Outsourcing · Mar 14, 10:06 PM
| We outsource. It’s what we do. We use tools and synthetic constructs to accomplish what other animals accomplish through biological adaptations. We’ve always had to; humanity has always been defined by our need to compensate for innate weaknesses. We evolved for trees and a diet of fruits. By some accident, mankind ended up on the ground and had to survive there. We had no claws or teeth for hunting. We lacked the fur to keep us warm. We could not safely eat raw meat even if we were capable of catching it. So man picked up sharpened stones, wrapped himself in skins, and cooked his food before he ate it. That’s where it all began. It turned out to be a winning strategy – outsourcing. Our feet are weak and soft, not adapted to walking all day on stony ground. So where other animals have tough soles built in, we relegated to shoes the task of protecting our feet. Our weak immune system can’t handle a diet of flesh, so we outsourced to the fire pit the task of killing microbes on our dinner. This trend has continued, relatively unbroken, for millions of years. More and more, we have external constructs doing things for us. ——This tendency to replace biological functions with technological replacements needs to be something we acknowledge and fess up to. A positive feedback cycle is in place – the more technology we use, the more deficient biological humans are at coping with their increasingly complex surroundings, forcing us to relinquish yet more facilities and tasks to technology, tasks once fulfilled by our human brain and brawn. What is emerging is a symbiotic system of man and machine, but a symbiosis so irreconcilable as to create, for all intensive purposes, a single entity. —— This probably sounds rather absurd, I know. Yes, humans do rely on technology, but, you are thinking, it is quite a jump to go from our need to cook food and wear clothes all the way to claiming that man and his technology are one and the same. You see yourself as very distinct from your computer and would never consider your cell phone an integral part of your being. But, why not? The obvious answer is simply because those things lie beyond the boundary of your own skin. But why should the edge of your flesh mark such a border of self? Let’s imagine a hypothetical, a thought experiment. Let’s say you’ve lost your arm in an accident. A prosthetic is available, one that integrates directly with the nerves remaining in your shoulder. The prosthetic looks like a human arm and hand. It has all of the mobility of your old arm. By virtue of the nervous interface, you control it exactly as naturally as you once did your biological limb, and the prosthetic sends feedback and tactile sensations from its sensors directly to the nerves that once gave your brain input from your real hand. It is a perfect replacement of your lost limb. This prosthetic would very quickly become a part of your self image, integrating seamlessly with your own body map. But, it is still made of metals and plastic without a trace of flesh within it. Now suppose you drop something, a ring or a coin perhaps, and it rolls beneath the couch. You can’t reach it. But wait! You detach that arm and the nervous interface continues to communicate with it via a wireless link. You feel your own hand beneath the couch, you feel your fingers searching for the object, a part of you is unmistakably beneath that couch, and completely free of any physical connection to the rest of your body. There is now a part of you that does not lie anywhere within the boundary of your skin. —— That was a bit of a tangent, but I hope it helped to get across how bad an argument it is to assume that you ought to end where your skin does. But now, if you are a stubborn reader, you are saying to yourself that my thought experiment doesn’t mean much. After all, that’s just your arm, and in a sense, your arm is really just a tool used by`your brain. Your brain on the other hand, the thinking, feeling, planning, dreaming thing within your head – that is the only thing that can really, truly be called you. And your brain, that surely cannot be replaced with a prosthetic. That cannot be outsourced to technology. But to this argument, I say – too late. Already your brain relies on de facto prosthetics: calculators to perform operations the human brain finds tiring and tedious, recordings of every kind for external memory storage, and books, that wonderful synthesis of experience and learning. You are right to contest that all of these are really just small time examples. But with the pace of progress in the computer and neuro sciences, and with our habitual outsourcing escalating exponentially, how much longer do you think it will be until we are undeniably wired, until the human brain is just one component of a larger thinking being? We need to admit that this is the path we have embarked on, consciously consider it, and move forward wisely. We’re going there, one way or another. |
— Alexander J. Hartman
Comment
hi, i like most of what you have to say here. technology is the product of the human mind, and the human mind needs to create and produce in order to survive. unlike animals, we adapt our environment to suit us – because man’s primary means of survival is reason – technology is the manifestation of that reason. it is what it means to live as a human being – so there is no dichotomy between the human mind and our tools (whether they be a piece of flint or a computer) – they are one and the same.
— evanescent · Mar 16, 08:21 AM · #