Becoming a network beyond boundaries: Brain-machine Interfaces (BMIs) as the actor-networks after the internet of things

摘要

Access through the internet has become transport without deformation, instantaneous unmediated access to every piece of information. Actor-network theory (ANT) focuses on how strong actors mobilize their wider accessibility to the network to fulfill their interests. When the ANT concept was fresh, there was no node of networks like there is now. The internet of things (loT) was able to refresh the networks communication and more intra-actions from there. The RFID tags and micro sensor has changed the communication environment of the internet. The networks instead of depending wholly on human beings depend on other sources of information that are immediate, accurate and reliable. loT has integrated not only refrigerators, toasters and smart phones but even migratory animals and human organs using micro-electromechanical systems. This has helped develop relation-making process among things, elements and humans with environmental entities by dislocating them specific habituated contexts such as laws of nature, migratory patterns, physiological circulations, and behavioral enemies. Networks so far had been limited to small localities have grown beyond all borders to encompass all that are reachable. This study analyzes brain-machine interface (BMI) in a specific case of networks of things developed by Duke University as a prototype for future neuroprosthetic device that has succeeded in human application. loT is based on geography and uses cloud computing such as that of smart cities and ecological field studies. BMIs generate through re-thingification of those entities by implanting micromechanical sensor/actuator in them in a nebulae of relations that can be mobilized for temporal conduits. The ANT functions as a tool to investigate the space for subjectivity and what is left of human within the networks. (46 refs.)