Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence

By Andy Clark

Book Overview

From Robocop to the Terminator to Eve 8, no image better captures our deepest fears about technology than the cyborg, the person who is both flesh and metal, brain and electronics. But philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark sees it differently. Cyborgs, he writes, are not something to be feared--we already are cyborgs.
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 non-biological 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.
A stunning new look at the human brain and the human self, Natural Born Cyborgs reveals how our technology is indeed inseparable from who we are and how we think.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195177517
• ISBN13: 9780195177510
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Cyborgs in the Flesh

Clark presents an argument that we do not need to implant microchips or electronic prostheses in our body to become Cyborgs, - We are already Cyborgs. The argument is based in our natural ability to use tools and technics to enhance our capabilities for movement, cognition and perception. The book is easy to read and draws upon research from the fields of robotics, cognitive science, neuroscience, cybernetics, dynamic systems theory, feminist theory, cognitive anthropology and english litterature studies. The fact that he draws upon such diverse fields of research does not reduce the logic or persuasiveness of his arguments, but rather show the interdisciplinary basis for the book. The breadth of the arguments' basis is a major plus with this book, showing that the interplay between humans and technology are not merely technical but also something which changes who we are and how we understand our selves.

Superb Analysis of the Human/Machine Symbiosis

What is the future of humanity? Is the next phase of human evolution the merging of humans and machines? Or perhaps, are we humans already merged with machines and have we been for centuries? These and other questions are ones that occupy Andy Clark, director of the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University and author of this thought-provoking book written for an informed but lay audience. Clark makes the case that long before cyborgs became the villains of so many popular films--the "Terminator" and "Matrix" series, "Blade Runner," and "2001: A Space Odyssey" come immediately to mind--humans had become inextricably linked to machines in a way that ensured that they could not survive without them. Accordingly, even without electronic implants Homo Sapiens are cyborgs, and have been as far back as the first time one of our ancestors picked up a tree limb and used it as club. Clark argues that the human-technology symbiosis is totally natural and has been for millennia. The speed with which the merging of human and machine is advancing expanded greatly in the twentieth century as such technologies as pacemakers, artificial hips and knees, prosthetics, and other electronic implants have enhanced and sometimes prolonged the lives of millions of people. Andy Clark explores this increasingly close relationship of humans and machines--the "cyborg-ization" of humanity--in eight chapters. Beginning with the argument that we are already cyborgs dependent for our lifestyle on all manner of technologies, he moves through a succession of possible steps into the future that will find us more and more closely tied to the technologies we have created. Eventually, we will reach a post-human state. Rather than invoking fear that we will become non-human, Clark celebrates this possibility and the wondrous potentialities it offers. He urges caution in this transition, for not all possibilities are desirable, but generally Clark is optimistic. He asks: "if it is our basic human nature to annex, exploit, and incorporate nonbiological stuff deep into our mental profiles [and he firmly believes that it is]--then the question is not whether we go that route, but in what ways we actively sculpt and shape it. By seeing ourselves as we truly are, we increase the chances that our future biotechnological unions will be good ones" (p. 198). In my own research concerning the past, present, and possible future of spaceflight, I find much in Andy Clark's study that is useful. One of the truly fascinating developments associated with the rise of robotic capabilities is the possibility of post-human migration. In fulfilling the spacefaring dream, the intelligent life to leave Earth and colonize the galaxy may not be entirely human in form. Extensive discussions have taken place in recent years on the relationship between artificial computer intelligence, biotechnology, and human evolution. In spite of its obvious relevance to space travel, little of this has been extended t

When Technology Becomes Us

Excellent book, so readable you forget Clark's a philosopher. With ample use of personal anecdotes and metaphors, we are led through many thought-provoking realms supporting the thesis that humans are unusually good at incorporating technology into ourselves. And Clark emphsizes that penetrating the 'skin bag' with technology is not the defining feature of 'cyborg' but rather it is its transformative potential. Compare an electronic RFID tag his cat, Lilo has implanted (not transformative, from the cat's perspective) with a cell phone clipped to his belt (very transformative). I wrote a lengthy review of this book for Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, v. 5, #4, pp. 88-95 Fall 2003 issue. I strongly recommend the book to all thinking people, because it touches upon so many aspects of modern society and our concepts of ourselves.

Excellent cognitive science

This is a well-written and accessible book. The focus is not on technology per se, but on cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. Clark touches on a wide range of emerging technologies, but with the purpose of exploring how they will transform us. The picture on the cover might imply that these technologies would necessarily involve Borg-like implants, but Clark soon disabuses us of that notion through a number of arguments and entertaining examples (even including a magic trick). One of his arguments is that the way we (can) think depends on the tools we use, and the tools are becoming qualitatively different, both more closely coupled and adapted to us.