Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 30/09/2013 12:52:43
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Kevin Warwick, Cybernetics Professor at Reading University has delved deep into his nervous system to become one of the world’s first cyborg
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000411/)
or [chapter podcast=1000511 track=13.09.20/Naked_Neuroscience_13.09.20_1001343.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/13.09.20/Naked_Neuroscience_13.09.20_1001343.mp3)
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Very interesting, but as a pedantic point, it depends on how you define cyborg.
Using the Oxford English Dictrionary defintion "A person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine or other external agency that modifies the body's functioning; an integrated man–machine system."
A very common, temporary human augmentation is the bicycle.
It allows a human to extned their capabillity to travel distance, it is a machine (albeit a simple one) and perhaps critically, once learned, it does not require conscious thought to ride so it is undoubtedly an intergrated man-machine system.
It follows that many people have been cyborgs before Professor Warwick was born.
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I find this a bit odd.. and not suspicious at all.. ('We can talk to each other through our implants.. see my wife can tell you!')
I find that the technology being described is not cybernetic.. and has been in use for a long time, (pacemakers anyone?)
The idea of controlling a robotic arm with the signals going to your own arm is very intriguing.. but I have severe doubts over the quality of the feedback that could be achieved though.. and as for communicating electronically direct to brain.. gives me a headache just thinking of direct electrical inputs into what is still not really fully understood. We dont even understand what thoughts are so how can he say that we could communicate with them.
Meh, just seems like pie in the sky wishful thinking.. but the things with that is.. there sometimes IS a pie and i wish him all the luck with it.
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"A person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine or other external agency that modifies the body's functioning; an integrated man–machine system."
They say of all the best aeroplanes that "you don't fly it, you wear it". I'm told the Spitfire is the ultimate example, but I've found the rather more affordable Robin 400 a pretty good fit for an off-the-peg machine.
More seriously, we have been using cochlear implants for many years, and they do raise an interesting ethical question: by implanting a profoundly deaf infant, you are integrating him into hearing society but his social status and integration for the next 80 years is wholly dependent on last year's technology. I do not know of any source of replacement components for an 80-year-old radio or telephone, never mind a digital signal processor. What happens when he drops the transmitter down the toilet, or leaves it on the bus, in 20 years' time? If we didn't implant the kid, he could live as a profoundly deaf person with no such worries.