Embodied Bodies

Manuel, Cho, Sam

Julia pointed out to us that medical technology is both extremely old and has always been linked with sci-fi or mythology

Apparently the first-ever mention of a prosthetic leg dates back over 3000 years to the Indian Rig Veda “Vishpala“

That is indeed extremely old, but I do know that cavemen already performed brain surgery, so …😊                                                         

But this is mythological, right? I’m not sure how advanced it was … did it have moving joints?

We don’t really know, but we have an actual prosthetic big toe from Egypt from around the same time “Ancient Egyptian’s wooden toe is sophisticated prosthetic“

That would actually be more advanced than a simple peg leg!

The first moving joints were developed in the middle ages, as far as we know.

Yeah, I suppose that wooden prosthetics rarely survived intact

There’s a Roman artificial leg, but no joints “Copy of Roman artificial leg, London, England, 1905-1915“

I do know some of this history, but I suppose you are also going to look to the future?

Oh, absolutely! The point is that mythology and then sci-fi are full of amputations and replaced limbs

Sorry for being a nerd, but we will get to Darth Vader at some point, right?😊                                               

Ha! Sure, that’s a great example actually. At some point we slip from just replacing, to improving.

Now I see where you are going with this, yes. When is a prosthetic healing and when enhancing?

I guess that this is linked to, well, an engineering mindset, I’d say.     If the body is a machine, we can repair as well as improve it.

See? This is exactly why I needed both of you for this! When is something actually “enhancement”?

There are quire a few ethical problems linked to that … doctors “playing god” and all that.

Same here: as soon as you start talking about an AI that is more than human, things get really complicated.

I’m looking forward to hearing all about it!