Let’s start with the current situation. Ever hear someone say "Oh I left my watch at home. I feel naked without it" or "I keep looking at my wrist and forgetting I forgot my watch"?

Clearly, here is a piece of technology that is integrated into our lives to the point that it's jolting when it's missing. A space psychologist might note our odd wrist-glancing behaviour. But when we see it, we think its "natural" and don't think twice when we see someone doing it. This piece of technology has become a part of us.

Glasses are another example. Part fashion, part function and part integration. Ever see one of your professors take off his glasses? He looks weird right? It just isn't "him". Your mental image of your professor includes the glasses as much as it includes his beard.

When they do a scene in a movie where someone dies and goes to heaven, they are still wearing their glasses up there! Apparently this little piece of technology not only becomes a part of us, it becomes part of our souls!

Still not convinced glasses count as "technology"? Think that it has to have batteries? Well guess what - some glasses take batteries. There is a pair available in Japan that has little buttons on it to darken or brighten the lenses at will. Then there are the "photo gray" glasses that darken in sunlight without needing batteries. Where do you draw the line?

Then of course there are the plastic hip replacements, pacemakers, artificial elbow joints... the list is endless.

As one comedian once said, we didn't know what to do with grandpa after he passed away, bury him or put him in the recycle bin.

Steve Mann, a professor at UofT and self-described cyborg, surely meets our criteria. He has actual wires integrating a computer to his body, wears a screen in front of one of his eyes at all times (his wife confirms this) and generally looks like a character from a failed sci-fi pilot.

But a more fashionable version of his ensemble may be the future. Just look at pagers: on the one hand they interfaced us with a wireless phone network, on the other hand, they could look as cute as a navel ring adorning the right tummy.

And who says evolution has to happen only through biological means? Just as in some cultures we have systematic body alterations with circumcision and ear piercings, we too can have systematic installations of vision enhancers or Dexit chips.

Resistance is futile. If it's done early enough and as universally as, say, circumcision is, then we won't have a choice and it can become "normal". It'll be like, "I saw Jason in the shower and he still has his belly button! Why didn't the doctors install the Dynachip (TM) and sew his belly button shut so he can have a nice smooth stomach like the rest of us? He looks so weird and gross! He's liable to get a disease or something with that thing left there."

And lest you think humans and electronic data can't integrate in a deep and personal level - there was an episode of Star Trek TNG in which Tasha Yar did just that with a certain electronic Data of her own.

It's not only possible, this is our future.

Excalibur Naked Tech

And now for some
Hate Mail:

Dear Aleks Oniszczak,

We are writing in regards to your article "Evolving Beyond Our Bodies" in the February 23 2005 issue of Excalibur. While your article raised some interesting if unoriginal ideas, we felt compelled to draw your attention to some poor fact checking on your part. For starters, the attention-grabbing photo you used at the top of the article, which depicted two Star Trek characters in a passionate embrace, featured a caption that erroneously stated that this scene was from an episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The picture was, in fact, taken from the major motion picture Star Trek: First Contact. This would have been obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of Starfleet uniform chronology. The next time you attempt a Google image search, perhaps you should try following it up with a little something called journalism.

We also wished to comment on another Star Trek reference you made in the article, the Next Generation episode entitled "The Naked Now," in which Lt. Tasha Yar has sexual relations with Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android, while both were under the intoxicating effects of the Psi 2000 virus. While your statement did not contain any factual errors in it, we felt that the inclusion of the Data-Yar sex scene reference was inappropriate and completely out of context in an article on the integration of technology with our physical bodies. By comparing intercourse with an artificial lifeform with technology-assisted masturbation, you undermine the ruling of Starfleet Judge Advocate General Phillipa Louvois that sentient androids possess full civil rights (please refer to the episode "Measure of a Man") and reduce Lt. Cmdr. Data to a glorified dildo.

Steve "Kodos" Cruickshank
Lt. Cmdr. Rob Norman