Digital Devices As a Human Enhancement and Extension of the Human Mind

Digital Devices As a Human Enhancement and Extension of the Human Mind
By Isaac C Kimsey

 

Human 2.0

When I think of human enhancement, the first thing that pops into my head is the Bionic Woman quickly followed by Robocop. Now these are definitely enhanced humans, one could even go so far as to say they are superhumans, and they are cool! Granted, not very realistic, but cool all the same. But when our image of human enhancement is an image of a super being, we tend to pass over the fact that in today's modern society most of us are enhanced.

Bionic Man

The definition of human enhancement is something that enhances or improves human characteristics of capacities. Something that makes us smarter. Something that makes us more than we are. What if I had a device implanted that gave me the ability to never get lost, something that could always give me the information that I was looking for, something that could connect me to the entire world at all times, would that be human enhancement? No reason to really ask that question. It would most definitely would.

The Revolution will be Broadcast!

I don't have an implant like that, but I carry around a device that does all of these things and many, many more everyday and everywhere, as do most of us. I don't even think about how amazing our phones are a majority of the time. The sole difference between the device I described and my phone is that the device would be inside my body (kind of hard to upgrade something like that I would think). These devices give us abilities we did not have. At their best they complement and enhance our minds in degrees that have not been available before. They are so pervasive that we don't even think about them.

Where is the Line?

The more we use technology, the more it becomes a part of us, an extension. We as humans are constantly looking for tools to enhance our lives. We embrace these. We internalize them until the line blurs. Where do we begin and our devices end? Where is the barrier? These and questions like these will come up again and again in the years to come. As our technology becomes smaller, more personalized and ever so much more intimate. Our mind reaches outward toward the device, through the device, toward that great well of humanity that the internet represents - the ultimate connection.

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