I think being a cyborg is having non biological components that you interact with as well as those parts interacting back.
Eg 1. Cochlear implants, would not make you a cyborg. The component gives the body info but not visa versa.
Eg 2. A robotic hand with touch sensory, would make you a cyborg. The body telling the hand where and how to move, and the hand telling the body what it feels on contact.
Very good point!
I would even expand this asking⌠âdoes it depend on the capabilities of the mod, or on the use given by the modded?â
Examples:
FlexNExT. no one here would doubt it is a technical mod, right?
What if I am getting it just because I want the blinkies in that triangular pattern, and then I never actually use the chips?
Given that the modification is to my body, this was driven purely out of aesthetics.
Now⌠what if I have a glow in the dark Haworths, which everyone here would say itâs Aesthetic⌠but what if Iâm in a peculiar scenario, letâs say I canât sleep without a light on, but my partner canât sleep even with a nightlamp on⌠I might have gotten that implant because of an actual functionality: to help me sleep.
(ok, I reeeeally stretched that one 
)
And then⌠if that point is valid, what happens when you get a mod for one reason, and then circumstance changes and you end up using it for another reason?
Letâs say I took a blow to my NExT I did only for Aesthetic reasons and the blinkies go off⌠later I start using the chips in it at a new jobâŚ
I love that point of view. Simple, elegant and deep.
The reply back portion is a key element indeed.
I would still not view myself as a cyborg if I had a cybernetic arm, though, despite it falling into that definition. Mostly because I would see me as an âaugmented humanâ, whereas my personal feel is that a Cyborg would still need to be more of a symbiotic entity.
So as long as I could still operate well even if I remove my cybernetic arm, I would not feel cyborg-y
But I really liked your point!
I do Identify as a Grinder, but I seldom use that as a descriptive tag for myself exactly because it makes me have to explain a lot more⌠which kinda defeats the purpose of a descriptive tag in the first place!
Not so far-fetched at all!
At least during summer time, when it had more sunlight to collect, my glow-in-the-dark implant kept glowing almost all night long 
And believe me, my beloved one occasionaly woke up and wondered what that strange glowing was⌠now heâs used to it, and since itâs winter now, itâs not glowing that much 
You have to come over here and show your phosphorescent implant to my easily freaked out coworker: heâs gonna lose his shit 
Hehe, got you a pic of it somwhere here on this forum, you might just show him
Or the scarification, or the flex-install⌠feel free to use them to scare people 
How on earth do you find basically everything on this forum so freakinâ fast???
Itâs alwaysâŚ
anyone: does someone remember this thing, I read it about 5 months ago, somewhere on this forum, maybe?
Pilgrim:
Ah, wow! I didnât realize those would glow so bright in normal conditions, thatâs awesome!
I cheated a bit, because my camera just didnât get the glow good enough⌠so I charged it with an UV-flashlight before, just a bit, so I could take the picture in a dimmed (not totally dark) room. But that way, it looks pretty much like it does to the naked eye.
Fun fact - today, this implant is exactly 5 months old⌠was my first one, and I still love it very much
Strange to see how much Iâve done in this short timespanâŚ
Your scarification wonât scare him. He has a tattoo in fact. What bothers him so much is the sight - hell, just the thought of stuff under the skin. If I was mean, Iâd talk to him about the kajillion microscopic creepy crawlers that live on everybodyâs skinâs surface
But he does know where the pigments of his tattoo now are?
Yeah well, phobias are rarely rational.
Make sure you include the Demadex mites.
My favouritesâŚ
They live for 2 weeks on your face and canât shit then they die on your face and all their excretions are released in one âoccasionâ
Yay
I must admit I thought exactly about you while trying to come up with an âAesthetic - to - Functionalâ example.
@Pilgrimsmaster definitely has superpowersâŚ
Still baffles me every time!
OK, so I read the rails of the train of replies. Now to the cyborg question. Opinion. What line would I fall on? Prior to having 5 various DT implants (which are used daily) I have a programmable internal pulse generator, IPG, attached to the nerve roots to the spinal cord in 8 places along with a battery operated medication pump that delivers pain meds (Fentanyl) directly into the spinal canal. So at this point my physical control of the majority of the central nervous system is under control of programmable technologyâŚ
Does this place me into phase 2 of cyborg transformation?
Depends. Which scale are you referring to? If itâs the one I referrenced, then your rather impressive medical device would be;
Type 2B Internal devices, Medically necessary / corrective. Powered. Ex. Pacemaker. (emphasis on Medically necessary / corrective.)
And your DT implants would be;
Type 3A Internal devices, Augmentation, Unpowered. Ex Rfid Chips.
Making you (highest rating) a type 3A Cyborg.
However, thatâs just my BS scale. IF youâre using the Venn Diagram from the beginning of the thread, then youâre in the intersection of M & T, which I guess makes you a MT cyborg?
You could also work out your own scale, and maybe shed some more light onto the question, Just what the heck is a cyborg?
Sorry, but I couldnât help but realise that if âScienceâ had been used instead of âTechnologyââŚ
We would now have M&S Cyborgs. Potentially sold as part of a meal deal! 
Ok, silly British humour asideâŚ
I stand with @ODaily:
I do appreciate scales and diagrams as part of a debate, but ultimately what you are is something that only you should be able to say.
We do have people here who do feel as a cyborg because when they misplace their phones, they suffer from missing limb syndrome. Even without any implants.
And we also do have people who would not Identify as a cyborg even if they replace half their bodies with tech.
Ultimately itâs more about how you feel than any arbitrary system
This. Whenever I hear someone proclaim to be a cyborg in all seriousness all I can think of is this:
13 posts were merged into an existing topic: The antiâ:no_entry_sign:-derailmentâ:railway_car: & threadâ:thread: hijackingâ:gun: threadâ:thread: 
Agree completely. I wear a watch and now I can sense the exact time by looking at my arm. I have crowns on some of my teeth so my teeth are stronger than bone. Does that make my a cyborg? Maybe, maybe not. All it really means is that I am improving myself using technology that is around me and usable today.
