systemic centaurs Part I

In Greece mythology there is a ‘liminal being’ that represents the combined strengths of two different entities — horses and humans. The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal beings, caught between the two natures they embody in contrasting myths; they are both the embodiment of untamed nature, as in their battle with the Lapiths (their kin), and conversely, teachers like Chiron. Wikipedia Humans, as hosts for technology, are ‘prosthetic gods’. ‘Prosthetic gods’ are a form of ‘liminal being’ like centaurs. Humans do not want to settle for natural competencies. They want to be unnatural, with greater abilities and capabilities than granted naturally. They want to be integrated or unified with their favored technologies: Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times. —Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) Technology is an unnatural addition into natural human abilities. The combine of technology and natural abilities is fraught with danger but has also been beneficial. It is an ongoing struggle to determine what kind of technology should be brought into existence and how it should be innovated into the lives of other humans. This is the ongoing challenge for good designers who are ‘lame gods’ — with unlimited potential but with limited understanding. Lame gods stand in the service of ‘prosthetic gods’— a demanding responsibility.