cyborg

Organism anchor

Record the participating organism and the evidence supporting its identification as the living constituent.

1. Which living organism anchors this composite, and how is it identified? definition
2. What observation or record supports that identification? provenance

Functional inclusion test

Record the adopted integration criterion and its application to each candidate component.

1. What bodily or operational coupling makes this component part of the composite rather than a carried tool? boundary
2. Which worn, implanted, remote, or temporary components remain outside or disputed under that criterion? boundary

Joint function account

Record the function, its biological and technical contributors, and the evidence of their contribution.

1. Which organism-level function does the technology restore, substitute for, support, modify, or augment? definition
2. What observations distinguish demonstrated function from intended or claimed capability? provenance

Loss and fallback

Record documented loss consequences, available fallback functions, and uncertainty about disconnection.

1. What is known to happen to the organism's function if this component loses power, communication, or physical coupling? boundary
2. Which fallback or support must be available before a planned interruption? action

Interface exchanges

Record exchanges of force, energy, material, or signals without assuming every interface is bidirectional.

1. Where does each biological-technical interface occur, and what crosses it in each direction? definition
2. Which measurable properties determine whether that exchange supports its intended function? measurement

Coupling integrity

Record evidence of interface performance, biological response, and changes affecting compatibility.

1. What current observations show the condition of the biological side, technical side, and connection between them? measurement
2. Which documented interface conditions require adjustment, specialist assessment, or suspension of a coupled function? action

Command and override

Record how organism-generated input, automation, and external commands influence function.

1. Which inputs initiate or modify this function, and how are conflicting inputs resolved? definition
2. Who or what can override or stop the function, and what consequences follow? action

Bodily intervention authority

Record available first-person reports, communication limits, and the authority applicable to proposed changes.

1. Where reportable, how does the organism describe control, comfort, or interference associated with the integration? provenance
2. What consent or other applicable authority permits this specific intervention, and what limits apply? action

Sustained coupling requirements

Record power, consumables, calibration, training, and external support required by the integration where applicable.

1. Which recurring resources or activities sustain this organism-technology coupling? definition
2. What evidence indicates that bodily change, learning, or component drift requires reassessment or recalibration? measurement

Transition and continuity

Record how a proposed transition affects composite membership, coupled function, and continuity of the record.

1. Which functional checks and support arrangements are required before and after replacement or removal? action
2. Does this transition preserve the same composite record, create a new configuration, or end its classification as a cyborg under the adopted criterion? boundary

Kinds and varieties

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• restorative medical cyborg (lost function replaced: pacemaker, cochlear implant, myoelectric limb)
• homeostatic or metabolic cyborg (closed-loop physiological control, the original 1960 sense)
• neural cyborg (stable coupling to the nervous system: deep-brain stimulation, brain-computer interface)
• enhancement cyborg (function pushed past the typical human range rather than restored)
• wearable or exoskeletal cyborg (disputed: worn robots counted only on a loose definition)
• non-human cyborg (animals or insects with telemetry, stimulation, or control implants)
• science-fiction cyborg (cultural type: partly organic, partly machine person)
• theoretical or political cyborg (Haraway: hybrid identity, not a hardware inventory)

1. Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Identifiers and schemes

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Library of Congress Subject Headings - Cyborgs - Subject heading for the concept in library cataloguing; not a unique instance identifier.
• Wikidata - item labelled 'cyborg' (human-machine organism concept) - A Q-number exists on Wikidata for the concept; the numeric id is not restated here because it was not re-verified in this pass.

1. Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Standards and regulation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• ISO 14708 series (active implantable medical devices) - International Organization for Standardization
• ISO 5841 (cardiac pacemakers) - International Organization for Standardization
• IEC 60601-1 (medical electrical equipment, basic safety and essential performance) - International Electrotechnical Commission
• Regulation (EU) 2017/745 (Medical Device Regulation), succeeding the Active Implantable Medical Devices Directive 90/385/EEC - European Union
• United States FDA Class III / PMA regime for many active implants (21 CFR Parts 814 and 860) - U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• WADA Prohibited List, where some performance-enhancing technologies and substances used with the body are banned in sport - World Anti-Doping Agency

1. Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Real-world use

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators as everyday closed-loop heart-rate and rhythm control.
• Cochlear implants converting sound to electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve in people with severe hearing loss.
• Deep-brain stimulation leads for Parkinson disease, essential tremor, and some dystonias.
• Myoelectric and osseointegrated limb prostheses driven by residual-muscle or neural signals.
• Insulin pumps and hybrid closed-loop 'artificial pancreas' systems coupling glucose sensing to insulin delivery.
• Retinal prostheses and a smaller set of experimental visual and cortical implants.
• Laboratory and field animals fitted with telemetry, stimulation, or locomotion-control implants.
• The term itself is used far more in fiction, art, and theory than on consent forms: clinics say implant recipient or prosthesis user.

1. Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Typical measurements

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Number of active implanted devices in one person - 1-several - count
• Service life of a typical battery-powered active implant (e.g. pacemaker) - 5-15 - year
• Neural-interface channel count - 1-1000+ - channel
• Kinematic degrees of freedom of an upper-limb prosthesis - 1-20 - count
• Time in target glucose range for a hybrid closed-loop insulin system - 50-90 - %
• Speech-recognition score in quiet for many cochlear-implant users - highly variable, often tens of percent to >80 - % words or sentences correct

1. Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Failure modes and hazards

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Surgical infection and biofilm on implant surfaces.
• Fibrous encapsulation or gliosis that degrades electrode, sensor, or drug-delivery function.
• Lead fracture, hermetic-seal failure, or other hardware faults.
• Premature battery depletion and the need for replacement surgery.
• Electromagnetic interference from MRI, electrosurgery, security gates, or strong radio fields.
• Demonstrated cybersecurity attacks on networked insulin pumps and defibrillators.
• Mismatch between intended function and lived body: pain, phantom sensation, or rejection of the device as not-self.
• Legal and sporting disputes when a device is used for enhancement rather than therapy.
• No recognized legal status 'cyborg': rights and duties attach to the person and to the device as a medical product.

1. Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Regional variation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Clinical English almost never calls a patient a cyborg; Japanese popular usage of サイボーグ often overlaps what English would call an android.
• Anglophone humanities use Haraway's cyborg as a metaphor for hybrid identity; biomedical engineering uses the word rarely and usually pejoratively or loosely.
• The EU and the United States regulate implants as medical devices; neither creates a civil status of cyborg.
• Disability-rights communities in several English-speaking countries often reject the label as dehumanizing and prefer person-first or identity-first assistive-technology language.
• Military research programmes (notably U.S. DARPA neural-interface work) frame human-machine coupling as capability, while clinical practice frames it as restoration.

1. Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• android or humanoid robot - An android need not contain a living organism; a cyborg is still an organism with coupled technology.
• ordinary prosthesis or assistive tool - A cane, glasses, or a doffed limb is a tool; cyborg coupling is ongoing participation in the organism's control, sensing, or metabolism.
• bionic device - Bionics is the engineering of biological function in hardware; the person becomes a cyborg only when that hardware is stably coupled to an organism.
• chimera or hybrid organism - A chimera mixes biological lineages; a cyborg mixes organism with engineered apparatus.
• transhuman or posthuman - Those are future-person or philosophical categories; a cyborg is a present organism-machine coupling, often a clinical one.
• exoskeleton user - A worn robot is a cyborg only on definitions that drop implantation or homeostatic integration; most clinical and original technical uses do not count it.
• brain-computer interface - A BCI is a component technology; the subject is a cyborg only if the interface is a lasting part of the body's control loop.
• Cyborg (fictional character) - A proper-name instance in comics or film, not the class of organism-plus-machine.

1. Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of cyborg this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance