Waiting for pictures

I will post about my New York adventures soon enough, once I have all the pictures we took compiled. Gally took some pics that are up on the net somewhere, but I don't have the link on me at the moment. But patience, you will see pictures soon.

I should point out though, that in my absence a few good articles on human-machine interaction were published on the net. By Science and Theology News.

From: S&TN (under the heading "Real Life Religion")- A cyborg explores what it means to be human

"With a cochlear implant, the biology of your ear is not running the show anymore - the software controlling the electrodes is," said Chorost, who was partially deaf since birth. "You become a creature of software, and I found that a strange and creepy thought at first."

Since the surgery, Chorost says he relishes his new designation but realizes that "cyborg" is just a reductive label - simply the acknowledgment of his computer-aided hearing. He insists he experiences the same things as other people.

Also of interest from the same issue, same section: I, robot? Ethical considerations of cyborgs

Warwick writes that in a brain with both mechanical and human parts the "epicenter of moral and ethical decision making is no longer of purely human form but rather it is of a mixed human, machine base."
...

Crittenden said cyborgs may provoke humanity to engage in what he calls "self-deselection" - the idea that in replacing parts of our bodies with mechanical devices we will essentially be replacing ourselves with another species. Our technologically based culture is the first step in the descent toward self-deselection, he said.