“De-stigmatizing their condition is essential for both improving their daily quality of life and progressing as a civilization.”

Considering that modern prosthetic limbs, especially the most advanced types of prosthetic limbs, come from the world of defense and are first intended to rehabilitate wounded soldiers, I don’t think there’s an actual stigma attached to the condition in question. The Oscar Pistorius incident was regrettable, however, it came not from animosity to Oscar’s body but out of bureaucracy and ignorance about the technical capabilities of the blades he uses. Yes, to those of us who have no artificial implants or mechanisms in our bodies the prosthetics look bizarre because they stand out from the familiar shapes we’re so used to seeing. And yes, there is a sense of discomfort in seeing someone’s leg or arm replaced by an artificial limb. But that discomfort could be explained as our reaction to the brief thought of what we’d have to go through were we in this person’s shoes.

“If elective amputations ever become even remotely normal…”

I have a lot of trouble seeing that many people following through with an elective amputation and a lot of doctors agreeing to do it. In a piece I wrote for Discovery Space, I looked into that problem when talking about future astronauts going into deep space and my research indicated that the cost, medical tool, and the ethical considerations of the procedures would leave major elective artificial enhancements as a treatment, not as a type of plastic surgery. That said, artificial organs standing in for when natural ones fail could hopefully become more and more common over the next 30 to 50 years, meaning a better and longer life for the average person.

And now to get technical…

“The Luke arm is a cutting edge piece of technology based on a backward idea – let’s replace the thing that went missing by replicating it with metal and motors. [...] No need to reinvent the wheel, just replicate the natural model you’ve been given.”

Yes and no. One of the biggest movements in cyborg technology today is interfacing with the nervous system so the limb feels as if it’s natural. Instead of putting the limb on in the morning, the hope is that the prosthesis just becomes a part of the patient. Lose an arm? Ouch! Well, here’s one that will feel just like the old one in a few months when your brain gets used to manipulating it like a natural limb. If the limb is bizarrely shaped, the adaptation curve could be very steep and it becomes more difficult to accurately program a mechanical limb to behave as it should when it receives input from your nerves because you now have to map existing nerves to new functions. It’s possible, just difficult for the patient.

In the purest engineering sense, you’re right and we could just focus on function and make the form pure eye candy. However, unless a patient really wants tentacles instead of a missing arm, it makes more practical sense to make the limb as familiar to him or her as possible to reduce stress and training time. Internal organs are much easier in that regard because you don’t consciously move them as you fee fit. You have much more leeway there as demonstrated by your story about the non-pulsing heart.

He has had considerable success. He has won many Paralympic Gold Medals and has competed relatively successfully against able-bodied athletes at an international level.

More information can be found on his website that is linked to at the end of the article.

There has been much controversy over whether his legs give him an unfair advantage.

@ Armand: It’s a fun exercise I shamelessly stole from Kevin Kelly. I’m going to do it as long as I can, I think it helps me flex my thinking muscles.

At your other blog, Pop Bioethics, you’ve listed two ‘unthinkables’ of the day, the latest of which is directly related to this post. How long do you expect this to continue? How many unthinkable thoughts do you have?

Right now, the Human race is roughly split between technoprogressives and bioconservatives. I believe that only the wealthy, and those with wealthy benefactors, will be able to afford truly superhuman enhancements. The Transhuman elite will oppress and terrify the Human rabble. This will cause the large majority of Humans to become fanatically bioconseravtive, and eventually revolt against their cyborg overlords.

Place your bets.