My Father, the Cyborg

February 13, 2003 5:18 AM

The Soul of a New Machineis the title of an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the recent proliferation of cyborgs in the humanities. Growing outside of science, and inspired by science fiction, cyborgs have invaded economics, anthropology, and even philosophy. Cyborgs are indeed taking over the academic world. NASA is interested, too. In fact, NASA's Cyborg Program was based on the research of Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline. More inside...
posted by chason (14 comments total)

I am personally vested in this issue because my work for my photography degree is centered on cyborgs now. One of the things that interests me the most is our reliance on technology, and how we interface our humanity with the machines that surround us.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who had dreams of cybernetic organs as a child, and I didn't even read that much science fiction. I just discovered this field of study, and even though it's kind of old hat in the upper academic world, I still found it fascinating myself.
posted by chason at 5:21 AM on February 13, 2003

Off topic comment coming...nice format on the links! Kudos
posted by CrazyJub at 5:23 AM on February 13, 2003

yeah no kidding
posted by techgnollogic at 5:53 AM on February 13, 2003

Have you been reading missing matter?
posted by imh at 5:53 AM on February 13, 2003

Actually, yeah. Darn, I forgot to give credit to them for that first link. But I've been reading up on cyborg theory for about the last month now.
posted by chason at 5:55 AM on February 13, 2003

Oh, the link text feature is new to Metafilter, and not just this post. Score.
posted by techgnollogic at 5:58 AM on February 13, 2003

The humanaities atrract fewer and fewer students yearly, and the job market in those areas suck, and flailing about, the humanists nowtry to glom onto science to give them life support....and somewhere between science and the humanities we have a big open hole that is called Evolutionary psychology, a fun-filled niche that allows for much speculative stuff and little or no hard science analyisis.
posted by Postroad at 7:27 AM on February 13, 2003

I saw "Soul of a New Machine" and thought we were talking about Fear Factory.
posted by Dark Messiah at 7:37 AM on February 13, 2003

brave prof warwick?! try searching ntk for "warwick" and you'll find a slightly different opinion...
posted by andrew cooke at 7:51 AM on February 13, 2003

I saw "Soul of a New Machine" and thought we were talking about Fear Factory.

I had no idea Tracy Kidder was ever in Fear Factory.
posted by kindall at 8:58 AM on February 13, 2003

I was thinking the exact same thing Dark Messiah. Guess that shows where our interests lie.
posted by melissa at 9:54 AM on February 13, 2003

well, andrew, prof. warwick is lucky i wrote this post and not the people from NTK. :)

Their criticism of him seems to be... overzealous at best. Of course, I've never really had a problem with publicity hounds, as prof. warwick seems to be. A perfectly valid way for getting your viewpoint to the world.

And Postroad, I have my doubts that too many people get advanced degrees in the humanities so that they can make lots of money. And I don't really see what the rest of your post has to do with mine, beyond an unspecific backhand towards social sciences.

Not to be too snarky, but I don't suppose anyone would mind posting ontopic? I'm still feeling this subject out as I work on my photos, and was really hoping that someone here might have some good insight, pro and con.
posted by chason at 11:21 AM on February 13, 2003

i'm a sometimes poster at missing matter :)

one of the best writers on postmodern literature and "cybernetic fiction" (the man-machine interface!) i've come across is david porush! (tied with erik davis, with lev manovich running a close second :) i don't have any insights per se, but check out his essays on the rise of cyborg culture and the architecture of cyborg utopia, and per pink floyd, the division bell :)

btw alamut has some nice notes on vampires! (oh and the horror of everyday life :) also i just thought of a con! -- see "build a borg" (cyranoids :)
posted by kliuless at 5:21 PM on February 13, 2003

I saw "Soul of a New Machine" and thought Delta 72's then i thought Tracey Kidder, then I thought Fear Factory. Then I thought about Ice Cream- because it tastes good.

Then I thought abut how I really want a cybernetic arm, except all my friends blanch at this suggestion, but willingly incorporate cell phones as almost part of their body (while I intend to never own one).
posted by drezdn at 12:13 AM on February 15, 2003