Implementing Metal with Flesh
By Brian Kim
Jean-Luc Nancy's L'intrus interestingly pointed out some very provoking thoughts regarding medical technology and the idea of body alteration and modification. In the reading, Nancy describes the aftermath of his heart transplant. He expresses his thoughts regarding his new heart with feelings of uncertainty and a nihilistic attitude towards his own life. He uses the words "foreign" and "intruder" to describe the new organ he received and through his writing, I became aware of just how detached from life Nancy started to become. This sentiment towards organ transplants wasn't familiar. I always attributed rather positive concepts to the idea of transplants. I thought of a life being saved, the gratefulness of the receiver, and the generosity of the giver. I didn't, however, think of the true psychological impacts a transplant might have.
This story reminded me of Talabi's story and the people of his hyper-advanced technological society. The two stories shared the same concept of the human body melding with a foreign object. Though in Nancy's case, the object in question is foreign only from an emotional standpoint, the concept exudes the same feeling of an unfamiliar human body. Nancy's mentality regarding his new heart and the profound mental effect it has on him makes me question if humanity is ready for technological augmentations to the body. The idea of having another person's heart would weigh heavily on anyone due to the emotional significance the organ can hold, but a piece of technology holds no such sentiments. That being said, technology is considerably more alien than a human organ, and implementing metal with flesh could wreak havoc on a person's mental state and make them question if they can even apply themselves as a human being. Science fiction has covered such a topic many times such as Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In this novel, androids exist that resemble humans so closely that very precise tests must be administered in order to discern them from real humans. Though these "androids" are made of flesh and blood and possess human levels of intelligence and sentience, they are still not deemed human. If humans today were to advance medical technology to the point where we could integrate with it, the conversations regarding what it means to be human and the chaos that may unfold amongst those who see the merging of man and machine as heretical could be potentially catastrophic.
While the technology behind body alterations and augmentations might sound extremely promising, Nancy's sentiments provided me with the realization that humans don't have a solid enough grasp on the ideas revolving around humanity to ever even begin to transplant parts of their flesh and mind with cold and unfeeling metal.