Is there a human in the room?

Yesterday a friend challenged me on my characterization of the Terminator as a cyborg, pointing out that he does not in fact possess any critical organic components, and that therefore I should have referred to him as an android. This is of course correct, a cyborg, as the OED tells us, being a "person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine or other external agency that modifies the body's functioning; an integrated man-machine system."

It galls me to be accused of sloppy use of the English language, so I've been thinking about the implications of the word cyborg (cyb[er] org[ansim]). Cybernetics is the study of communications systems in biological, social, and, of course, IT contexts. It involves the existence of feed back loops, ie systems able to respond to stimuli. The nervous system is a good example of this; it operates by collecting external and internal data which it then uses to determine how to interact with its environment. So we organisms are all cybernetic, and the lines become even more difficult to draw when you consider that an organic body is only a tool or machine developed by DNA.

Of course, this doesn't help me with the Terminator, who, being metal, falls short in the -org department. Nevertheless, I'm left wondering: if my organic body is a machine like the Terminator's metal body is, and if we both operate using cybernetic systems, does our difference depend only upon the materials of which we are composed? All right, he's a bit more muscular than me too - but is that all?

My Daddy's a Cyborg

Something that fascinates me about masculine cyborgs is how counter-traditional they are as a representation of how tools and technology can be applied to the male body. When I refer to traditions (and let me add the caveat that I'm talking about the Western traditions) of body-alteration, the main figures that come to mind are the eunuch and the Amazon. Both these figures are to a greater or lesser extent defined by the alterations made to their bodies, and in both cases the alterations are generally read as diminishing their connection to the gender they were assigned at birth. So, we have a tradition of the masculinized female body, and a tradition of the feminized male body. Since the former exists on a continuum with contemporary cyborg narratives, it doesn't interest me as much as the latter, which the introduction of the cyborg has almost completely displaced.

That is, where technology was formerly able only to feminize the male body, the advent of the cyborg allowed the same body to be radically masculinized. I'm thinking here of figures like the Terminator, who are faster, harder, stronger, and more analytical than organic men. In fact, the only area in which the the male cyborg seems to fall short in his masculinity is in his inability to reproduce (some time ago I came across a claim that the Terminator "clearly" doesn't have a penis, but in the absence of any evidence, I'm unconvinced). His exterior structure aside, however, it is quite clear from his interior metal frame that the Terminator is unable to reproduce.

I would hazard a guess that this impotence is the reason why so many cyborg narratives deal with themes of paternity. The Terminator is a surrogate father, Robocop explores the degree to which a cyborg can retain paternity, and one of my favourite books, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, also has an important storyline dealing with the adoption of a child by a male cyborg. I'm certain I could come up with many more instances of this if I had time right now.

Cyborgs seem to make pretty good dads; given the circumstances, I can't even say they're over-protective. They're surrogates, so they don't pass on genes, but they do pass on memes, which, in an increasingly cybernetic culture, may be the most important inheritance of all.

In His Form

Today in the sale section of my campus bookstore I came across the manga A.I. Love You by Ken Akamatsu. The premise of the series is that the hero, Hitoshi, creates an artificial intelligence program who attains corporeality when a bolt of lightning hits Hitoshi's home. "If a freak accident can turn Thirty into a real girl," the back of the book asks, "can Thirty turn Hitoshi into a real man?"

The first three volumes of the series were instructive to me only insofar as I realized once again how provincial I am when my girlfriend pointed out that I was trying to read the story back to front. Although the form was new to me, the plot wasn't. In fact the first volume contains the words "I designed my ideal woman." Pygmalion, The Stepford Wives, and Tomorrow's Eve are some of the narratives I can name off the top of my head that use this premise; even the Judaic account of Lilith's replacement with Eve at Adam's behest represents a similar theme.

Tomorrow's Eve by Villiers de L'Isle-Adam is my favourite of these narratives, and all its other flaws can't hold a candle to its horrendous misogyny. Just like A.I. Love You, Tomorrow's Eve tells of the creation of a supposedly perfect woman, Hadaly - "perfect" being defined in relation to her use by men. Villiers published the book in the late 1800s, in it coining the word android. I originally found this usage ironic, since Villiers used the word to refer to Hadaly, even though andr- is from the Greek for man or male. The more I think about this misnomer, however, the more apt it seems: like Eve and Thirty, Hadaly was formed in the image of a man, since her body and consciousness were created in response to a man's desire and his idea of perfection. In fact, the women of these narratives all appear to be consciously designed to be unlike pre-existing women, women who don't live up to male standards of perfection. So if Eve and Thirty aren't specifically androids, they sure aren't gynoids either.