Cybernetics and Human Enhancement, Is the future Transhuman?

A Cybernetic system is where there is a constant feedback loop between the control elements and the system. It can be defined in many ones, one example being; The scientific study of how people, animals, and machines control and communicate information, 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cybernetics
 
Human enhancement is the act of trying to overcome the limitations of the human mind or body. Marshall McLuhan saw technological advances that extend capabilities of humans, for example..

http://christopherconsiders.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/blogging-it-up-big-style.html

iCub

iCub is one of the most advanced forms of Cybernetics which is a robotic platform where the objective is to see how robots can learn much as humans do as a result of feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcTwO2dpX8A

There are many types of human enhancement;
Body Engineering
- GENETIC 
-Genetic modification through changing gene pool
-Encoding DNA
-Has cured fatal brain diseases
-Can change memory and speed of thought
- PROTHESES
- Artificial constructs that can be placed into the body to perform the missing components.

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/394281483/fixed-the-science-fiction-of-human-enhancement-doc

 

 

http://www.trendone.com/en/trends/macro-trends/macro-trend/human-enhancement.html

An article by Nick Bostrom(2008) discusses the ethical issues in human enhancement specifically life extension, physical enhancement, mood and personality enhancment, cognitive ehnancement and child selection. 'Over the past 150 years,“best-practice” life expectancy (i.e. life expectancy in the country with the longest life expectancy) has increased at a remarkably steady rate of about 2.5 years per decade. If this trend were to continue,record life expectancy (for women) would reach 100 in six decades' Brostom, N (2008). He speaks about the positives; opportunities to learn and experience things we physically cannot with the current life expectancy, and the negatives; depriving life of any meaning and all the social problems associated with an aging population.

Bernard Williams's opinion on life extention is that infinate life is worse than finite life because all the things that give life meaning will become meaningless. He explains that this is because there will be no goals, desires or ambitions left to fulfil. Although people could and would create new 'projects' it would be unclear that the individual is in fact the 'same' 'what we would end up with would not be a single, cohesive life but a series of seperate but overlapping lives.' Williams, B (2008)

http://www.fillmyworld.com/self-care/life-extension/

Michio Kaku believes that 'at some point in the future we will have robots as smart as us, so why not enhance our selves?' He explains how we are the same cavemen as 100,00 years ago just with gadgets and which allow us to eventually become 'Gods' with perfect and ageless bodies. http://bigthink.com/videos/living-in-a-post-human-world

Rodney Brooks Ted Talk 'Why we will rely on robots' http://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_why_we_will_rely_on_robots.html discusses the ideas that robots will 'take over'. 'They can become our essential collaborators, freeing us up to spend time on less mundane and mechanical challenges' Brooks, R (2013) He developed Baxter 'The robot with eyes that move and arms that react to touch, which could work alongside an aging population - and learn to help them at home, too' Brooks, R (2013)

Baxter and Rodney Brooks

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/rethink-robotics-announces-baxter-robot-helper-we-go-handson-in-boston