Does reliance on assistive software make us a cyborg? Is the use of distributed cognition, via this reliance, an example of ‘cyborgness’? If this is the case then if when school children or students are allowed to take calculators into exams, and rely on this technology in order to answer the questions (that is, they do not know how to work out the problem unassisted, but they are able to use the relevant application to get the answer) does this mean that we are nurturing the cyborg within?
According to a geology lecturer I was talking to recently, he would be able to ‘be’ a geologist without the digital technology available to him. I do not think that a lecturer in IT would be able to ‘be’ without digital technology as the raison d’etre of her job is tied so tightly to the the type of technology she uses. Is she then, to a certain extent, in one of her identities, living as a cyborg? Does this course make me a cyborg? Is that what you were setting out to do?
Hi Sarah – I wouldn’t say that we set out to make you a cyborg – maybe to draw attention to how profound (or not) our engagement with the digital might be. However, if Hayles is right (as you’ve already discussed) then drawing attention might make it so… at least in relation to posthuman subjectivity.
Just to add to this that I am quite interested in the idea of certain kinds of technology as ‘memory prosthetics’ – doing away with the need to remember things ‘internally’. Google, for instance, probably serves that function for me.
Jen – ‘memory prosthetics’ is exactly how I think about my lifestream at the moment. It seems to be the only way that I can keep all of these ideas and resources straight in my head. Pen and paper would simply not suffice!
Hello Sarah,
I know what you mean! Having said that, I do not like the thought of editing this lifestream:-/.
I was wondering whether getting into the mindset of the course was part getting to know your ‘inner cyborg’ – or maybe I should say, realising your inner cyborg;-)
All the best,
Sarah
Hello Jen,
I can see what you mean about ‘memory prosthetics’. I was thinking about something similar recently as a result of a talk we had on working with students with dyslexia. We went through the assistive software, such as speech to text and text readers, which our students with dyslexia have available to them. I was wondering whether providing students with support via a type of distibutive cognition model would, in some way, be faciltating cyborg thinking and interaction. I decided to delete the whole post as I was worried that it might be taken in the wrong way, but I am interested in what you might think on this.
All the best,
Sarah
Sarah, I think I can understand why that line of argument might be controversial – the idea that assistive technologies are creating cyborgs could have a dodgy medical-model eugenics sort of ring to it. However, to explore how individual subjectivity is affected by these technologies would seem to be me to be an extremely interesting topic of research – is it something you’re considering for your final assignment?