Technology and the Meaning of Health

Question 1

What is the difference between technologies for human enhancement and technologies for therapy?

Answer 1

Human Enhancement:
- adresses methods, technologies, and their applications for enhancing sensing, action, and/or cognitive abilities of a human
- ex: night-vision goggles = give you sight beyond the normal range

Therapy:
- serve to help you normally function
-ex: corrective eyeglasses= serve to bring your vision back to normal

Question 2

Describe 3 main categories of augmentation and cite examples for each one

Answer 2

1. Senses
   - all 5 senses
   -ex: multi-sensory presentation tech
2. Cognition
   - ubiquitous info services and AI tech
3. Action
   - human activity measurement tech
   - ex: for limb/body movement, speech, head orientation, emotional state

Question 3

What issues are raised by the emergence of “cyborg culture”?

Answer 3

• tech is integrating with our body and redefining what it means to be human

examples:
- body is continually invaded by surgical techniques and replaced by new organs when they become deficient
- “young lab grown replacement tissue” and organs to replace the “aged” bodies of older people
- has a lot to do with discovering the ageing gene and abolition/getting rid of old age –> never die?

• seems like we want to prolong life, but doesn’t life need to have an end at somepoint?

Question 4

How has the “modern age” changed the meaning of health?

Answer 4

• very much a “consumer culture” which hass effected how we see our bodies based on what is posted on social media and the internet
• encourages cultivation of “individualized lifestyles” = you are how you look (looks mean everything bout you and nothing else)
• example: cosmetic surgery –> how you feel you body looks is how you should express yourself, relects the value placed on interdependence of body and self and importance of embodied self-expression

Question 5

How has technology helped patients to support their narratives? Give an example

Answer 5

narratives= their life stories (in this case medical stories)

examples:
1. Brain imaging in Schizophrenia –> used to combat stigma of mental illness

Question 6

Are ELSI issues at play in enhancement tech?

Answer 6

YES! (slide 21-24)