![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/-X6hdJwIMMMc\/TX2QCcQB2jI\/AAAAAAAABUc\/7iK65uhSd8Y\/s1600\/bionic_arm%2528530%2529.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nChristian of The Thinking Grounds<\/a> has posted a new installment in his series on defining the body. \u00a0His focus this go-round is on debunking the idea that the body can be simply defined as that which is obedient to our will<\/a>. \u00a0He goes through a couple of examples of bodies that are subject to limited control but are still\u00a0accepted\u00a0as ours<\/em>, including bodies stricken by paralysis, conjoined twins and two-headed snakes, or involuntary physical motions.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still deciding whether I actually disagree with Christian about whether any of this is a blow against thinking about the body as serving our will. \u00a0Plenty of tools I use don\u2019t always serve me properly, and it\u2019s usually because of a fault on my end. \u00a0My body, like my computer, operates on the principle of garbage in, garbage out. \u00a0I can\u2019t complain about my\u00a0tendency to get out of breath when I go up the stairs to my room, given that I almost never exercise any more than\u00a0\u00a0I can blame SAS<\/a> for malfunctioning when I omit a semicolon.<\/p>\n When I use technology or my body I can always be limited by my own mastery of my tools or by the physical insufficiency of any of those tools. \u00a0I think of ownership of any of these implements as defined by some kind of mixture of my legal ownership, the availabilty of the tool for my use, and my own efforts at mastery (that last in a bit of a\u00a0Lockean\u00a0sense<\/a>). \u00a0And I have a burgeoning sympathy for the Maker\u2019s Motto of \u201cIf you can\u2019t open it, you don\u2019t own it<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Because I\u2019m well aware of the limits of my tools, I don\u2019t have any particular respect for my body-as-is or as some ideal form. \u00a0Transhumanism and self-hacking is a way to transcend the limits of our control and our tools. \u00a0The efforts of the folks at Less Wrong<\/a> to understand and overcome the biases of human reason<\/a> and the detritus of evolution stand in stark contrast to David Brooks\u2019s desire to understand and accept<\/a>.<\/p>\n My idea of body ownership is active, and still isn\u2019t limited to the organic components, just because they\u2019re currently best integrated.<\/p>\n Christian of The Thinking Grounds has posted a new installment in his series on defining the body. \u00a0His focus this go-round is on debunking the idea that the body can be simply defined as that which is obedient to our will. \u00a0He goes through a couple of examples of bodies that are subject to limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-transhumanism"],"yoast_head":"\n