Megan Arrowsmith
also their online personas . Technology now allows for a whole other life online , allowing humans to transgress the limits of the physical world , an extreme instance of ‘ reality shifting ’ ( Pederson , 2013 , p . 4 ) where we have instead built our own . It is possible that the idea of a posthuman body means we leave behind our physical forms completely . Cartesian ideology would again note that it is the mind which makes us who we are , a body is simply a vessel to carry us along , in effect moving our mind to a virtual body is simply continuing evolution , finding the best ‘ container ’ for ourselves , as “ there are no essential differences ... between bodily existence and computer simulation ” ( Hayles , 2008 , p . 3 ). Living in a completely virtual world , for now , is confined to the science fiction media , but it is not ridiculous to image a far future where it is a possibility .
Most will consider a cyborg to be something akin to the Terminator ( Cameron , 1984 ) or RoboCop ( Verhoeven , 1987 ), but in reality , we are all cyborgs , no matter how much or little we interact with technology . It is impossible , especially in western society , to be completely remote from any form of technology or media . Whether this means we
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are also no longer , or slowly becoming less , human , is still debatable and impossible to decide , but what it means to be human is certainly different now than it was in the past . Evolution has always meant change .
Bibliography : Bordo , S ., 1990 . “ Material Girl ”: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture . Michigan Quarterly Review , [ online ] 29 ( 4 ), pp . 653- 677 .
Descartes , R . and Sutcliffe , F ., 1968 . Discourse On Method And The Meditations . London : Penguin .
Evans , J ., 2016 . What Is A Human ?: What The Answers Mean For Human Rights . Oxford : Oxford University Press .
Hartley , J ., 2003 . Communication , Cultural And Media Studies : The Key Concepts . 3rd ed . London : Routledge .
Hayles , N ., 2008 . How We Became Posthuman : Virtual Bodies In Cybernetics , Literature , And Informatics . University of Chicago Press .
Iron Man . 2008 . [ film ] Directed by J . Favreau . Los Angeles : Marvel Studios .