There has to be more than just mind manifested through brain, supported by flesh and bone wrapped neatly in multi-colored skin. Sure, as a package, this can seem pretty complex and more than enough to explain the most abstract questions about human life. However, I think human existence goes beyond the conscious mind and the earthly body that gives it life. I think there has to be (at least) a third aspect to the mind/body relationship—a bonding aspect that acts as mediator, communicator, or even translator if you will. As Hayles reports that the mind is nothing without the body (246), I would have to argue that the mind and body are nothing without the human spirit embodied within their corporation. Not to say that we necessarily have a soul to be saved or a spirit that needs enlightening, but just that life is definitely more than just flesh, bones, and functioning thoughts created by a conscious mind. When I am affected by intense emotion, whether it’s positive or negative, it does more than just affect my psyche; instead, it does something on a deeper level. Sorry to say, but those who attribute love, hate, and utter joy to something strictly scientific may be suppressing the idea that a big part of being human may possibly be spiritual.
It seems that this may go beyond the cyborg. It seems that this is what will always differentiate us from the cyborg within. It seems that though the cyborg utilizes our rhetoric and wields technology as its sword of advancement, there is a part of us that is impenetrable, a part of us unseen, unexplainable, but rather felt, believed, known. The cyborg has attached itself to our body, immersed itself in our minds, but cannot affect the spirit it will never understand.
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