October 25, 2011
I robot
Today Popeguy and I got into a little tift because of my slightly hostile attitude toward cyborgs. It's not that I have a problem with cyborgs. I can accept artificial hearts and livers and synthetic arms and legs and eyes. But he was reading this article where everyone becomes cyborgs, placing are brains into completely mechanical bodies that need checkups every six months. Why have a flesh and bone body when you can have one that doesn't get sick or fail or die?
And I was horrified by the idea and he was in absolute aw by my horror. He looked at me the way he looks at Jesus freaks, as if I was some poor uneducated fool to be humored. Is it so wrong of me not to think that we shouldn't all become robots? I understand the medical benefits. No more heart disease or diabetes or high cholestoral. But what about our humanity? Could we still be called human because we retain our human brain? Do we lose our human identity, our individual identity if we resort to synthethic bodies. He went on to tell me that identity constantly changes and we would still find a way to identify ourselves because we do it all the time. And humanity is all about feeling and thinking, not living inside a biological vessel.
I think of myself as a very openminded person. I listen to his theories daily and even though I don't initially agree with, I usual end up finding some sort of rational compromise to fit inside my belief system.
But I there should be a line draw somewhere. Maybe. He told me I was ridiculous because we're surrounded by technology and a synthetic body would just be another advancement for us. And we would still feel pleasure and pain and all that stuff. We would still be able to taste and whatnot.
Yet I can't wrap my mind around it. So we would feel skin to skin but the warmth we would feel wouldn't be blood or body heat but some artificial substance. Maybe it doesn't really matter that we have synthetic bodies, but all I would think about is how I once had a real body and now everything has been created for me. No more child bearing, as he put it.
I suppose knowing that I would never have to feel the pain of child birth should excite me, but it leaves me feeling cold inside. To think I wouldn't have my baby growing inside me.
But it's not a breach in humanity. It's just technology. Popeguy is always right, right? Who am I, someone that doesn't read all these aticles so that I can speak properly and judge those who cannot think properly, to speak against such a great idea.
Perhaps I do sound crazy, irrational, and uneducated, but I'd rather not replace my whole body with another and be given the choice not to even look the way I do. Hell, I could change the color of my skin or the shape of my eyes, the sharpness of my cheeks and the placement of my freckles. Why wouldn't I rejoice at being able to change who I am? Because my identity has nothing to do with my physical appearence, right? It's all about my brain.
I can't believe he looked at me like that just because for once I don't agree with him one bit.
scullerymaid at 5:39 p.m.