Is there a difference between knowing time in your head and from a watch?
Say the word, “cyborg,” and people imagine the fictional Borg from Star Trek, people implanted with technology, penetrating their skulls to enhance their brains. Frightening. We consider it perfectly acceptable, however, to extend our intelligence and abilities by using technology outside our bodies, everything from speech to pen and paper to computers. Is there a difference? Andy Clark, author of Natural-Born Cyborgs does not think so. “We are, in short, in the grip of a seductive but quite untenable illusion: the illusion that the mechanisms of mind and self can ultimately unfold only on some privileged stage marked out by the good old-fashioned skin-bag. My goal is to dispel this illusion, and to show how a complex matrix of brain, body, and technology can actually constitute the problem-solving machine that we should properly identify as ourselves.”
Clark knows his Heidegger – humans are technological to the core. We readily project feeling and sensation beyond the shell of our bodies, e.g., the cane of a blind person. In a neat demonstration of visual memory, he shows how we only store outlines and make errors when pressed for details. We store metadata but interpolate baseline data. It demonstrates our dependence on external storage devices. We are born to do this, argues Clark. Our brains are plastic, adjusting to our tools. As our tools become more intelligent, we can make more intelligent tools, bootstrap style.
Phantom pain shows that the body is a transitory construct. If mind does not stop at the skin, what exactly is a self? I agree with Clark’s alignment of self with our narrative, our story, projects and intentions. If we wear special goggles and gloves that allow us to see and operate mechanical arms elsewhere, our sense of self is carried along. Clark poses a “soft self”. I compare it with the Buddhist teaching that there is no permanent self. I wonder though if technological augmentation will compound the illusion of self?
He predicts “new waves of almost invisible, user-sensitive, semi-intelligent, knowledge-based electronics and software … perfectly posed to merge seamlessly with individual biological brains.” He foresees a future of ubiquitous invisible computing, allowing us to pluck answers on demand from the ether. Published in 2003, his vision seems close at hand with wearable tech and augmented reality.
The vision is compelling for efficiency but notice a shift in the locus of intelligence. Technology externalizes our minds, making people smarter, but not the person. Clark says there is no difference between knowing the time in your head and being able to retrieve it quickly from a watch. There is a difference, I say, regarding personal control but it is less obvious with a watch than, say, a sandwich board where the information is entirely public. Information in our heads has a private personal perspective, if only a soft self. The personal perspective is needed observe and evaluate ideas.
Clark prefers transparent or invisible technologies, ones that are always on and do not make the user think. He contrasts these with tangible technologies with a noticeable edge, an off button. If technology is going to do more thinking for us, it will become more difficult to critically evaluate it. Perhaps all technologies should be scheduled for occasional shutdown and evaluation.
Last Updated on June 25, 2026 | Published: April 29, 2011