Cyborg und Exoskeleton in irssi

monki	I thought about how most of the reasearch we looked at was about helping people with disabilities j	yes monki	It’s like the first thing they come to think about when they have realistic representations of reality is to bring everyone up to this normative level of human cognition
monki	whereas your mars research seem to be more about expanding human abilities monki	I mean it’s fine and helpful to get people to be able to ride buses even if they had a stroke monki	but shouldn’t we develop flying cars instead? :) j	wow, that’s a really rich theme to develop a persuasive argument around. j	the disability thing is sort of a failure of imagination, i would suggest at the moment. monki	i think so too monki	A lot of research for a small “market” j	precis. monki	If you really wanted to help a lot of people you can do something to help developing countries monki	and it doesn’t seem like its the medical industries pushing it either
monki	just like you say, a failure of imagination
j	hmmm yeah, well maybe we can begin to visual these issues as well and why people get stuck in certain places correlating the creative possibilites with the somewhat self-limited strategic habits researchers seem mired in at the moment within some disciplines. monki	the genetics people seem to be 50-50 as to cure diseases and enhance human capabilities :) monki	Maybe it’s because the researches take their own bodies as referent point in the end monki	well, i dont know much about genetics but it seems like some genetics research are into curing inheritable diseases and some are into morphing humans with fishes or something hehe

monki	I have always been sceptical about the idea of the cyborg
j	The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. monki	since it views technology as an extention of human functions, which is a limiting idea i think monki	ah monki	didn’t know that monki	They probably had a different definition of it then monki	different than the popular culture figure of the cyborg j	yes, “The cyborg is often seen today merely as an organism that has enhanced abilities due to technology,[3] but this perhaps oversimplifies the category of feedback.” j	of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg
monki	I think technology have different origins and different logics than the human body, so there is no idea using that as reference. On the other hand I think it’s more about human becoming like technology monki	this perhaps oversimplifies the category of feedback.” monki	so true! monki	there is also the related (and very japanese) idea of the exoskeleton monki	I began to think now of how the figure of the cyborg and of the exoskeleton relate to the concept of the body in different ways monki	where the cyborg is ultimately ONE organism monki	the exoskeleton remains external and foreign to the body monki	only that the feedback loop is so complete that there movements become one
monki	a common theme in cyborg mythology is also the technology taking over the humanity left in the human monki	so technology directs its destructive force inwards monki	whereas the destructive force of the exoskeleton is when it’s running amok monki	the force is directed outwards monki	could it be a western/eastern thing? :) j	yes Day changed to 08 Dec 2007 monki	the fear of the exoskeleton running amok is maybe the same fear japanese people have of making a public fool of themselves monki	the fear of not staying in ones place monki	which is the fear of a collectivist society monki	the western individual society fears losing that individuality by integrating too much with technology