Perhaps the "soft" sciences need a new term to categorize their field. There is intuitive, nonlogical component that is not quite amenable to scientific method, but nontheless rely upon data and statistics. Psychology attempts to characterize itself as "hard" science with statistics, neurochemistry, and neural scans, but psychology will never be neurology. It is akin to metaphysics of philosophy attempting to characterize itself interms of scientific physics equations and so forth. I think the current tendency to characterize these "soft" fields as something that it is not, and perhaps never can be, seems fraudulent.
If computers chips in the human brain replacea the man's capacity for thought and observation, can man still be called man, or has he become a cog?
I view technology merging with grey matter as simply another step in our continuing evolution. But it will be an important one. And I think that when that is done, Homo sapiens will no longer be an accurate label. The first "implant" (or whatever it might be) won't change much, but it will likely cause a revolution similar to what happened with computers, so progress will be fast.
This very scenario was a mid-game event in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. In game the progression was Neural Grafting, then Mind Machine Interface, the Homo Superior. The converse consequence to superior human was inferior human in form of the Gene Jack, whose cerbeum is atrophied, pain sensors deadened, skeletal musculature enhanced. When man can be improved, then surely, he can also be devolved as well? Is it tyranny to produce epsilon morons, ie Gene Jacks? How can you tyrannise those whom do not feel pain or desire freedom?
I'd say there will be no need for Gene Jacks since we'll have robots doing all that, probably in the form of nanobots instead of the anthropomorphic ones movies and sf novels accustomed us to.
Any idea btw who first came up with the term Homo superior? I think the oldest reference I know of is a David Bowie song.
Well okay I googled it. Apparently it's from a short sf story, but now I'm wondering who popularized it, and whether indeed it could be David Bowie.
I had no idea David Bowie had a song about Homo superior, but he has always been a trend setter. It is an accurate description of man-machine melding, as the entity would be superior to unmodified humans. They will be a permanent ruling class - an objective aristocracy as they indeed are objectively superior.
If Gene Jacks cost less to produce and maintain, then our masters will prefer Gene Jacks to robots. It is all about trade-offs. One reason for mechanical workers replacing humans in certain occupation is due to cost/wage increase by government policies of child labor laws and minimum wage policies. Men, even Gene Jacked men, can perform more versatile functions, while robots tend to have extremely specified, hence limited, scope of operation.
Yes, I rememeber some comedic skit, might be from a movie, where a character was saying something along the lines of "humans are better (cheaper etc.) than robots because they are self-cleaning, self-maintaining, self-propagating" etc. :P