Cyborg engineering changes human identity by expanding human capabilities and creating collective memory banks through brain-computer connections. It changes the nature of human existence, eventually evolving us into new beings and leading to our own demise.
In Yuval Harari’s “Sapiens,” there’s a line that reads. “Attempts to improve us will inevitably fail, because even if the whole could be improved, our minds remain untouchable.” The implication is that if our minds could be touched, we could improve the whole, and improving the whole would mean the end of sapiens. Here, the author discusses improving us on three fronts. Biotechnology, cyborg engineering, and non-organic engineering. In this article, I will discuss how or why cyborg engineering is one of the three aspects that could lead to the extinction of us, or sapiens.
First, let’s talk about what cyborg engineering is. In simple terms, cyborg engineering is the use of non-living things to help living things. We can find examples of cyborgs all around us, such as people with poor eyesight using glasses to help them see, or people who can’t remember all of their phone numbers using their cell phones to help them. There are also more advanced forms of cyborgs. For example, you might be familiar with Robocop or Detective Gadget. But obviously, the cyborg the author wants to talk about is something much more profound than this.
The cyborgs he talks about in the book don’t just help us. They extend our abilities, make us better, and sometimes accomplish the impossible. For example, a person in South Korea can move a robotic arm in Japan with just a thought, or I can travel to Paris with a robot in Paris. These developments are not just technological advances, they change the nature of human existence. These changes can fundamentally shake our sense of identity.
The answer to the above question is the answer to how cyborg engineering will lead to the extinction of homo sapiens. The answer is simple: connecting the brain to the computer. Connecting the brain to the computer means two things. First, it frees up the uploading and storage of information from the brain to the computer: everything I see, hear, and feel is stored in the computer’s database, and I can upload or download it at any time. Second, a computer can be anywhere. The connection between the brain and the computer means that every single person is a computer. This in turn creates a “collective memory bank” when multiple brains are connected. A “collective memory bank” means that everyone shares the same memories, the same feelings, and the mental boundaries between people, between homo sapiens, disappear.
We all have different memories, we all think different thoughts, we all feel different things, but when we upload them all to a computer, we’re all thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, remembering the same memories, so the mental boundaries disappear. As I said before, if we can touch the mind, we can improve the whole of us, so the disappearance of mental boundaries is an improvement of the whole of us. This means the extinction of Homo sapiens.
But does it really mean extinction? The author says no, it’s an evolution to a different kind of being. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if we’re going extinct through cyborg engineering. What matters is why we are going extinct. The author argues that it is because we can create superior beings that are truly more evolved than us. Cyborg engineering has evolved in the direction of making humans more superior. It has evolved to expand our capabilities. But we soon come to the conclusion that it is better to make ourselves more superior and more evolved than to leave us as we are. It’s just that it takes us a while to accept it, it’s an obvious truth.
The reason we come to this conclusion is because the question we really want answered is not “What do we want to be?” but “What do we want to do?” In the end, we didn’t want to become better beings through cyborg engineering, we wanted to expand our sapiens capabilities. But the bottom line is that we’ve gotten to the point where we need to be better, and that’s what’s causing our extinction. In the end, we’re not going to be struck down by something, we’re going to be struck down autonomously from within.
In conclusion, cyborg engineering is more than just a technological advancement; it has the potential to change our identity. It opens up new possibilities for us, but it also raises fundamental questions about who we are and what we want. In our journey to become better beings, we will have to ask ourselves if we are ready to face our own demise.
