Robots! Robots!

Sibyllene's predictions for the future: A melding of manipulated biology and technology (if not pure robotics)

1. Pacemakers, hip replacements, hearing aids, fake legs... humans are already biological beings with "bionic" implements. We obviously still consider a person with a pacemaker or a feeding tube or an artificial arm human. I'm wondering how far that can be pushed. If you are a conscious floating head, are you still human? Is it the mind, or consciousness, that determines our humanity?
That brings us to...

2. A new, technological phase in consciousness. One of the defining characteristics of humanity seems to be our ability for abstract thought. We can consider scenarios and outcomes that exist apart from instinctual responses to the physical world. We can plan for the future. We can daydream about our lovers while sitting at work. We can spend hours working through complex physics problems, without ever having seen an atom, electron, or quark. I see this abstract ability being pushed to its extreme, by things like computers and the internet. Our thoughts and interactions are no longer confined to our physical bodies. They roam -out there- somewhere, in the Ghostly Ether of the Internet. We have passions and furies and curiosities quenched by the wonder of the web - we can even fall in love online! I wonder about the eventual effects of this strange stretching of our conscious realms. What are the repercussions? Will the infinity of the internet (and its evolutionary descendants) create the possibility for an eternal consciousness? Writing and books have kind of done this to some degree - the words remain while the author turns to dust. I wonder whether the nature of the internet could be another stage in that process.

3. So, instead of seeing robots ruling, I think I see humans and robots blending into almost indistinguishable beings. I see robots becoming more like humans. I see biological matter surpassing the dominance of non-living materials in technology. I see more of our lives being lived in a world that inhabits the thickness of a computer chip.

That, or the apocalypse.