bond With -- Ch.
3. Plastic Brains, Hybrid Minds -- Ch. 4. Where Are We? -- Ch. 5.
What Are We? -- Ch. 6. Global Swarming -- Ch. 7. Bad Borgs? -- Ch. 8.
Conclusions: Post-Human, Moi?
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