The Transfinity of Culture and the Culture-Forming Features of Cyborgization

Abstract

The article analyses, from the philosophical and mediological standpoint, the phenomenon of cyborgization as a total cultural form. In addition, the paper dwells on the theoretical approaches to understanding cyborgization and characterizes its current state and prospects. The author postulates that, in a general sense, cyborgization can be interpreted as a practice of merging humans with machines, devices and things. At the same time, it is argued that cyborgization most explicitly embodies such a feature of the cultural system as transfinity (overcoming the boundaries of human abilities and capabilities) and thereby actualizes the status of culture as an enhancement, i.e. strengthening or expansion. Asserting that transfinity is determined by such a feature of culture as mediality (ensuring continuity in preserving human acquisitions), the author emphasizes that cyborgization accompanies mediation, which is another total sociocultural phenomenon. In other words, cyborgization contributes to the continuous transmission of traditions of human technical and technological self-creation over time. The study raises the issue of the relationship between the ideas of a cyborg as a “partial android” and as a “techno-expanded” human. In addition, the concepts of posthuman and transhuman are expanded on; it is indicated that the most accurate concept is human technologizing, or technohuman. Further, the author describes 4 models of cyborgization: classical, neoclassical, pre-classical and non-classical. They are combined into two hypermodels – (post)modern and archaic – that demonstrate the presence of cyborgization proper and everyday androidization (human-thingness) in the cultural system. It is emphasized that the (post)modern hypermodel puts forward a conventionally moderate version of totality of cyborgization (totality of the past and the present), while the archaic hypermodel puts forward a radical version of totality (totality of the approaching future). In conclusion, the author notes that while the classical and neoclassical models of the symbiosis of humans and machines seem teratological, they constitute the vector of development of the cultural system.