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Reintroducing the Cyborg Concept to Explain Internet-Related Safety Issues

Reintroducing the Cyborg Concept to Explain Internet-Related Safety Issues Tommaso Bertolotti (bertolotti@unipv.it) Department of Humanities, Philosophy Section University of Pavia, ITALY Lorenzo Magnani (lmagnani@unipv.it) Department of Humanities, Philosophy Section University of Pavia, ITALY Abstract we will later return on its recent use, it is worth sparing a few words on the Haraway’s contentions. As presented by Haraway herself, the theory is deeply embedded in Feminist arguments. Nevertheless some of her takes may be discussed and accepted regardless of one’s sharing the ideology they are meant to support. Haraway inserted in her definition of cyborg a trait that was seminal (or concerning an elite) at the time of her writing, but that is fully developed now: the strict dependance of our cyborgean nature on social cognition. This paper advocates a re-introduction of the notion of cyborg in order to acquire a new perspective on studies concerning the development of human cognition in highly technological envi- ronments. In particular, we will show how the notion of cyborg properly engages cognitive issues that have a powerful reso- nance especially as far as social cognition is concerned, and may consequently provide a new tool for tackling the emergent safety issues concerning sociality mediated by the Internet, and the moral panic occasionally surrounding it. Keywords: Cyborg; Social Network Websites; Cyber- Bullying; Internet Safety; Distributed Cognition. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social rela- tions, our most important political construction, a world- changing fiction (Haraway, 1991, p. 149). A Quick and Critical History of the Cyborg The concept of cyborg was not coined in science-fiction, but by two scientists at the Rockland State Hospital, Orangeburg, N. Y.: For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system uncon- sciously, we propose the term “Cyborg.” The Cyborg de- liberately incorporates exogenous components extend- ing the self-regulatory control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments. (Clynes & Kline, 1960, p. 27) Haraway’s further insight about the relationship between cyborgs and boundaries is perhaps the one that is most useful to the actual discourse. Her pivotal claim is that high-tech culture, epitomized by the actualization of the cyborg, openly challenges the dualisms that have been determining the practical and intellectual lives of human beings for millennia: “some of those troubling dualisms are self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/ made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man” (p. 177). With this respect, it is extremely inter- esting to consider how the actual “being cyborgs” impacts our perception of the World, the way we make sense of our perceptual judgements and how we direct attention: it is the issue explored by Verbeek as augmented intentionality (2008), essential to phenomenology and cognitive science. As noticed by (Waite & Bourke, 2013), this denotation of the cyborg is most fitting to investigate actual phenomena such as the use of social networking websites (SNS), con- sidering to what extent they habitually collapse dualisms and dichotomies such as the real/virtual one, which was left relatively unharmed in previous modalities of virtual pro-sociality (i.e. forums, chatrooms) which would foster a juxtaposition of different social worlds rather than a homogenous blend. Cyborgs (obtained by endowing men with transparent im- plants) were advocated for allowing man’s adaptation to new environments – think of outer space – that either could not be adapted, or would require a major genetic (hence hereditary) adaptation, spontaneous or induced. It is important to note that since the beginning the notion of cyborg was connoted by what, today, could be seen as an ecological-cognitive neces- sity (Magnani, 2009). The cyborg’s eco-cognitive nature de- rives from the stress on adaptation and on the cognitive func- tions: the artifactual additions have always been considered as something that ought to be transparent to one’s cognition and often capable of expanding one’s cognitive capabilities (Pino, 2010). We will now briefly review two insightful positions in cyborg-related studies, which will be crucial for the rest of our argument: Donna Haraway’s feminist theory (Haraway, 1991) and Andy Clark’s cognitive-oriented approach (Clark, Andy Clark’s Brilliant Intuitions and the Explosion of the Cyborg Concept Haraway’s Uncomfortable Cyborg The untarnished fertility of Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto was recently shown by a paper interestingly exploring the cyborg- like features of Facebook (Waite & Bourke, 2013). While One of the largest debate in cyborg-related studies has been on where to set the line dividing what is a cyborg an what is