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Clark is new and inventive in his theories on the natural born cyborg. Since we all use technology so smoothly and since it is integrated into our lives to such an extent, we are all cyborgs in one fashion or another. This book is excellent and will have you questioning who you really are. Clark provides creative and easy to understand illustrations to help the reader further understand his points.
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Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence ANDY CLARK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS NATURAL-BORN CYBORGS This page intentionally left blank NATURAL-BORN CYBORGS Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence ANDY CLARK 2003 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2003 by Andrew J. Clark Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, Andy, 1957Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence / Andy Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514866-5 1. Technology—Social aspects. 2. Neuroscience—Social aspects. 3. Artificial intelligence—Social aspects. 4. Human–computer interaction. 5. Cyborgs. I. Title. T14.5 .C58 2003 303.48'34—dc21 2002042521 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Mike Scaife, 1948–2001 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This book owes large debts to many well-established ideas and research programs. All I have done is reshape these ideas, putting them into more direct contact with recent technological developments and with the ancient questions of who, what, and where we are. In constructing the foundations of this mosaic, I am most deeply indebted to the works of Daniel Dennett and Ed Hutchins. I also owe much to a brief but fruitful collaboration with David Chalmers (see our paper, “The Extended Mind” in Analysis 58, no. 1 [1998]: 7–19). In trying to see how specific new technologies fit in, I have been greatly helped by the works of Don Norman, Neil Gershenfeld, Kevin Kelly, Howard Rheingold, Yvonne Rogers, and Mike Scaife. Mike died, unexpectedly, while I was working on this book, and I respectfully dedicate it to his memory. Various other parts of the picture show the influence of Jerome Bruner, Richard Gregory, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, David Kirsh, John Haugeland, Merlin Donald, Brian Arthur, Doug North, John Clippinger, Esther Thelen, and Linda Smith. Large but more subterranean influences include Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Lev Vygotsky, J. J. Gibson, Gregory Bateson, and Bruno Latour. I was greatly inspired in the early days of this project by some interactions with N. Katherine Hayles, and with the organizers (especially Tom Foster, Louise Economides, and Laura Shackelford) of a round-table discussion that formed part of the Thinking Materiality workshop held at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, in March 2000. 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Works of fiction that had a special impact on me include pieces by Bernard Wolfe, Neil Stephenson, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Maureen McHugh, and Warren Ellis (Limbo, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, Holy Fire, China Mountain Zhang, and Transmetropolitan, respectively). In