The world Government Summit Dubai. One man takes the stage, drawing attention to one controversial subject.
Sure, you’ve seen articles or blogs about people experimenting with their bodies. The man with an antenna implanted in his skull, Neil Harbisson, is striving to shed light on the subject. An extension of personality, the character even.
To some, this may resemble a Terminator movie. Neil spoke of the importance of embracing and integrating machine and human. What better place than this summit? Neil called on world governments to begin accepting. Accepting those who engineer their body with cybernetics.
What are the benefits of cybernetics?
Neil’s argument covered a variety of topics. Humans have altered the world for thousands of years, adapting it to our needs. What if it’s time to change that cycle, changing ourselves to suit our needs?
There are some big questions in the spotlight. Especially the camps who believe it morally or ethically wrong to modify your body.
Neil even took it one step further. Night-vision and temperature regulation will help in eliminating our reliance on extra-body appliances. I suppose it makes sense. We as a species do rely ever-increasingly on technology. Thus in removing our dependence, we free ourselves. Or at least, that’s the idea conveyed. The topic brings into question the ability of our peers to hack our body. WiFi is hackable, the FBI is hackable… why would our bodies be any different?
Cybernetics and the implications on our health…
Neil is a sufferer of achromatopsia. A form of colour blindness. Imagine everything you see, shaded in a variety of grey. His antenna has restored his brain’s ability to perceive colours. The antenna receives frequency, converts into vibration and delivers to him a colour. Neil himself indicated that people with permission can deliver a colour to his mind. Any time of the day or night. In his sleep, send him yellow, his dream becomes yellow. He has even seen a lion, he said.
Describing himself as an astronaut, Neil not only sees earthly colours. He now feels cosmic imagery. The unseen beauty of the universe around us. Almost makes you want to get an antenna of your own, doesn’t it?
Cyborg Foundation, an international organisation ran by Neil, defends cyborg rights. He also helps those who wish to have cybernetic implants. Forget Terminator, have you ever seen Killjoys?
The ability to sense the universal energy around us, for some, would be enough. Not Neil, he now wants an implant to sense time. How strange it would feel, seeing the cosmic energy and sensing time. You’d be more wizard than human.
