by Rebecca Roache
The Frontline reports that sensors carried on the body of mobile phone users could soon be used to boost the UK’s mobile phone network coverage. If only half of the 91% of the UK population who owns a mobile phone carried such sensors, then nearly half of the UK population would become part of a ‘body-to-body’ mobile phone network.
When technology becomes as wearable and ubiquitous as this, it raises some interesting questions about what sort of things people are, and about the division between the body and the surrounding environment. What, after all, is a body? At first glance, a person’s body is that mass of flesh, blood, and bone that we point to when we point to him or her: all very simple and straightforward. Things get more complicated when we consider someone who has received an organ transplant. Does a transplanted organ become part of the body of the person who receives it? I would say so. Assuming that the transplant is successful, it functions just like the organ it replaces; and an injury to the transplanted organ would be considered an injury to the recipient. What about artificial devices that replace or supplement organs, like cochlear implants: do these count as body parts too? I would imagine that most of us would be less willing to view such things as body parts. However, if transplanted organs are to count as parts of the recipients’ bodies, refusal to accept cochlear implants as body parts seems mere prejudice. Both enable the recipient’s body to perform a familiar and normal bodily function; and whilst a transplanted organ is – unlike a cochlear implant – undeniably a body part, it is pre-transplant no more a part of the recipient’s body than a cochlear implant. So, perhaps we should consider cochlear implants to be body parts too. If we accept something like a cochlear implant as a body part, though, what else might we feel bound to include? What about less permanent replacement body parts, like false teeth and prosthetic limbs? Tools that are not intended to replace body parts, but which nevertheless enable certain people to perform something like a familiar and normal bodily function, like wheelchairs? Tools that enable people to perform functions that are not familiar and normal bodily functions, like pencils and screwdrivers? Where do we draw the line between the body and the surrounding environment?
Read More »Is your mobile phone part of your body?
