CMO: Culturally Modified Organisms

Abstract

With the word “biotechnology” we can understand a technology that modifies the life as zoe or as bios. Whereas in the former case we speak of GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms), in the latter it would be more approrpiate to speak of CMO (Culturally Modified Organisms). In this paper I aim at examine the meaning of this tecnological intervention on life, starting from the claim that the human being is an intrinsecally cultural animal, which modifies through technology the surrounding environment and consequently himself. The concepts that intervene in the definition of the human being as OCM are that of “world” (derived from Heidegger) and that of “objective spirit” (derived from Hegel). In the final part I present a comparison with Clark’s and Chalmers’s theory of the extended mind, by proposing a different tesis, that of the “concrete mind”

Keywords

• biotecnología, cultura, mundo, espíritu objetivo, mente extendida, mente concreta