Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A Cyborg Manifesto

It's no secret that I'm fascinated by the boundaries of our humanness. I, for one, welcome our new cyborg overlords. Last month's Esquire had an interesting article about hooking electrodes into functional brains, circumventing faulty biological processes:

In the largest room of the dark, cluttered office, tables are stacked with computer monitors and electronics equipment, and a web of cables drapes between dislodged ceiling tiles. In the center of the room, Erik Ramsey is sitting in his wheelchair, wearing a blue sweat suit and slippers, with a bundle of wires coming out the back of his head. He's staring at a wall onto which Kennedy has projected a matrix of six words: heat, hid, hat, hut, hoot, and hot. They represent each of the major English vowel sounds. Kennedy, tall and stately at sixty, asks Erik to think about making the sound uh-ee. As he does, a green cursor jitters across the wall from hut to heat, and a booming vibrato pours out of the speaker: "uuuhahuuuuhaheeeeeeee." The sound is coming straight from Erik's brain.

It's time to get ready for stuff like this.

1 comment:

JoSF said...

thats creepy. why cant we just let people be?