To understand what a cyborg is it is imperative to understand what an android is. The andys in Phillip K. Dick's novel are clearly indicated to be androids not cyborgs. According to wikipedia androids are robots designed to resemble and act like humans. Cyborgs are defined as organisms that possess both artificial and biological parts. There is a category that seems to fall in between these two categories however and that is a bio android. This being possesses artificial biological parts. A bio android would be considered a replicant from Blade Runner.
I believe that Cyborgs can be human and not human. It all depends on the creation process. For example if you ripped out a human heart and installed it inside a robotic shell and the heart allowed this shell to function that would be a non-human cyborg.
One of my favorite cyborg characters which I would consider to be a human cyborg is the character Franky from the anime One Piece. After trying to stop a train in a desperate attempt to save his mentor Franky is nearly killed. However, as he explains later he had enough life left to take spare parts around him and rebuild himself into a cyborg. Franky's stomach opens up to store cola soda which gives him energy. However, a percentage of his body remains human, including his brain and his back as he could not reach it to add robotic parts.
Franky's artificial parts don't seem elaborate enough to threaten his humanity, but there is another character whose body is made up of a higher percentage of artificial parts. This character, with the fitting name Cyborg, is in the show Teen Titans. All of his body seems to be nothing but robotic parts except for a small portion of his arms and part of his head. In one particular episode Cyborg finds him self low on power and rescued by a robot named Fixit. Fixit plans to fix Cyborg as he believes the human parts need to be removed and replaced with mechanical robot parts. This of course would remove all humanity and emotions that make Cyborg who he is. However as Fixit prepares to remove Cyborg's humanity he examines Cyborg's memories and sees beauty and wonder through human eyes. Fixit realizes that his full robotic self is truly flawed and it is Cyborgs humanity that makes him who he is.
Both of the characters I have mentioned started as humans and therefore it is easy to believe that they can retain their humanity. However General Grevious in Star Wars Clone Wars is less easy to understand. It is not explained what race or species he was before changing into a cyborg. He has blood, eyes, a heart, lungs,and most likely a brain. Due to the presence of biological parts Grevious is much more clever in battle than droids limited by their programing could ever be. Grevious wields light sabers like a Jedi, but just as andys in Electric Sheep cannot go through the religious experience with Mercer, Grevious cannot use the Force as a full biological being is capable of. Regardless of the fact he received a blood transfusion from a Jedi.
I have given my opinion on which cyborgs are human, however it is still difficult to say how much one can lose and still be considered human. If a man lost all his limbs, most of his organs, and his mind became retarded, but he still lived could he still be considered human? I believe he would, he would just be considered a mutilated human. Since I cannot fully explain the soul I believe that the presence of a natural human mind containing memories and the ability to express emotions is the bare requirement to be human.
In the anime Dragon Ball Z one of the major groups of villains are androids. However, I believe this is the wrong classification for these characters. In my opinion they are better classified as cyborgs or bio androids at the very least. One of the biggest reasons for this is that Android 18, a female model marries a human and has a human daughter. This confused me until it was explained by the husband that Android 18 was originally human, before she became a cyborg. I believe she is called an android due to a translation error as wikipedia refers to her as an artificial human and as a cyborg.
I do not fear the future of cyborgs if it is a limited future. The creation of mechanical limbs for those who have lost them is very promising. This concept was featured in the anime Full Metal Alchemist in which the character Edward loses an arm and leg playing God in an alchemical experiment. Fully articulated robotics limbs are connected directly to his nerves. It is a painful process though this auto mail works just like real limbs once attached. What I truly fear is human stupidity. In Electric Sheep humans were foolish enough not to include an outward sign which could easily identify andys. Consumers selfishly wanted andys to be completely human like and this idea is very stupid in my opinion. If humanity in the future cannot see the danger in this, especially after so many books and movies have warned against it then our species may deserve death at the hands of machines.
