Reaction to the Posthuman Manifesto
After and during reading the appendix to The Posthuman Manifesto I really had no idea what to make of it. I kept thinking I must have missed the discussion preparing us for this reading because I had no idea what to make of his seemingly random lists of assertions without concrete proof. Im sure there is a place in literature or academia for this type of writing but I really didn’t understand what or if he was trying to prove anything, and it all sounded kind of pretentious to put it plainly. I guess now thinking more deeply on it Philosophy is more abstract and might not have to be proved to the reader but I am more used to reading for history, where the writer’s goal is to make you follow their arguments and conclusive evidence.
This chapter was very interesting on a few different levels. I am not surprised but liked reading about our brain and muscles amazing ability to learn new things that will help us take studying different implants to a new level. This part of the chapter actually made me feel something. I don’t know if I can describe it as happiness or relief, but I felt good knowing that all these advancements were not just for fun and knowledge, but instead these impressive feats in implants were benefiting the physically disabled. Even if it was just one paralyzed person at a time, you know with enough time and money these things could significantly improves someone’s quality of life who had previously undergone hardships. A conclusion that came from studying implant technology that interested and kinda freaked me out was how people are becoming more wired as our technology is becoming less wired to us, functioning on it’s own. The fake diary entries of a future man brought this conclusion to life and were shockingly realistic and weird to read, in all sounds like a good place to live in.
Within reading the first or second paragraph of Andy Clark’s Natural-Born Cyborgs his intentions are already made extremely clear and he has really grabbed our attention and made us curious about this topic of technology as a new culture. Chapter One was especially interesting to me because all though we have all heard of pacemakers and cochlear implants, i have absolutely never heard of some of these experiments done and especially not Dr. Warwick’s quest within himself to become a true cyborg. I really enjoy Clark’s style of writing, which seems very informal while formative, and the fact that he keeps telling us that what he speaks of is not science fiction when it seems very clearly so.