From Toolmakers to Cyborgs

Abstract

Humans have an ingenious ability to shape the environment we live in. Twenty thousand years ago, this started with simple shelters and has now advanced to manipulation on a planetary scale. Human abilities are tightly linked to the tools and technologies we have at hand. Nearly nothing that surrounds us in a modern world can be created without sophisticated tools. The clothes we wear, the vehicles we use, the buildings we live and work in, and communication we rely on are only feasible due to tools and technologies humans have invented. Human evolution is inevitably linked to the tools we use. Our ability to survive and procreate goes together with technological advances. Early on, tools made survival easier and freed time for humans to advance their knowledge and create even better tools. Evolution and tool use are linked. Tools and technologies have long complemented and extended our physical abilities: from pre-historic spearheads to steam-propelled ploughs and high-tech prosthetics. We have come a long way. Human abilities have increased through technology; we can talk to people on the other side of the world, travel at the speed of sound, and lift loads that are many times our own weight. This past wave of innovation was mainly focused on our ability to act in and manipulate the physical world. With more recent technological advancements, however, the extension of our perceptual and cognitive qualities has increasingly taken shape.