Rise of the Cyborgs

Cyborgs! From the Borg to the Cybermen these sci-fi staples have been terrifying people for decades. I think they are fantastic villains that play on deep routed fears. The mixing of man and machine leads to some very troubling questions for the reader, or viewer, are you still really human?

The rapid advances in computing over recent years has brought this more into the real world. With wi-fi enabled smartphones and tablet computers we are all much more interconnected. It isn't that far of a leap to think that in a few years these devices will be patched into our brains.

Many would see this as the first step on a very slippery slope. I would question that though. Is it really all that bad? Is there a problem with helping people remember things? To think a little quicker?

A few months ago I caught a part of a documentary on Radio 4 discussing a similar topic. One of the contributors mentioned that humans were outsourcing their memory to the internet. Why bother learning anything if you can look it up on Wikipedia  It's a crude way of putting it, but still an interesting thought. It certainly got me thinking. Haven't we, as species, always been outsourcing our memory? After all how different is Wikipedia from a book? They are both methods of storing information for later consumption? Wikipedia is just much more accessible.

The same can be said of a simple address book. I have a smartphone with all the contact details of people I might need to contact. I don't remember any of those numbers myself, it took me long enough to memorise my own home number, so this is an invaluable tool. When I was younger my mum had an address book with all the contact details of friends, family and all sundry of other people. She couldn't remember it all so she wrote it down. I know that some people can easily remember lots of numbers. That's great but not everyone can so we outsource that information to another medium.

It's something that humanity has always done. I don't think it's something that we need to fear. We just have to embrace our nature.