Cyborg

History of the Cyborg

The history of the cyborg begins with the field of cybernetics in the 1940s. During his research with automatic range finders for antiaircraft guns, MIT mathematics professor Norbert Wiener found himself increasingly struck by the seemingly “intelligent” behavior of some machines he was dealing with, and by the “diseases” that could affect them. Wiener coined the term cybernetics (based on the Greek for “steersman”) to describe how humans and machines both use information, control, and communication in order to regulate themselves.

Historian of science N. Katherine Hayles points out that during the 1950s and 1960s, cybernetics ushered in an “unprecedented synthesis of the organic and the mechanical” in scientific circles. One of the places where this synthesis was most obvious was at NASA, where the issue of how to put a man safely on the moon was a topic of great interest. In 1960, NASA scientists Manfred Clynes (a computer theorist) and Nathan Kline (a psychiatrist) delivered a paper in which they suggested that existence in space without space suits might be possible if a human being were modified with implants and drugs. “It is not as crazy as it sounds,” argues Chris Hables Gray. “But even Clynes would admit today that you'd need genetic modifications as well to make such a transition possible.” To frame their [Page 117]paper, Clynes and Kline combined the words cybernetics and organism to form a new term: cyborg.

Cyborg Fiction and Cyborg Fact

Since its introduction, scientists shied away from Clynes' terminology, favoring more specific labels such as human augmentation and human-machine interface to describe their work. But science-fiction writers took to the word cyborg almost immediately, incorporating it into what later came to be called cyberpunk fiction. William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1993) are two seminal science-fiction works filled with cyborg characters traversing the space between humanity and machinery. What's more, as real-world scientists move their conceptualizations of life from biological to informational metaphors (for instance, in the areas of DNA research), science-fiction writers have speculated about cyborg bodies traveling freely from one substrate to another. As Hayles notes, “It is not for nothing that ‘Beam me up Scotty’ has become a cultural icon for the global information society.”

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that cyborgs aren't just the stuff of science fiction. Ten percent of humans in the current U.S. population are what Hayles terms “cyborgs in the technical sense.” These include people with pacemakers, artificial limbs and joints, drug implants, implanted corneal lenses and artificial skin, and others. A still higher percentage Hayles calls “metaphoric cyborgs.” These include surgeons guided by fiberoptics during operations, game players in local video arcades, and anyone regarding themselves as netizens online. While their bodies may not be mechanically or chemically enhanced, Hayles argues, they nonetheless demonstrate what cyberspace ethnographer Sherry Turkle has called “life on the screen.”

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