Dictionary Definition
cyborg n : a human being whose body has been
taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices; "a
cyborg is a cybernetic organism" [syn: bionic man,
bionic
woman]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
. Term coined by Austrian neuroscientist Manfred Clynes,Noun
cyborg- a person who is part machine, a robot who is part organic
- a robot who has an organic past
Quotations
- 1981: I would not classify the Tin Woodman as magical robot, but more of a magical cyborg, if anything. — fa.sf-lovers, 19 May 1981
- 1991 Timothy K. Smith "Manfred Clynes Sees A Pattern in Love -- He's Got the Printouts" in The Wall Street Journal, September 24, front page
-
- Prof. Clynes is a published poet and author of five books. He coined the word "cyborg". He also coined the word "sentics" to describe a new science entirely of his own devising.
- 2002: Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University. Warwick is no stranger to publicity. His autobiography, I, Cyborg, which came out last month (Century, £16.99), meticulously catalogues his very many newspaper, magazine, radio and TV appearances. With commendable honesty, he also acknowledges the amount of (unfair, obviously) criticism he has received for being greedy for media attention. That isn't the main thrust of the book, though, which is rather an account of why he is turning himself into a cyborg — London Review of Books, 19 Sep 2002.
- 2003: On the track of John and Kate is the T-X (Kristanna Loken), a blond female cyborg so metallically single-minded, and so impervious to blandishment and punishment alike, that, from where I was sitting, she looked to be our best hope of getting a woman into the Oval Office. — New Yorker, 14 & 21 July 2003
- 2003: The cyborg subject, with its pacemakers, drug regimes and artificial limbs, is usually also the First World middle to upper-class economic subject with a conscious incentive to preserve life for as long as possible under the best possible conditions. — London Review of Books, 3 April 2003
Synonyms
Translations
person who is part machine
Related terms
Extensive Definition
A cyborg is a cybernetic organism (i.e., an organism
that has both artificial and natural systems). The term was coined
in 1960 when Manfred
Clynes and Nathan Kline
used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating
human-machine systems in outer space. D. S. Halacy's Cyborg:
Evolution of the Superman in 1965 featured an introduction by
Manfred Clynes, who wrote of a "new frontier" that was "not merely
space, but more profoundly the relationship between 'inner space'
to 'outer space' -a bridge...between mind and matter." The cyborg
is often seen today merely as an organism that has enhanced
abilities due to technology, but this perhaps
oversimplifies the category of feedback.
Fictional cyborgs
are portrayed as a synthesis of organic
and synthetic parts,
and frequently pose the question of difference between human and
machine as one concerned with morality, free will, and empathy.
Fictional cyborgs may be represented as visibly mechanical (e.g.
the Borg
in the Star
Trek franchise or Amber
from the game Project
Eden); or as almost indistinguishable from humans (e.g. the
"Human"
Cylons from the
re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica). These fictional
portrayals often register our society's discomfort with its
seemingly increasing reliance upon technology, particularly when
used for war, and when used in ways that seem to threaten free will. They
also often have abilities, physical or mental, far in advance of
their human counterparts (military forms may have inbuilt weapons,
amongst other things). Real cyborgs are more frequently people who
use cybernetic technology to repair or overcome the physical and
mental constraints of their bodies. While cyborgs are commonly
thought of as mammals,
they can be any kind of organism.
Overview
According to some definitions of the term, the metaphysical and physical attachments humanity has with even the most basic technologies have already made them cyborgs. In a typical example, a human fitted with a heart pacemaker or an insulin pump (if the person has diabetes) might be considered a cyborg, since these mechanical parts enhance the body's "natural" mechanisms through synthetic feedback mechanisms. Some theorists cite such modifications as contact lenses, hearing aids, or intraocular lenses as examples of fitting humans with technology to enhance their biological capabilities; however, these modifications are no more cybernetic than would be a pen, a wooden leg, or the spears used by chimps to hunt vertebrates. Cochlear implants that combine mechanical modification with any kind of feedback response are more accurately cyborg enhancements.The prefix "cyber" is
also used to address human-technology mixtures in the abstract.
This includes artifacts that may not popularly be considered
technology. Pen and paper, for example, as well as speech,
language. Augmented
with these technologies, and connected in communication with people
in other times and places, a person becomes capable of much more
than they were before. This is like computers, which gain power by
using Internet protocols
to connect with other computers. Cybernetic technologies include
highways, pipes, electrical wiring, buildings, electrical plants,
libraries, and other infrastructure that we hardly notice, but
which are critical parts of the cybernetics that we work
within.
History
The concept of a man-machine mixture was widespread in science fiction before World War II. As early as 1843, Edgar Allan Poe described a man with extensive prostheses in the short story "The Man That Was Used Up". In 1908, Jean de la Hire introduced Nyctalope (perhaps the first true superhero was also the first literary cyborg) in the novel L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre Dans L'eau (The Man Who Can Live in Water). Edmond Hamilton presented space explorers with a mixture of organic and machine parts in his novel The Comet Doom in 1928. He later featured the talking, living brain of an old scientist, Simon Wright, floating around in a transparent case, in all the adventures of his famous hero, Captain Future. In the short story "No Woman Born" in 1944, C. L. Moore wrote of Deirdre, a dancer, whose body was burned completely and whose brain was placed in a faceless but beautiful and supple mechanical body.One of the earliest uses of the term was by
Manfred E.
Clynes and Nathan S.
Kline in 1960 to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who
could survive in extraterrestrial
environments:
- For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term ‘Cyborg'. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline
Their concept was the outcome of thinking about
the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as
the new frontier of space
exploration was beginning to take place. A designer of physiological instrumentation
and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief
research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland
State Hospital in New York.
However this may not have been the earliest use.
Five months earlier the New York
Times had printed:
- A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one.
A book titled Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human
Possibility in the Age of the Wearable
computer was published by Doubleday
in 2001. Some of the ideas in the book were incorporated into the
35mm motion picture film Cyberman.
Individual cyborgs
Generally, the term "cyborg" is used to refer to a man or woman with bionic, or robotic, implants.In current prosthetic applications, the
C-Leg system
developed by Otto
Bock HealthCare is used to replace a human leg that
has been amputated because of injury or illness. The use of sensors
in the artificial C-Leg aids in walking significantly by attempting
to replicate the user's natural gait, as it would be prior to
amputation. Prostheses like the C-Leg and the more advanced
iLimb are
considered by some to be the first real steps towards the next
generation of real-world cyborg applications. Additionally cochlear
implants and magnetic
implants which provide people with a sense that they would not
otherwise have had can additionally be thought of as creating
cyborgs.
In 2002,under the heading Project Cyborg, a
British scientist, Kevin
Warwick, had an array of 100 electrodes fired in to his nervous
system in order to link his nervous system into the internet. With
this in place he successfully carried out a series of experiments
including extending his nervous system over the internet to control
a robotic hand, a form of extended sensory input and the first
direct electronic communication between the nervous systems of two
humans.
Social cyborgs
More broadly, the full term "cybernetic organism" is used to describe larger networks of communication and control. For example, cities, networks of roads, networks of software, corporations, markets, governments, and the collection of these things together. A corporation can be considered as an artificial intelligence that makes use of replaceable human components to function. People at all ranks can be considered replaceable agents of their functionally intelligent government institutions, whether such a view is desirable or not.Cyborg proliferation in society
Many people could be making the transition to cyborg sooner than they thought. Applied Digital Solutions leads in the development of the human implant RFID chip. This small, rice sized chip has been marketed to help track medical records and keep credit information safe and convenient . Although there is a large community that is critical of this technology, RFID technology has done well in the past as a tracking chip in the industrial world (RFID's reduction for out-of-stock study at Wal-Mart, RFID radio), and for tracking pets and endangered wildlife (USDA Bets the Farm on Animal ID Program). This in effect turns all chipped people or organisms into cyborgs, which is also a source of discomfort to some. The critics of this movement claim that chipping people is an invasion of privacy and some even go as far as seeing chipped people as a sign of the incoming Revelation, or “the mark of the beast” , as it is quoted in the Christian Bible that only those scarred with the mark of the beast on the hand or head will be able to buy and sell in the world.Medicine
In medicine, there are two important and different types of cyborgs: these are the restorative and the enhanced. Restorative technologies “restore lost function, organs, and limbs” . The key aspect of restorative cyborgization is the repair of broken or missing processes to revert to a healthy or average level of function. There is no enhancement to the original faculties and processes that were lost.On the contrary, the enhanced cyborg “follows a
principle, and it is the principle of optimal performance:
maximising output (the information or modifications obtained) and
minimising input (the energy expended in the process)”. Thus, the
enhanced cyborg intends to exceed normal processes or even gain new
functions that were not originally present.
Although prostheses in general supplement lost or
damaged body parts with the integration of a mechanical artifice,
bionic implants in medicine allow model organs or body parts to
mimic the original function more closely. Michael
Chorost wrote a memoir of his experience with cochlear
implants, or bionic ear, titled "Rebuilt: How Becoming Part
Computer Made Me More Human." Jesse
Sullivan became one of the first people to operate a fully
robotic limb through a nerve-muscle graft, enabling him a complex
range of motions beyond that of previous prosthetics. By 2004, a
fully functioning artificial
heart was developed. The continued technological development of
bionic and nanotechnologies begins to raise the question of
enhancement, and of the future possibilities for cyborgs which
surpass the original functionality of the biological model. The
ethics and desirability of "enhancement prosthetics" have been
debated; their proponents include the transhumanist movement,
with its belief that new technologies can assist the human race in
developing beyond its present, normative limitations such as ageing
and disease, as well as other, more general incapacities, such as
limitations on speed, strength, endurance, and intelligence.
Opponents of the concept describe what they believe to be biases
which propel the development and acceptance of such technologies;
namely, a bias towards functionality and efficiency that may compel
assent to a view of human people which de-emphasises as defining
characteristics actual manifestations of humanity and personhood,
in favour of definition in terms of upgrades, versions, and
utility.
One of the more common and accepted forms of
temporary modification occurs as a result of prenatal
diagnosis technologies. Modern parents willingly use testing
methods such as ultrasounds and amniocentesis to determine the sex
or health of the fetus. The discovery of birth
defects or other congenital problems by these procedures may
lead to neonatal treatment in the form of open fetal
surgery or the less invasive fetal
intervention.
A brain-computer
interface, or BCI, provides a direct path of communication from
the brain to an external device, effectively creating a cyborg.
Research of Invasive BCIs, which utilize electrodes implanted
directly into the grey matter of the brain, has focused on
restoring damaged eye sight in the blind and providing
functionality to paralysed people, most notably those with severe
cases, such as Locked-In
syndrome.
Retinal implants are another form of
cyborgization in medicine. The theory behind retinal stimulation to
restore vision to people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa and
vision loss due to aging (conditions in which people have an
abnormally low amount of ganglion cells) is that the retinal
implant and electrical stimulation would act as a substitute for
the missing ganglion cells (cells which connect the eye to the
brain).
While work to perfect this technology is still
being done, there have already been major advances in the use of
electronic stimulation of the retina to allow the eye to sense
patterns of light. A specialized camera is worn by the subject
(possibly on the side of a their glasses frames) the camera
converts the image into a pattern of electrical stimulation. A chip
located in the users eye would then electrically stimulate the
retina with this patten and the image appears to the user. Current
prototypes have the camera being powered by a hand sized power
supply that could be placed in a pocket or on the waist.
Currently the technology has only been tested on
human subject for brief amounts of time and the amount of light
picked up by the subject has been minimal. However, if
technological advances proceed as planned this technology may be
used by thousands of blind people and restore vision to most of
them.
Military
The "cyborg soldier" often refers to a soldier whose weapon and survival systems are integrated into the self, creating a human-machine interface. A notable example is the Pilot's Associate, first developed in 1985, which would use Artificial Intelligence to assist a combat pilot. The push for further integration between pilot and aircraft would include the Pilot Associate's ability to "initiate actions of its own when it deems it necessary, including firing weapons and even taking over the aircraft from the pilot. (Gray, Cyborg Handbook).Military organizations' research has recently
focused on the utilization of cyborg animals for inter-species
relationships for the purposes of a supposed a tactical advantage.
DARPA has
announced its interest in developing "cyborg insects" to transmit
data from sensors implanted into the insect during the pupal stage.
The insect's motion would be controlled from a MEMS, or
Micro-Electro-Mechanical System, and would conceivably surveil an
environment and detect explosives or gas. Similarly, DARPA is
developing a neural implant to remotely control the movement of
sharks. The shark's unique senses would be exploited to provide
data feedback in relation to enemy ship movement and underwater
explosives.
Other proposals have integrated the mechanical
into the intuitive abilities of the individual soldier. Researchers
at the
University of California, Berkeley have set out to "create an
exoskeleton that combines a human control system with robotic
muscle." The device is distinctly Cyborgian in that it is
self-powered, and requires no conscious manipulation by the pilot
soldier. The exoskeleton responds to the pilot, through constant
computer calculations, to distribute and lessen weight exerted on
the pilot, allowing hypothetically for soldiers to haul large
amounts of medical supplies and carry injured soldiers to
safety.
Marine Cyborgs
The term “cyborg” not only applies to humans, but to animals as well. Some of the best examples of such animal cyborgs come from the ocean, but such research is relatively new. Technologies used range from simple radio transmitters attached for tracking purposes, to extremely complex surgically implanted electrodes used to record and manipulate behavior. One of the more fictionalized representations of a marine cyborg includes Jones, a cyborg dolphin from William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic. Jones is one of the more extreme examples, sporting a purely mechanical head piece, while most real world examples go unnoticed. Most “enhancements” added to marine organisms by humans are small or implanted directly into the skin, and are created as to not disrupt their natural behavior patterns. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is experimenting with surgically implanted electrodes in shark brains to learn more about their behavior in hopes of being able to control some aspects of it. Shark behavior is still a largely unstudied subject in the biological sciences and the use of such electrodes might provide biologists a vast amount of information in short periods of time. With data collected from the experimentation DARPA engineers hope to decode the signals that the sharks are receiving in order to remotely manipulate such behaviors in the future. The shark’s natural ability to sense weak magnetic and electrical fields is of particular interest to the military, as they hope to use this to their advantage in future campaigns, to see and feel everything that a shark does as it glides through the ocean.In Sports
The cyborgization of sports has come to the
forefront of the national consciousness in recent years. Through
the media, America has been exposed to the subject both with the
BALCO scandal
and the accusations of blood
doping at the Tour de France levied against Lance
Armstrong and Floyd
Landis. But, there is more to the subject; steroids, blood
doping, prosthesis, body modification, and maybe in the future,
genetic modification are all topics that should be included within
cyborgs in sports.
The most commonly used steroid in sports is
anabolic
steroids. These are synthetically created to function like male
hormones. Athletes use it to enhance their strength and performance
beyond their natural means. They increase the amount of
testosterone in the body, which promotes muscle and bone growth in
the body. They also make it possible for an athlete can workout for
longer periods of time than they naturally can.
Blood doping usually refers to three forms of
adding red blood
cells to the blood stream. The first form of blood doping is
called homologous transfusions, in which the red blood cells from
another person of the same blood type as the athlete are
concentrated and frozen for a later transfusion when the athlete is
going to start an event. The other form of blood doping is
autologous. Autologous transfusions are when an athlete takes red
blood cells out of their body before a competition and transfuse
them back in their body right before the competition. The other
form of blood doping is done through the injection of a hormone
called erythropoietin.
Erythropoietin increases the production of red blood cells in the
blood stream. All of these forms of blood doping are used to
increase the oxygen
carrying capacity of the blood. Blood doping is mainly used in
endurance sports such as cycling and cross-country
skiing because the extra oxygen carrying capacity through blood
doping gives the athlete more endurance.
The most common forms of prosthetics and
enhancement we see in sports today are prosthetic legs and Tommy
John surgery. This has resurrected many careers in Major
League Baseball, actually allowing pitchers to throw harder
than ever before. Some prime examples are Eric
Gagné, Kerry Wood,
and John
Smoltz. "I hit my top speed (in pitch velocity) after the
surgery," says Wood, the Chicago
Cubs' 26-year-old All-Star. "I'm throwing harder,
consistently." Gagne went from an average pitcher to being hall of
fame eligible, winning the National
League Cy Young
Award in 2002, by tying the National League record for most
saves in a season, and the National League
Rolaids Relief Man of the Year in 2002 and 2003.
As of now, prosthetic legs and feet are not
advanced enough to give the athlete the edge, and people with these
prosthetics are allowed to compete, possibly only because they are
not actually competitive in the Ironman event among other such
-athlons. Prosthesis in track and field, however, is a budding
issue. Prosthetic legs and feet may soon be better than their human
counterparts. Some prosthetic legs and feet allow for runners to
adjust the length of their stride which could potentially improve
run times and in time actually allow a runner with prosthetic legs
to be the fastest in the world. One model used for replacing a leg
lost at the knee has actually improved runners' marathon times by
as much as 30 minutes. The leg is shaped out of a long, flat piece
of metal that extends backwards then curves under itself forming a
U shape. This functions as a spring, allowing for runners to be
propelled forward with by just placing their weight on the limb.
This is the only form that allows the wearer to sprint.
In Fiction
In 1966, Kit Pedler, a
medical scientist, created the Cybermen for the
TV program Doctor Who,
based on his concerns about science changing and threatening
humanity. The Cybermen had replaced much of their bodies with
mechanical prostheses and were now supposedly emotionless creatures
driven only by logic.
The Metal Gear
Solid series of games has a recurring character known as the
"Cyborg Ninja" who is a person wearing a biomechanical exo-suit and
wielding a high-frequency blade. The cyborg ninja suit has been
donned by multiple characters, most recently by the character
Raiden in Metal
Gear Solid 4. He became the cyborg ninja due to an incident
which has not yet been specified, but left Raiden with only his
head and spine in working order and the lower part of his face
severely damaged. His cyborg ninja suit contains artificial organs,
blood (which is white), and muscle tissue similar to that used in
Metal Gear RAY and Gekkos.
Isaac
Asimov's short story "The
Bicentennial Man" explored cybernetic concepts. The central
character is NDR, a robot who begins to modify himself with
organic
components. His explorations lead to breakthroughs in human
medicine via artificial
organs
and prosthetics. By the end of the story, there is little physical
difference between the body of the hero, now called Andrew, and
humans equipped with advanced prosthetics, save for the presence of
Andrew's artificial positronic brain. Asimov also explored the idea
of the cyborg in relation to robots in his short story "Segregationist",
collected in The
Complete Robot.
The 1972 science
fiction novel Cyborg, by
Martin
Caidin, told the story of a man whose damaged body parts are
replaced by mechanical devices. This novel was later adapted into a
TV
series,
The Six Million Dollar Man, in 1973, and its spin-off, The Bionic
Woman in 1976. Caidin also addressed bionics in his 1968 novel,
The
God Machine.
In 1974, Marvel
Comics writer Rich Buckler
introduced the cyborg Deathlok the
Demolisher, and a dystopian post-apocalyptic
future, in Astonishing
Tales #25. Buckler's character dealt with rebellion and
loyalty, with allusion to Frankenstein's
monster, in a twelve-issue run. Deathlok was later resurrected in
Captain
America.
The 1982 film Blade Runner
featured creatures called replicants, bio-engineered or
bio-robotic beings. The Nexus series — genetically designed by the
Tyrell
Corporation — are virtually identical to an adult human, but
have superior strength, agility, and variable intelligence
depending on the model. Because of their physical similarity to
humans a replicant must be detected by its lack of emotional
responses and empathy to questions posed in a Voight-Kampff
test. A derogatory term for a replicant is "skin-job," a term heard
again extensively in
Battlestar Galactica. In the opening crawl of the film, they
are first said to be the next generation in robotics. The crawl
also states genetics play some role in the creation of replicants.
The original novel makes mention of the biological components of
the androids, but also alludes to the mechanical aspects commonly
found in other material relating to robots.
The 1987 science fiction action film
RoboCop
features a cyborg protagonist. After being killed by a criminal
gang, police officer Alex Murphy is transformed by a private
company into a cyborg cop. The transformation is used to explore
the theme of reification and identity.
There are cyborg kaiju in
the Godzilla films
such as Gigan
and Mechagodzilla.
Although frequently referred to onscreen as a
cyborg, The
Terminator might be more properly an android. While it has skin and
blood (cellular organic systems), these serve mainly as a disguise
and are not symbiotic
with the machine components, a trait of true cyborgs. The
endoskeletons beneath are fully functional robots and have been
seen operating independently, especially during the future segments
of the Terminator movies. The T-1000 (which is
said to be made completely of a liquid metal) of Terminator 2
is definitely an android. The Terminator Cameron
Phillips seen in the 2008 TV series
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is of a previously
unseen model, and is once again referred to on screen (including
once by another Terminator) as a cyborg.
One of the most famous cyborgs is Darth Vader
from the Star Wars
films. Vader was once Anakin
Skywalker, a famous Jedi turned to the
Dark Side. After a furious battle with his former master, Obi-Wan
Kenobi, Anakin is left for dead beside a lava flow on Mustafar,
and is outfitted with an artificial life support system as well as
robotic arms and legs. General
Grievous, Lobot, and Luke
Skywalker are the three other most prominent cyborgs in the
Star Wars universe.
In Akira
Toriyama's manga and
anime series Dragon
Ball', a scientist named Dr. Gero created
several cyborgs,
including villain Cell,
sibling cyborgs Android 17 and
Android
18, as well as Android 20,
who was built from Gero himself.
A direct brain-to-computer interface is a
valuable, but expensive, luxury in Larry Niven
and Jerry
Pournelle's novel Oath of
Fealty.
In the manga and anime series Ghost
in the Shell, Motoko Kusanagi lived in a world where the
majority of adults are cyborgs and can connect wirelessly to the
Internet for real-time communication and data research. The most
common augmentation in the series were artificial brains called
cyberbrains.
Bruce
Sterling in his universe of Shaper/Mechanist
suggested an idea of alternative cyborg called Lobster,
which is made not by using internal implants, but by using an
external shell (e.g. a
Powered Exoskeleton). Unlike human cyborgs that appear human
externally while being synthetic internally, a Lobster looks
inhuman externally but contains a human internally. The computer
game Deus
Ex: Invisible War prominently featured three clans of Omar,
where "Omar" is a Russian translation of the word "Lobster" (since
the clans are of Russian origin in the game).
[Mercedes_Lackeyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.
In the "Brainships" Universe started by the "The Ship who sang",
these brainships can be seen as the ultimate cyborgs. A human body
at the bare minimum encased in the strongest materials available in
that universe, controlling spaceships with the capability to cross
universes combined with full body sensored androids linked to the
human brain in the brainship, even enabling full bodely interaction
baring creating offspring.
Cyborgs in Art
Art has become a successful way to make people
aware of the concept of Cyborgology. Because the word itself has a
connotation of science fiction, people tend to believe that cyborgs
exist only in the imagination of writers and artists. Some artists,
like Isa Gordon, focus their work on cyborg awareness and the
concept of merging humans and machines.
There are many types of art that work towards
creating awareness about cybernetic organisms (or cyborgs). These
can range from paintings to installations. Some artists who create
such works are Motohiko Odani, Nick Lampert, Patricia Peccinin,
Jenifer Gonzalez (who has an article on the book The Cyborg
Handbook by Chris Hables Gray), and Orlan and Stelarc (who appear
on the book The Cyborg Experiments by Zylinska).
Artists using cyborgs as subjects: Nick Lampert:
http://www.machineanimalcollages.com/
Patricia Peccinini: http://patriciapiccinini.net/
Simbiotica and Oron Catts: http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle:
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/moving_pictures/highlights_15a.html
Man-machine hybridization is even beginning to
manifest in the artistic process itself, with computerized drawing
pads replacing pen and paper, and drum machines becoming nearly as
popular as human drummers. This is perhaps most notable in
generative art/music. Composers such as Brian Eno have developed
and utilized software which can build entire musical scores from a
few basic mathematical parameters.
List of Known Cyborgs
- Randall Schmidt - Left ear hearing surgically enhanced with titanium parts.
- Kevin Warwick - Had a chip implanted to his arm for a while.
=See also=
- Android
- Bio-nano generator
- Biomechanoid
- Bioroid
- Body horror
- Borg (Star Trek)
- Brain-computer interface
- Cybermen
- Cybernetics
- Cyberware
- Cyborgs in fiction
- Cyborg theory
- Exoskeleton
- Fictional cyborgs
- Gynoid
- Hybrot
- List of fictional cyborgs
- Robot
- Terminator (character)
- Transhumanism
- Waldo (short story)
- Wetware hacker
References
For further reading:
- Balsamo, Anne. Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
- Caidin, Martin. Cyborg; A Novel. New York: Arbor House, 1972.
- Clark, Andy. Natural-Born Cyborgs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Crittenden, Chris. "Self-Deselection: Technopsychotic Annihilation via Cyborg." Ethics & the Environment 7.2 (Autumn 2002): 127-152.
- Franchi , Stefano, and Güven Güzeldere, eds. Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds: Artificial Intelligence from Automata to Cyborgs. MIT Press, 2005.
- Flanagan, Mary, and Austin Booth, eds. Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.
- Gray, Chris Hables. Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2001.
- Gray, Chris Hables, ed. The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge, 1995.
- Grenville, Bruce, ed. The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002.
- Halacy, D. S. Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
- Halberstam, Judith, and Ira Livingston. Posthuman Bodies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
- Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women; The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1990.
- Klugman, Craig. "From Cyborg Fiction to Medical Reality." Literature and Medicine 20.1 (Spring 2001): 39-54.
- Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Viking, 2005.
- Mann, Steve. "Telematic Tubs against Terror: Bathing in the Immersive Interactive Media of the Post-Cyborg Age." Leonardo 37.5 (October 2004): 372-373.
- Mann, Steve, and Hal Niedzviecki. Cyborg: digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer Doubleday, 2001. ISBN 0-385-65825-7 (A paperback version also exists, ISBN 0-385-65826-5).
- Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell. Endnotes, 1991. Kodansha ISBN 4-7700-2919-5.
- Mitchell, William. Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003.
- Muri, Allison. The Enlightenment Cyborg: A History of Communications and Control in the Human Machine, 1660–1830. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
- Muri, Allison. Of Shit and the Soul: Tropes of Cybernetic Disembodiment. Body & Society 9.3 (2003): 73–92.
- Nishime, LeiLani. "The Mulatto Cyborg: Imagining a Multiracial Future." Cinema Journal 44.2 (Winter 2005), 34-49.
- The Oxford English dictionary. 2nd ed. edited by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Vol 4 p. 188.
- Rorvik, David M. As Man Becomes Machine: the Evolution of the Cyborg. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.
- Rushing, Janice Hocker, and Thomas S. Frentz. Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg Hero in American Film. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
- Smith, Marquard, and Joanne Morra, eds. The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future. MIT Press, 2005.
- The science fiction handbook for readers and writers. By George S. Elrick. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1978, p. 77.
- The science fiction encyclopaedia. General editor, Peter Nicholls, associate editor, John Clute, technical editor, Carolyn Eardley, contributing editors, Malcolm Edwards, Brian Stableford. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979, p. 151.
- Warwick, Kevin. I,Cyborg, University of Illinois Press, 2004.
- Yoshito Ikada, Bio Materials: an approach to Artificial Organs. (バイオマテリアル: 人工臓器へのアプローチ)
External links
- The Cyborg Database
- Top Ten Cybernetic Upgrades Everyone Will Want by Michael Anissimov
- Rangeresqe Military Cyborgs
- Are you a cyborg? by Alexander Chislenko
- Border Crossings: Cyborgs
- Cyberman reviews
- Cyborgblog
- Cyborg Fantasies
- Futures wiki, Cyborg
- The open-source Electroencephalography project; The open-source programmable chip Electroencephalography project; wiki; WikiCities wiki
- Stelarc FROM ZOMBIE TO CYBORG BODIES - Extra Ear, Exoskeleton and Avatars
- TransVision: Transhumanism Conference, 2004
- Wetware Technology
- World Transhumanist Association
- http://www.pbs.org/kqed/oceanadventures/xteam/dive-tech.html
- http://www.oceanfutures.org/kure/diving_technology.php
- http://www.isracast.com/Articles/Article.aspx?ID=63
- http://www.deepocean.net/deepocean/index.php?tech00.php
cyborg in Catalan: Cyborg
cyborg in Czech: Kyborg
cyborg in German: Cyborg
cyborg in Modern Greek (1453-): Σάιμποργκ
cyborg in Spanish: Cyborg
cyborg in Basque: Ziborg
cyborg in French: Cyborg
cyborg in Italian: Cyborg
cyborg in Lithuanian: Kiborgas
cyborg in Hungarian: Kiborg
cyborg in Dutch: Cyborg
cyborg in Japanese: サイボーグ
cyborg in Norwegian: Kyborg
cyborg in Polish: Cyborg
cyborg in Portuguese: Ciborgue
cyborg in Russian: Киборг
cyborg in Slovak: Kyborg
cyborg in Finnish: Kyborgi
cyborg in Swedish: Cyborg
cyborg in Ukrainian: Кіборг
cyborg in Chinese: 生化人