A moratorium on cyborgs

computation, cognition, and commerce

Evan Selinger

Timothy Engström

in: Evan Selinger (ed), Affect, agency, intentionality, and responsibility, Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 7 (3), 2008.

Abstract

By examining the contingent alliance that has emerged between the computational theory of mind and cyborg theory, we discern some questionable ways in which the literalization of technological metaphors and the over-extension of the "computational" have functioned, not only to influence conceptions of cognition, but also by becoming normative perspectives on how minds and bodies should be transformed, such that they can capitalize on technology's capacity to enhance cognition and thus amend our sense of what it is to be "human". We consider "a moratorium on cyborg discourse" as a way of focusing the conceptual and social–political problems posed by this alliance.