About Cyborgology

Individuals and social groups have always been cyborgs because we have always existed in tandem with technology. Today, with the vast proliferation and diffusion of new technologies throughout society, techno-human syntheses occur in more aspects of our lives than ever before. Advances in medicine augment our bodies with technology (e.g., pills, pacemakers, IUDs, breast implants, Viagra, contact lenses). Communication is increasingly technologically mediated (e.g., radio, television, the web). We are experiencing a proliferation of personal devices like the smart phone, which is, essentially, a computer we carry with us wherever we go, often sleeping with them at our bedsides and using them check our profiles and messages first thing in the morning. It is not difficult to imagine a future where we begin to look like the cyborgs found in movies; however, our definition goes far beyond the half-human, half-robots propelled into the popular imaginary by science fiction and cyberpunk because technology is about more than electronics.

The layout of a prison or a school is a technology of discipline; language is a technology of thought and communication; cultural norms themselves are technologies of social organization

—in every instance, technology is the product of a particular historical moment and it becomes integrated into the social life of that period.

Our focus is as broad as these examples suggest, but we most often focus on new technologies. Today, the reality is that both the digital and the material constantly augment one another to create a social landscape ripe for new ideas. As Cyborgologists, we consider both the promise and the perils of living in constant contact with technology.

Cyborgology was created by Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey

@cyborgology

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intro’d a time ago via nathan… adding page this day

we must accept that theory is (and seeks to be) a reduction of the busyness of the world’s observable on-goings—i.e., it omits detail in one form or another in an effort to make some specific facet of human experience more intelligible, approachable, operatable, etc. To stipulate any theoretical premise (even one that indicts another theory as reductionistic), then, is to assert a reductionism.

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If the goal of theory is truth then the observation of reductionism operates as a proxy for the charge of falsity—i.e., an analytical explanation demonstrates the mutually exclusive condition of being accurate or inaccurate.

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probing reveals the theoretician’s implicit request that observers acquiesce to the condition of true enough or true until demonstrated otherwise. Of course, this request is entirely appropriate—but giving recognition to such a request draws into question the very need for or desirability of employing theoretical stipulations directed at the discernment of truth.

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If we regard theory as a technology, however, we may accept that reductionism and indictment of reductionism are both appropriate and necessary. The function of technology—with respect to the present epistemological concerns—is to accomplish a task, address a problem or manage a dynamic or operation.

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To recognize theory as technology, however, is to demonstrate and validate a need for pragmatism—i.e., to recognize that a world of seemingly infinite complexity requires metrics able and willing to proffer useful rather than perfect measurements. So we may readily permit a psychoanalytic account of repressed wishes and instincts if such an account seems to demonstrate an explanatory efficacy (in correspondence with or relative to other theories).

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So the theoretical incantation to ward off reductionism has become a trite, though necessary, endeavour. It signifies to onlookers, “Yes, of course this analytical problem is a concern; now please acknowledge that I have not denied this concern a presence within my analysis.”..t

huge when dealing w people (which is huge no..?) because most of us are not us.. it’s like we’re theorizing/analyzing about whales in sea world

Yet the incantation should not—in and of itself—be sufficient for warding off the criticism of reductionism.

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it is only appropriate to regard psychoanalytic theory as reductive when it seeks to ignore or negate the relevance of other explanations for why and how a person is in and of the world. Such an acknowledgement requires us, those giving critiques to another’s theoretical application, to differentiate the intentions of users from the affordances of the technologies they employ.

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