Natural Born Cyborgs
Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence
Andy Clark, Beav 202.4834 CLA 2003, Oxford University Press
Clark's principal thesis is that human beings are not merely tool-using but mind+tool merging - we co-adapt to the tools we make to co-adapt with. We have been "cyborgs" since we picked up the first stick to extend our reach, or the spoke the first words to project our minds into others.
Tools, text, and timekeeping redefine the boundaries of our plastic brains and selves.
- 003 naked Cyborg, electronic virgin (no implants), human-technology symbionts
- 004 hybridization: speech, counting, writing, printing, digital, mindware upgrades
- 004 biological skinbag, fortress of skin and skull
- 005 brain expert for: pattern recognition, perception, physical control
- not good for planning and intricate derivations of consequences
- 005 tools are integral parts of problem solving systems
- 006 math with paper, external symbolic resource
007 "we are creatures whose minds are special because they are tailor made for mergers and coalitions.
009 Kanny = "extension of the hand" for young Finns
- 010 loss of laptop cyborg mild stroke
011 mind-body-scaffolding
- 026 western prejudice: mind deeply special and distinct from nature
- 028 Nonpenetrative cyborg technology - fluid integration and personal transformation, transparent
- pen, hands, hippocampus, ventral cochlear nucleus ... tools, or merged being?
- 031 ... unusual degree of cortical plasticity ... extended childhood
- 033 most "thought" unconscios
- 037 "opaque" and "transparent" technologies
quotes Donald Norman "The Invisible Computer 1999
- 041 "have the time" == watch (transparent), but not "have the word" == dictionary (opaque)
043 brain as insulated engine of mind and reason is spirit-stuff in modern dress
- frontier is not the skin
- 049 marble message machine: marbles in exit track = messages, return erasure, in pocket is private
- 051 tangible user interface - like paper, not screen
- Yo-Yo Ma - Gershenfeld electronic bow for cello
- 052 U Central Florida overlay knee-joint model on leg
053 traversable interface between real and virtual
069 think through the interface - which coadapts with user
060 Experiment 1 nose experimenter taps own nose and strokes subject's nose synchronized, randomly Ramachandran and Blekeslee: Phantoms of the Brain 1998 p58
068 visual brain opportunistic depends on nature holding still
Warwick U. under-25s thumbs most dexterous digits - explosively opportunistic
4r26 M. Goodale, "Where Does Vision End and Action Begin?" Current Biology R489-R491 (1998): 491.
3r42 P. Griffiths and R. Gray, "Developmental Systems and Evolutionary Explanation," Journal of Philosophy 91:6 (1994):277-305.
093 Africa cam: http://www.africam.com
105 basic feeling of presence is always some kind of illusion, proper telepresense is quite similar
106 Neural motor emulator models external kinetics 4r34 M. Kawato et al "A Hierarchical Neural Network Model for the Control and Learning of Voluntary Movement'
Biological Cybernetics 57 (1987): 169-85.
4r34 P. Dean, J. Mayhew, and P. Langdon, "Learning and Maintaining Saccadic Accuracy," Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 6 (1994): 117-38.
4r34 R. Grush, "The Architecture of Representation," Philosphical Psychology 10:1(1997): 5-25.
4r35 Thatch et al., "The Cerebellum and the Adaptive Coordination of Movement," Annual Review of Neuroscience 15 (1992): 403-42.
4r36 W. Kim and A. Bejczy, "Demonstration of a High-Fidelity Predictive/Preview Display Technique for Telerobotic Servicing in Space," IEEE Trans. Robotics and Automation 9:5 (1993): 698-702.
106 a sense of unfolding and potential intervention
- the brain is plastic enough to learn new kinds of feedback and action
Brainfart Imagine a trained language of electric stimulus and movement - a human operator and a human remote. Propiocetion-like sensors on the operator, tingle stimulators on the remote. Predictive-adaptive to copensate for "double delay". This could be used for amusement, emergency first responder, training. Also, tingling to distract from muscle pain associated with exercise. For L.Bell? p113 ProPs (Canny and Poulos at UCB) - personal roving presence devices - goal: new kind of embodied person 5r13 Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Think and It's Done," New Scientist, October 17, 1998. p130 Dennett Elbow Room (1984) "I am the sum total of the parts I control directly" p135 Kevin Kelly Out of Control "co-control" soft self-management p171 Scott McNealy of SUN "You already have zero privacy; get over it." News conference about Jini for the fully networked home, Ubiquitous Computing