Is it plausible for an athlete to out-perform cyborgs?

[JoeRoccoCassara]

An example is a story that I'm wanting to write.

 

From my own outline.

 

"We should use technology to strengthen the bodies we were born with, not to replace them."

 

-Decathlete champion on cybernetic athletes

 

This decathlete champion went into earth's orbit on a pre-established space-station that could produce artificial gravity, using the public's wallets he installed a gymnasium to train in for the decathlete versus "cyberthlete" Olympic championship to be held in three years. For every workout the station commanders were ordered to increase the gravity on the station to slightly greater levels than that of earth's. During his workouts the decathlete and his equipment's mass was said to be multiplied by ten, where as on earth his mass would normally be multiplied by nine-point-eight.

 

Three years later this decathlete was said to be the perfect physical specimen, six feet tall, 200 pounds and his body was described as the real-life vitruvian man. He out-performed the cyberthletes in all areas, they say that this was a result of the pressure that the robotic limbs inflicted on the human joints of the cyberthletes.

[CraigD]

I think your story idea is interesting, something of a twist on the 19th century steel drivin’ hero John Henry, a mythic figure credited with winning a strength/endurance contest against a steam-powered machine. There’s pretty good scholarly evidence the man actually existed, perhaps as several different people, perhaps by a different name, and less good but still some that the contest actually occurred. While John Henry is a tale of man vs. machine, yours is one of man vs. man-machine hybrid, but the feel seems similar to me, except I get the impression your guy is triumphant and healthy in the end, while John Henry wins, but drops dead right after.

 

From a technical SF perspective, the trick with cyborgs is to first be clear what you’re writing about, then try to hint at a plausible technology that could possibly build it. SF is full of abysmal examples of not doing this well, making the cyborg something of a genre cliché, and giving naïve readers the impression that making a human-machine hybrid that could begin to approach, let alone exceed, the performance of even a casual decathlete is no great challenge, likely just around the corner, while in truth, it’s a huge challenge, where even the easiest-seeming parts seem far from seeing much near-future success.

 

Re trick the first

There are practically as many potential kinds of cyborgs as there are permutations of body parts that can be replaced or enhanced with prostheses or implants, or machine parts that can be surgically attached. In present-day reality, it’s common to term a human with artificial parts a cyborg regardless of whether their added parts have computers or other feedback-processing systems in them or not, as the cyber part of the the name implies. People with pacemakers and cochlear implants, artificial joints, and even advanced detachable prostheses commonly term themselves cyborgs, further muddling the term, so when writing a SF story about cyborgs, it’s important to give a good sense of precisely how yours work. In SF, cyborgs run from extremes such as otherwise unaltered humans with nerve and brain implants to allow them to directly receive and send electronic information and controls signals to flesh-covered robots to completely artificial robot bodies with human brains installed in them.

 

Re trick the second

If you can define your cyborg as about human size and shape, and hope for it to be able to complete a decathlon, you’ve got some high technical hurdles to clear. Off the top of my head, here are a couple of the big ones.

Muscles. Because we see everyday machines that can move fast, machines that are strong, and machines that are compact, people tend in my experience to think that making a mechanical muscle is not too unfeasible. However, biological muscles are amazing in their ability to contract by large ratios, slowly or quickly, with great force, precise control, and tremendous energy efficiency. Mechanical equivalents are far from approaching them in even a few of these qualities at the same time.

Control. Despite decades of R & D, machines that can run, let alone jump, using 2 legs have to the best of my knowledge not yet been achieved.

 

Despite how hard it is to imagine a plausible cyborg decathlete, there’ve been some fine fictional depictions of them. My personal favorites are in the beautifully drawn Battle Angel Alita manga, where the cyborgs are predominantly the human brain-in-a- robot-body kind, and rather sports-inclined, though tending more toward fighting than track and field.

 

As to the title question “Is it plausible for an athlete to out-perform cyborgs?”, clearly it’s at present more than plausible. It’s a reality – no present-day cyborg can begin to compete with even a casual athelete. If we use of SF imaginations to assume technology like Alita’s will exist in the future, natural humans can no more begin to compete with that kind of cyborg than I can outrun a motorcycle or out-throw a cannon. Imaginatively assuming such technology comes to pass, there must be some point where cyborgs begin to exceed human performance. If you set your story at this period, it’s plausible. However, like the legend of John Henry, the story’s doomed to tragedy, as the machines will get continuously better, while unaltered humans cannot.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

I think your story idea is interesting, something of a twist on the 19th century steel drivin’ hero John Henry, a mythic figure credited with winning a strength/endurance contest against a steam-powered machine. There’s pretty good scholarly evidence the man actually existed, perhaps as several different people, perhaps by a different name, and less good but still some that the contest actually occurred. While John Henry is a tale of man vs. machine, yours is one of man vs. man-machine hybrid, but the feel seems similar to me, except I get the impression your guy is triumphant and healthy in the end, while John Henry wins, but drops dead right after.

 

From a technical SF perspective, the trick with cyborgs is to first be clear what you’re writing about, then try to hint at a plausible technology that could possibly build it. SF is full of abysmal examples of not doing this well, making the cyborg something of a genre cliché, and giving naïve readers the impression that making a human-machine hybrid that could begin to approach, let alone exceed, the performance of even a casual decathlete is no great challenge, likely just around the corner, while in truth, it’s a huge challenge, where even the easiest-seeming parts seem far from seeing much near-future success.

 

Re trick the first

There are practically as many potential kinds of cyborgs as there are permutations of body parts that can be replaced or enhanced with prostheses or implants, or machine parts that can be surgically attached. In present-day reality, it’s common to term a human with artificial parts a cyborg regardless of whether their added parts have computers or other feedback-processing systems in them or not, as the cyber part of the the name implies. People with pacemakers and cochlear implants, artificial joints, and even advanced detachable prostheses commonly term themselves cyborgs, further muddling the term, so when writing a SF story about cyborgs, it’s important to give a good sense of precisely how yours work. In SF, cyborgs run from extremes such as otherwise unaltered humans with nerve and brain implants to allow them to directly receive and send electronic information and controls signals to flesh-covered robots to completely artificial robot bodies with human brains installed in them.

 

Re trick the second

If you can define your cyborg as about human size and shape, and hope for it to be able to complete a decathlon, you’ve got some high technical hurdles to clear. Off the top of my head, here are a couple of the big ones.

Muscles. Because we see everyday machines that can move fast, machines that are strong, and machines that are compact, people tend in my experience to think that making a mechanical muscle is not too unfeasible. However, biological muscles are amazing in their ability to contract by large ratios, slowly or quickly, with great force, precise control, and tremendous energy efficiency. Mechanical equivalents are far from approaching them in even a few of these qualities at the same time.

Control. Despite decades of R & D, machines that can run, let alone jump, using 2 legs have to the best of my knowledge not yet been achieved.

 

Despite how hard it is to imagine a plausible cyborg decathlete, there’ve been some fine fictional depictions of them. My personal favorites are in the beautifully drawn Battle Angel Alita manga, where the cyborgs are predominantly the human brain-in-a- robot-body kind, and rather sports-inclined, though tending more toward fighting than track and field.

 

As to the title question “Is it plausible for an athlete to out-perform cyborgs?”, clearly it’s at present more than plausible. It’s a reality – no present-day cyborg can begin to compete with even a casual athelete. If we use of SF imaginations to assume technology like Alita’s will exist in the future, natural humans can no more begin to compete with that kind of cyborg than I can outrun a motorcycle or out-throw a cannon. Imaginatively assuming such technology comes to pass, there must be some point where cyborgs begin to exceed human performance. If you set your story at this period, it’s plausible. However, like the legend of John Henry, the story’s doomed to tragedy, as the machines will get continuously better, while unaltered humans cannot.

 

I'm against human-machine-amalgamation on the physical level, I find it unholy on a religious scale. So maybe I could give man outside help, from the very extra-terrestrial civilization that communicated with Jesus, the very benevolent civilization which created life on earth and which many have deemed their God and Savior, responsible for all miracles undetectably with their highly evolved exploitation of energies.

 

As our creators, they, this civilization, most remind us to exist the way in which we were originally born because it is important for their benevolent plans for us, for which we were conceived to carry out.

 

So I think it would be really cool if I had humans out-performing even the most advanced possible cyborgs with the help of, as the humans understand it, God. But this God scientifically plausible, existing as a type 3 civilization, as in the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.