When I discuss the cyborg, I do not specifically discuss the physical idea of the cyborg -- that is I do not necessarily discuss the cyborg that is a literal meshing of technology and flesh, although this kind of cyborg is a reality in the 21st century.
What I am talking about is behavioral. Cyborg is an identifier, but it is also necessarily related to action; an effort to see the world through technology. When we surf the internet, we act, when we text our friends, we act, when we watch television, play video games, drive our cars, we act.
And, since the advent of the internet and video games, we not only act, but we also INTER-act. The idea of the cyborg is beginning to define everyday human interactions. I talk with friends and family on the internet, comment on favorite music and news with people on you-tube and News websites, I can purchase books, music movies online, I can play games with friends without being in the same room as them. Less than half a century ago, one could only do these sorts of things in the world of flesh-and-blood. Now they have permeated our culture so much that many people cannot avoid them in their day-to-day life.
So what are qualifiers of us, the cyborgs? How do we define our existence?
This list is a work in progress... I am still learning about cyborg theory, so please excuse the nuts and bolts...
1) The cyborg is ambiguous and sees others as ambiguous.
2) The cyborg are unfaithful to origins; they don not regard the natural as necessary.
3) The cyborg discerns that the line between "living" and "machine" is starting to blur...
4) For cyborgs the boundary between the physical and unphysical is imprecise. We are not sure what "reality" is.
5) Cyborgs are postmodernist -- fractured, disjointed. We acknowledge that there does not have to be a beginning/middle/end.
6) Cyborgs do not recognize "factions". We see the cause/purpose/fuction/race as a whole, and disregard the signifiers that cause such factions.
7) Cyborgs are not dichotomized. We are able to see through the balck and white to the grey.
