Prosthetic technology, your body and your thoughts on both

Charlie Mike

Charlie Mike

Sober since 1-7-14 (still a Paranoid Nutjob)
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I'm a big fan of the Japanese anime series Ghost In The Shell. In this saga, the year is 2030 and technology has advanced to a degree that full body prosthetics are not uncommon and being a completely un-touched human is less than a rarity. At the very least, everyone has a device called a cyberbrain.

Wiki overview:
The anime and manga series Ghost in the Shell, focuses in part on the continued cybernetic augmentation of humans. One such procedure involves the cyberization and modularization of the brain. The resulting cyberization yields what is referred to as a cyberbrain, which is a hybrid of an individual's original nervous tissue with cybernetic components. This procedure increases subject's neural abilities beyond their original biological constraints in some fields. Additionally to gain these increased abilities it is not necessary for a subject to undergo complete cyberization and acquire a body prosthesis to support the cyberized brain. Due to advances in technology and the understanding of a human being's biological processes, an individual may choose to only have their brain cyberized (as with Togusa) , leaving the rest of their body in its original state. Also, after undergoing neural cyberization an individual may easily be transferred to a new cyberbrain as conditions dictate and if integrated with a complete cyborg body an individual could increase their lifespan several fold beyond that of a normal human.

So what I'm asking you is if the technology were safe and available, would you undergo any alteration? How far would you take it? What to you defines your humanity? If you are nothing but a brain in a box, does that still count?
 
I have always dreamed of being a "cyborg". IMO if you are born human and over the course of being "improved" you end up a "brain in a box" I think your still human even if the brain itself has also been improved as long as you are still you IE your personality and emotions and whatnot survive your still you.

For me I would take it as far as technology could take me without being extremely obvious. I wouldn't want to be a massive rolling tank thing. But I would definitely go for a hearing/sight/smell/touch upgrade as long as it was scaleable so I could where necessary tone it back down to "average human". I would also go for pure physical enhancements. Improved strength/stamina/reaction time/speed I would do it all as long as the enhancements were only Semi-concealable. My main limitations would be going beyond human norms of appearance. If they made me look bulky fine but if I ended up 12 feet tall and 4 feet wide because of it all I wouldn't do it.


Sorry for all the rambling:o
 
Would like something like the Matrix where you could download knowledge into your brain. However the ideal of transferring your brain to another body I would be against if it is to extend your life past say a hundred, we are over populated as it is then again perhaps the future will have a answer for the food and water shortage.
 
I think I would transfer my love of gadgets into my body. A knife blade that shot out of one finger, perhaps a thumb that doubled as a lighter. I was into the cyberpunk 2020 pen and paper RPG for a while and there was also alot of body modification going on, in the same vein as GITS. One that I like was a cigarette storage area in your forearm that dispensed cigarettes into your palm. That would be sweet. Also a cybernetic eye or eyes would be cool too, with the capability for IR, rangefinding, perhaps an MSNBC style news ticker across the bottom of my vision for my email/text message whatever.
 
I used to think about that, think it was the way forward. I'd get excited when people were wearing those helmets that were computers, or putting I.D. microchips in their bodies. I'd watch movies like the matrix and only look at the beneficial aspects of the technologies (and not some of the real messages of the movie about A.I., etc). That is all behind me now, to the point where I find it extremely difficult to find beauty in much modern technology at all - post industrialist society really.

I think it is a bad idea and would not like it one bit. Especially the brain altering stuff. I don't believe there is anything to gain from such technology whatsoever, nothing in the slightest bit beneficial to me. I do not believe that an extended life or knowledge is a good thing. I also do not see benefit in extra physique. Sorry.

I love who I am, I enjoy learning at my own pace. I love the fact that I can't do things. I particularly love the fact that there is much that I do not know and can make wild speculations as to why something is. Much of modern science and learning has ruined a lot of nice mystery and folklore, I'd like to leave some of it alone :).
 
Funny you mention this SS, this is where I work (casual job though, I'm also studying there).

As for how far I would take it, it would depend on what area. I'd take improvements/upgrades as far as they can go, new devices on the other hand would more than likely be on an individual basis, and more than likely I'd go for something with a modular construction so that I'm not stuck with the same set of implants for life. Of course, the foundation for the modules would probably have to stay the same though.
 
Knife_Geek said:
I have always dreamed of being a "cyborg". IMO if you are born human and over the course of being "improved" you end up a "brain in a box" I think your still human even if the brain itself has also been improved as long as you are still you IE your personality and emotions and whatnot survive your still you.
Click to expand...

If you transfer an exact copy of what your brain is doing into an artificially enhanced brain, that brain, although more capable perhaps than the original, would have all your personality and emotions -- but it would not be you. You would still be you, and the new brain would be a duplicate.

When the old you dies, the new you could take over, and the world might not notice -- but you would .. be .. dead. If the cyborg process killed off the original in the process of creating an enhanced version, you would never know, never be that enhanced version.

Like King Midas who could turn anything he touched into gold, and found himself starving because even his food turned to inedible gold ...

c00per said:
I love who I am, I enjoy learning at my own pace. I love the fact that I can't do things. I particularly love the fact that there is much that I do not know and can make wild speculations as to why something is. Much of modern science and learning has ruined a lot of nice mystery and folklore, I'd like to leave some of it alone :).
Click to expand...

I'm with you. We know who we are. We don't know what we would be, changed into something perhaps stronger, perhaps wiser, but no longer caring, trying, taking pride in accomplishment. What machine takes pride in being reprogrammed, inserting a new chip, replacing a robot arm?

Like they told us when we were kids: Zay a mensh! Be a man ...
 
Esav Benyamin said:
If you transfer an exact copy of what your brain is doing into an artificially enhanced brain, that brain, although more capable perhaps than the original, would have all your personality and emotions -- but it would not be you. ...
Click to expand...

Even you are not you. All your cells and there atoms are slowly replaced over time. So the carbon atoms are held together a bit differently, it would still be "you". The question would be would you use S30V? :eek:

"They" are close to having a direct link to a computer to the mind so that you wouldn't need a mouse to move the cursor, etc.

Bionics are close to making appendages that can be manipulated like the original hands.

A lot of good can come from this.

I wouldn't mind new eyes with a IR capability and perhaps a bit of long ranged vision. As long as it doesn't make that "do do do" sound.

The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man.JPG
 
zenheretic said:
Even you are not you. All your cells and there atoms are slowly replaced over time. So the carbon atoms are held together a bit differently, it would still be "you".

Bionics are close to making appendages that can be manipulated like the original hands.
Click to expand...

Your analogy holds for societies as well. Individual cells or people die and get replaced. But the real changes are the external effects that make the old or the new cells or people behave differently.

If you replace a person with a perfect copy, that is not the original Stepford wife.

I wouldn't mind a foot that was permanently attached to my leg again. But I'm not my foot.
 
Isn't what makes you you one of the questions of the ages?

Perhaps humanity will have to tread down that road until they cross that line and learn the hard way.
 
zenheretic said:
Isn't what makes you you one of the questions of the ages?
Click to expand...

Some questions have been answered. Not everyone accepts those answers, that's all. :)

God and Popeye said the same thing:

Exodus Chapter 3 13 And Moses said unto God: 'Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them: The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me: What is His name? what shall I say unto them?'

14 And God said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM'; and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.'


And as Popeye said, "I Yam What I Yam!"


In all seriousness, we are what we do. How our brains are wired to take genetics, experience, and current conditions, and provide responses to this mix, is still a mystery in mechanical terms.

But is there any doubt that the sum of these -- genetics, experience, and current conditions -- defines the behavior of each unique personality?
 
Esav Benyamin said:
But is there any doubt that the sum of these -- genetics, experience, and current conditions -- defines the behavior of each unique personality?
Click to expand...

So perhaps, if one was able to "replicate" the self into a synthetic shell, at that very moment the two selves would rapidly diverge into two different "people" as the experiences would shape them differently.

That would make sense, as one me would suffer the ravages of time and the other would have the Noss4 Cleft Stump combat fist, able to crush cinder blocks in a single blow.
 
If two identical clones of the same person were brought to consciousness with identical genetics, were given identical training side by side, and sent out into the world, even together, they would diverge in personality and choices and behvior patterns. There are random factors on the molecular level that provide what might even be free will.

Schopenhauer said, a man can cetainly do what he wants, but he cannot will himself to want that. If what seems like free will is a function of brain chemistry, it is an illusion. If it is a function of something else, then we can't say. But what else it might be, perhaps we haven't found yet. We feel we have free will, but we don't know how that can be. We do know we aren't measuring everything that goes on within the brain -- yet.
 
Like any great invention or product that involves a lot of money changing hands, the government will be there to regulate it and of course, take their "cut". Sure, let everybody get cyberbrains. Everything you see or read or do will be monitored, and if you do something they don't like, they'll just shut off your cyberbrain remotely. Or better yet, they can have a massive workforce of slaves or soldiers or whatever, at the flick of a switch.
 
TorzJohnson said:
Like any great invention or product that involves a lot of money changing hands, the government will be there to regulate it and of course, take their "cut". Sure, let everybody get cyberbrains. Everything you see or read or do will be monitored, and if you do something they don't like, they'll just shut off your cyberbrain remotely. Or better yet, they can have a massive workforce of slaves or soldiers or whatever, at the flick of a switch.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Also,you would be subject to EMP's & solar storms/flares.Things that normally interfere with our communications & power,could "shut" you down.
I'll be keeping all my organic parts,thanks:)
 
[/nerd-gasm]

If I could keep my brain, and have it protected against the ravages of time, locked into a static state so that it wouldn't degrade but could still develop (i.e., immortalise the self), then I'd be right up near the front of the line to get a total body refit. I'd go the whole nine yards, like GITS. Stronger, faster, infinite data storage and indexing and nigh-invulnerable. I would spend the rest of my loved-ones' lifetime (those who wouldn't join me in immortality) learning everything I could and being with them.

Once everyone who was pure flesh had passed on, I'd look for an opportunity to be put onto a spacecraft pointed "Out there!" Just shot out towards the stars, with no intention of coming back. A craft capable of atmospheric flight and landing, with infinite data storage capacity, a sentient computer (for company), a holodeck (for recreation) and space enough for anyone who wanted to come with me (but with private quarters, so you can get away from everyone, occasionally).

That's pretty much my idea of a heavenly eternity. Just free to roam, explore and learn. If my wife or some friends wanted to come with me, all the better, but not necessary. In an eternity, you're bound to go through periods of insanity and lucidity, anyway, I believe, so who you're around really matter pretty little. Maybe just a few years' difference in timeframe.

So yeah, I'd do it.

[/nerd-gasm off]
 
Wow! Really great responses. This is a subject that I play with a lot in my mind. Another thing to consider is the threat of viruses, stand alone complexes, and cyber terrorism. Anyone who watches the show also knows about the possibility of being ghost hacked and unwanted memory augmentation. As cool as self accessorizing sounds, right now I'll just stick to buying knives, lights, watches, and getting more tattoos.
 
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