Haraway defines a cyborg as "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well a creature of fiction." She uses the imagery of cyborgs to break down the normative dualisms of Western society, dualisms that "have all been systemic to the logics and practices of domination." However, in doing so, she by necessarily approaches the idea of the cyborg from the human side of the concepts own dualism. In the imagery Haraway presents, it is always humankind being augmented with machine.
Ultimately, there is no reason not to imagine a machine being augmented with organic parts. Furthermore, if humankind gave a machine artificial intelligence would that not be an organic addition, since it would be from our own organic minds that we had made artificial intelligence? Even if not literally organic, the resultant computer would be a combination of machine and human thought. If the comparison must be more literal, since our brains rely on dual and simultaneous electronic and chemical signals if we created a computer, even with no literally organic elements, that utilized a combination of electronic and chemical signals, would that computer be a cyborg?
If either of propositions is answered with a yes, or even a maybe, and we also accept Haraway's conjecture that all dualisms should be broken down and removed from our understanding of reality (or at the very least transformed from one dimensional lines to multidimensional spaces), then many of our computers are already cyborgs. My laptop and my phone exist somewhere within the space between machine and cyborg. Even if they rest near one side of that scale, it is better for all the arguments Haraway presents to understand their status as hybrid rather than absolute. Haraway concludes her essay with a plea to embrace "the skillful task of reconstructing out daily life, in partial connection with others, in communication with all our parts." Something as personal and as central to our lives as a phone deserves not only to be considered one of our parts, but also, in it's status as a cyborg, a status by nature hybridized, fluid, and partial, as an other. Thus, in our reconstructions we must not only consider social relations affected by science and technology, but also our technologies themselves.
Ultimately, there is no reason not to imagine a machine being augmented with organic parts. Furthermore, if humankind gave a machine artificial intelligence would that not be an organic addition, since it would be from our own organic minds that we had made artificial intelligence? Even if not literally organic, the resultant computer would be a combination of machine and human thought. If the comparison must be more literal, since our brains rely on dual and simultaneous electronic and chemical signals if we created a computer, even with no literally organic elements, that utilized a combination of electronic and chemical signals, would that computer be a cyborg?
If either of propositions is answered with a yes, or even a maybe, and we also accept Haraway's conjecture that all dualisms should be broken down and removed from our understanding of reality (or at the very least transformed from one dimensional lines to multidimensional spaces), then many of our computers are already cyborgs. My laptop and my phone exist somewhere within the space between machine and cyborg. Even if they rest near one side of that scale, it is better for all the arguments Haraway presents to understand their status as hybrid rather than absolute. Haraway concludes her essay with a plea to embrace "the skillful task of reconstructing out daily life, in partial connection with others, in communication with all our parts." Something as personal and as central to our lives as a phone deserves not only to be considered one of our parts, but also, in it's status as a cyborg, a status by nature hybridized, fluid, and partial, as an other. Thus, in our reconstructions we must not only consider social relations affected by science and technology, but also our technologies themselves.
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