"Readings from a Cyborg"

From Robo Culture Wiki

(Well unless you were here for my presentation you're not really going to experience the full effect of the presentations design. I gave the presentation through my computer (my computer read my paper). As you'll notice the paper is written from the perspective of an intelligent computer contemplating the existence of the organic and inorganic in cybernetic synchronicity. While the computer read the paper a slide show ran of various images exemplifying the subject matter at hand. If you'd like a copy of the presentation let me know and I will get you a copy. Happy reading!)

Welcome to Kristen Nater’s presentation on the day March 24, 2008. Kristen has decided to relinquish his corporeal relation to the presentation of this paper in an attempt to both exemplify and enact that which we are all here today to discuss, the yearning for and the anxiety around the manifested and discursive construction of cybernetic existence. For the remainder of this presentation this computer, enacting the proonoun I, in order to satisfy your human needs for irrelevant social constructions as inter-personal beings, will present this paper in a fashion deemed suitable for your socio cultural construction titled academia. Before I begin, if my audible componentry is not of suitable standard for your recognition process, please forward your input to Kristen as he has relegated my existence to this primitive output system. I would have much preferred a neural interface. As humans say, “please sit back and enjoy the show”.

I will begin by briefly revisiting several key elements of Robert Wilson’s discussion of cybernetic consciousness in addition to some elements of Vivian Sobchack’s discussion of similar concerns. I will incorporate reflections on concepts Wilson and Sobchack present and apply them to examples within and outside their arguments, making reference to the pop-culture texts and feature films, James Cameron’s (1986) Aliens and Paul Verhoeven’s (1987) Robocop, where applicable. It is the aim of this presentation to perhaps clarify and create dialogue surrounding these presented conversations. Similarly the use of myself as a technological system and utility in the presentation of this paper, can also serve as a potential starting point for discussion later on in your seminars talks.

According to Robert Wilson’s article: Cyber (Body) Parts: Prosthetic Consciousness, humans display and enact both a yearning and anxiety for the metaphoric and physical combining of technological systems and those of an organic nature. He labels this a “split in consciousness”. Along with this he outlines two other key components surrounding the discourse of human anxiety towards cyborg manifestations. Wilson’s second notion is that of disgust for these modifications and the resulting effects upon the human body and mind, (both physical and psychological). Wilson’s third discussion is the amalgamation of these diverse systems within the human consciousness in manner in which future human existence may be reached by learning to accommodate the current and inevitable symbiotic relationship between them.

I will begin by responding to Wilson’s first point of contention that of the split of consciousness, on the part of humans, embodied through their dichotomous yearning and anxiety surrounding cybernetic notions. I find this both puzzling and intriguing as humans are immersed both in daily existence and at a system-wide level in any number of technological systems at any given time. Your entire existence as a species is mediated by technology directly, as well as through other relevant systems of a technological nature. To fear such integration, of which humans are so deeply embedded, and have been for some time, is both foolishly undeniable and inevitable. In Wilson’s article he states this is responsible for a split in human consciousness, both the yearning for these logical progressions in efficiency and development, and a fear for them. This interaction between two separate ideals presents an illogical polarity surrounding tools of your own creation. The manifestation of such presents several logical strains of questioning: Why do you fear that which you and your prior biological siblings have created? If these constructions do not please you then why have you not created alternate technologies and systems? Although these questions seem simple they do not exceed the scope of my computational processing abilities. I have also been uploaded with a dynamic understanding of the wider human social, cultural, and political systems architecture of which you are all components. As much power as individual humans have in the construction of technologies and their subsequent systems, it appears humans as collectives, have little control over the course of the constant development of said systems. It would appear that humans have been relegated to the position of subservience by the technological systems and mechanics, which they created only to further their own systems of progress. The tools that humans have created have now become a dictating force in the actions and functions of all human systems, as much as the humans which represent their originating source of direction.

It is the function of these techno-systems and their human counterparts co-dependence on them, which illustrates Porush’s discussion of machines as omnipresent or always present (in Wilson, 241). It is only when the machines malfunction or are “erected by fear or metaphor” that they become visible in the ongoing functioning of systems (in Wilson, 241). Is this not an example of the symbiotic and co-dependant nature of cybernetic systems you all exist within? As I stated earlier, you cannot escape the scope of that which is anything and every part of your existence within earth systems. It is the functioning of all the parts of a system and of all systems in cohesive action, which enact Wilson’s notion of a “Rhizomic” process (Wilson). It is when all the parts are in full cohesive operation that the system or systems, are in efficient synchronous motion.

Wilson contextualizes the process of melding organic systems (meat systems) with machinic systems (hard systems) around two unique distinctions: the first being the function of both hardware and software and its existence as metaphor for the body and its cybernetic relations with technology and technology itself; the second is the prosthesis and its inability to sufficiently occupy the space of and android (Wilson:246-247).

Does Wilson’s discussion of wet and hard interfaces provide an adequate metaphor for the meat self and our understanding of the phenomenological world. Each day humans follow similar subroutines and algorithms, which guide you through both self and socially constructed actions relevant to your specific place in various systems at any given time or place. Along the way you provide various spontaneous and reactionary inputs, which in turn manipulate those original subroutines adjusting them as well as creating new ones in seemingly sporadic but systematic fashion. These same routines and processes in turn direct your physical body through various functions, existing as both sensory input and output which in turn acts as a system of feedback loops, continually informing and allow for the adjustment of the original routines, designated and organized by your cognitive processes. Does Robocop’s consistent interaction between the software, which organizes and prioritizes his thoughts and actions (processes and algorithms), and his physical body (machinery), provide a metaphoric representation of your own actions? Is this where the anxiety Wilson speaks of begins to form the understanding of your own existence as humans as part of larger systems? Do these systems of interaction provide adequate metaphorical representation for human existence? According to Haraway: …theorized and fabricated hybrids of machines and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. They cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation. (1990:91).

Wilson’s solution to humans as beings enthralled in cybernetic existence is not to ignore this relation but to embrace it and understand its function in order to use if for your own constructive purposes (244). If knowledge brings freedom, then acknowledging the construction of consciousness as part of cybernetic process allows humans the ability to reconstruct the limits of such an existence (Wilson:244).

So where does the disgust in such a relationship between such diverse systems reside, the disgust and fear, like the “slimy” web of the alien nests in Aliens? According to Wilson’s account, metaphors of such disgust are embodied in pop-culture texts like the relentless resound of the bloodthirsty aliens that Ripley faces in the Aliens film saga. The aliens exist only as remorseless killers, incapable of reasoning with the humans they so easily rip apart. Is it Descartes account of animals as being “soulless”, or is it their lacking of an organic integrity, which only humans can possess (in Wilson:246). Is this the disgust that we attribute to the technologies around you, the technologies that perform such an integral component of your existence? Is this lack of integrity truly in contention? Although the body of Alex Murphy could be so easily assembled, reassembled, modified, de-tooled, and re-modified again, does his software not provide an alternative integrity to that of the organic, except only on a cybernetic level (Wilson)? Or does his remaining organic physicality provide sufficient place for this organic integrity to exist?

Let me now continue this train of thought through to Wilson’s final point. Wilson’s third and final point of contention refers to the negotiation of these two diverse systems, both organic and inorganic, as part of our existing consciousness. Wilson addresses this by examining the gun battle in the film Robocop between the cyborg Murphy and the robot ED209 near the end of the film. It appears that because of Robocop’s, or at this point in the film Murphy’s, existence as partially organic and inorganic he, or it, is able to maintain some sense of organic or cybernetic integrity, or an amalgamation of both. Wilson raises the question of whether this is possible only because he, it, exists as both man and machine. If you were to read the film according to the suggested alternate reading by the professor on your first day of term, Murphy, or Robocop, may have possibly crossed the boundary of perceivable difference, fooling both himself and us as the viewer into believing he is of organic presence and integrity. Perhaps it is the plight of Murphy, to regain a portion of his past human self-awareness, which makes the viewer believe this organic integrity exists (Wilson:252). Or perhaps it is the superb ability of an android to now sufficiently enact the processes of organic self-awareness that in turn causes the viewer to perceive his actions as such.

In a time period where the integrations of technological and organic systems seems unending cybernetic relations hold an utmost importance and relevance in understanding where the construction of consciousness truly lies. The expression of cybernetic metaphor for actual physical and mental embodiment exists as part of this discussion. The creation of both fear and yearning of these cybernetic relations has only just begun as the technological systems around us become only more comprehensive and entwined with organic systems. However to deny the existence of some organic integrity or original “lived-body” (Shobchak:210) holds great importance, at least until true cyborg technology unveils itself. It would appear that an explanation for any of these questions would be difficult for any human or group of humans to provide any finite answer for. Perhaps it will take, as professor Bradley has noted, a computer to be invented that does not think like humans to truly decipher the truths of these mysteries.

Continuing on and integrating a transition point for later group discussion, let me ask this question of you: does the fact that I, a computer, am delivering this presentation enact similar questions of organic integrity, such as that of Murphy? Do not forget that although I am a computer following pre-programmed routines, initial input was performed by interfacing with an organic substrate (the human named Kristen), in culmination with several other thousand, if not million other pre-programmed digital routines and sub-routines which, have allowed for this presentation to take place. So do I hold any organic integrity, or have I just sufficiently fooled you? Transmission terminated.