So, back to the bloody cyborgs.
The dog too might be a little dispirited. Two reasons: today a Lab called Bella stormed over with a vicious snarl and knocked him to the ground. He gave back almost as good as he got but I imagine the lack of teeth didn't help. Anyway, we went on and I saw his eye was bleeding. I checked him and it was a little graze in the skin next to the eye. When I got home I cleaned it carefully with earbuds and it seems OK.
To add insult to injury, today I put my name on a puppy waiting list. It's a two year list minimum. And there's no deposit or anything. A cocker spaniel. I met one from the breeder the other day and she was so adorable that I stopped to talk to the owner, very much a country lady. They'd always had Labs and Springers, she said. So did we! I said. On the farm. My husband shoots, she said. Ah, I replied. But this, she said, is the sweetest natured dog I've ever known. Coco, she called her. A golden brown cocker bitch, no white on her. She's from here... looks like that first dog, but no white and maybe a little more russetty (a new word).
I shall call it Flag or Tadhg if it's a boy. Tati or Foxy if it's a girl. But don't hold me to that.
Yeah, the cyborgs. Turns out a guy called Neil Harbisson was born without colour vision. He decided nonetheless to become an artist and wanted to experience colour. So he has a chip in his brain and an antenna that senses wavelengths, including infrared and ultraviolet, and translates it into music that he hears in his bones. This is for real. He says that sensing the other colours makes him feel close to other animals who can also see beyond the spectrum we humans see. Having an antenna makes him feel kin with insects and hearing through his bones confers an experience shared with hippos and dolphins. I wonder how he washes his hair.
Another story. Ahia is the best goatherd the villagers have ever known. She guards them carefully at pasture and calls them home with an a-ay-yo call that brings them at a trot. When in their enclosure, there's always a panicky period when mothers and kids have lost each other. But Ahia recognises each kid and knows its mother. She carries the young ones to the right nannies and reunites them. No one else can do this. If a villager wanted enhancement therapy to match the skills of Ahia, though, it would be tricky. Ahia's ability to recognise individual goats might not be purely down to her intelligence or keen perception. Ahia is a baboon.
Oh, and I also learnt that humans have cooperative foraging and hunting relationships with wild honey eating birds and wild dolphins - who choose to work with the humans to their mutual benefit.
Only Neil's story is potentially useful. It starts as therapy, becomes enhancement and then cyborg-ification. Is he human? Part human? More than human? No longer human?
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