Natural Born Cyborgs

Clark’s impressions of man as an organism constantly looking to expand his abilities through technology seem truthful. “Man the toolmaker” can be traced back to sticks and stones

Embodiment and the cyborg (and the embodied cyborg?) both argue against a mind body duality. This duality born out of Plato’s mistrust of the body as a source of temptation and Descartes’ mistrust for the physical world as something unverifiable. But how could they deny that which gave them the information with which to think? Since our thoughts are shaped by our environment; or more directly by our sensual perception of our environment, the old mind/body duality seems outdated. And Clark would argue that our minds work hard to use outside props, or “scaffolding,” for its cognitive purposes so its physical location is even harder to pin down. He makes a convincing argument for human use of technology to assist thought and in turn create new modes of thinking. The aforementioned clock revolution made “possible new ways of thought, and cultural practices and institutions” that were previously hindered by our biological nature, not to mention the development of artificial lights.

Another designer environment dealing with virtual appendages discussed by Clark is the paralyzed patient who learns to control a cursor on the computer screen through a “Thought Translation Device” (121). Here the patient has sensors on his scalp that detect changes in slow “cortical potential” which the patient slowly learns use to control the different movements of the cursor. Clark makes the argument that this control is not essentially different from how one would control a hand since the mental reflex eventually becomes second nature and is no longer “move cursor” just as we don’t have to think “move hand.” The embodied aspects of the cursor are interesting to consider since it becomes an extension of the body. The fact remains however that the patient still thinks in ways that are inextricable from his bodily experience.

The clock revolution Clark describes (40) is a good example of this. Where before the timepiece, humans largely acted by daybreak and nightfall, afterwards, the clock made possible for “the individual to factor time constantly and accurately into the very heart of her endeavors and aspirations.” This gave birth to a “time discipline” by which stores could set specific times of operation and transportation could be easier arranged. Time became a sharper more integral part of our already integral sense and allowed humans a higher degree of awareness.

that extended the hands of early humans and changed the way they conceived of their environment when encountering a subsequent problem. It is not unimaginable that once throwing or building objects were born, early human minds absorbed their properties and started thinking with new concepts like stacking and trajectory (although not in the mathematical sense for

Some topics in this essay:
Thomson Rosch, Translation Device”, Andy Clark, Gallese Goldman, Netscape Navigate, Gibbs Ch, Stelarc Clark, Gibbs Chapter, Apache Indian, Raymond Gibbs, extension body, conscious decision, gibbs ch 4, brain runs, decision surprising, ch 4, bodily experience, watch wearer, third hand, own physical, clock revolution,