Beyond cyborg metapathography in Michael Chorost’s Rebuilt to World Wide Mind: Introducing “morphos” as a rhetorical concept in cyborgography

Abstract

This essay introduces the rhetorical concept of “morphos”, a dimension of ethos, in the context of cyborg self-transformation and cyborg storytelling. Focusing on the cyborg storytelling of Michael Chorost, a cochlear implant user and futurist, this essay applies "morphos" to develop an argument about the changing capabilities and changing stories of living cyborg authors. Using rhetorical concepts to illuminate his self-transformation and narrative constructions, this essay analyzes Chorost’s two books: Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human; and, World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet. Chorost’s first book, Rebuilt, is an autobiographical account of his journey from deafness to cochlear implant hearing and his quest for community. He completes his journey of self-transformation using Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto and Caidin’s Cyborg as narrative tools. Rebuilt can be defined as a cyborg metapathography, identifying rhetorical features of Chorost’s cyborg storytelling. Chorost’s second book, World Wide Mind, is both autobiographical and theoretical. This rhetorical shift in the context of his changing physical, perceptual, and cognitive capabilities, and his changing ethos, is significant because it opens the way for a new hybrid language combining the spoken/written and digital code.