Entry 9

I gave my first presentation as a PhD student last Friday. They’re definitely swift in this department. When I did my Honours and Masters degrees the presentation (the only presentation) postgraduates had to give wasn’t until around about August. I’ve only been in the Bioethics department here for three weeks. I think that the presentation went quite well. Certainly as well as it probably could have gone considering the stage I’m at having just started. My topic at the moment is Cyborgs and Personhood. I sort of thought I had more direction with the topic than I actually do, which is quite frustrating. As it stands I have a choice out of three paths. First is the Transhuman aspect of cyborgs, which is related to the philosophical discipline ‘transhumanism’ that supports the use of emerging technology to improve and/or enhance humanity. Second is Enhancement, this area would look at the ethics of using enhancement technology and how that might affect our lives (this would probably be connected to the transhumant area). This area would more than likely lead into the use of enhancement in sports and would necessitate a discussion regarding the definition of the term enhancement. This discussion would in turn lead to the question, where do we draw the line with enhancement? Or in other words, what is enhancement? The third option is more of a philosophical investigation into what exactly it means to be a person, and whether a line can or should be drawn between a person and a cyborg, and if so at which point does it make sense to do so? So a tough choice lies ahead since this will determine my direction for the next three years and potentially my career path. All of the options seem so intriguing to me, and chances are they’re not actually mutually exclusive but one will be the driving force of my research. For now though, I am content to do some background reading on all three, and get started on some writing (which my supervisor wants in a week or so) and hopefully the path will become somewhat clearer in the meantime.