Comments on: My Father, the Cyborg

My Father, the Cyborg

chason — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:18:39 -0800

The Soul of a New Machine is 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...

By: chason

chason — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:21:18 -0800

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.

By: CrazyJub

CrazyJub — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:23:59 -0800

Off topic comment coming...nice format on the links! Kudos

By: techgnollogic

techgnollogic — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:53:30 -0800

yeah no kidding

By: imh

imh — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:53:52 -0800

Have you been reading missing matter?

By: chason

chason — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:55:09 -0800

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.

By: techgnollogic

techgnollogic — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 05:58:16 -0800

Oh, the link text feature is new to Metafilter, and not just this post. Score.

By: Postroad

Postroad — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 07:27:21 -0800

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.

By: Dark Messiah

Dark Messiah — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 07:37:23 -0800

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

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 07:51:34 -0800

brave prof warwick?! try searching ntk for "warwick" and you'll find a slightly different opinion...

By: kindall

kindall — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 08:58:32 -0800

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.

By: melissa

melissa — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 09:54:57 -0800

I was thinking the exact same thing Dark Messiah. Guess that shows where our interests lie.

By: chason

chason — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 11:21:47 -0800

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.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 17:21:32 -0800

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 :)

By: drezdn

drezdn — Sat, 15 Feb 2003 00:13:28 -0800

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).