The human being is a tool maker. That's because the body's physical limits were never enough to achieve the limitless ambitions of the mind. The human body of today is almost the same of thousand of years, but the mind - of the true thinkers - were and always will be up to date.
Very early in human history, men were aware of the limitation of the body and learned to cheat its limits, first with rocks and bones, now with microprocessors. There is a concept of obsolete body proposed by Stelarc (Stelios Arcadiou) in which human body limits can be extended by technology.
Along thousand of years, humans designed tools, mechanisms and gizmos that made what human hands and legs couldn't. Now, they're extensions of the core of the human existence: the brain.
Tablets, phones, computers in general are, more than ever, at the reach of the hands, because society imposes to humans more memory, more speed and more connection. People are delegating responsibilities of the brain, mostly the redundant ones, for instance, the abilities that machines do better and quickly, and concentrating on the flaws of them, like creativity, discernment and judgement. Machines are pretty much like prosthetics for redundant (and limited) functions of the brain. Why to do mental calculation if you have a calculator always near?
The baby boomers and the X generation are learning to delegate brain functions. The "Y" generation is addicted to it and next generations will be dependent of it. I think we couldn't escape of this "curse" of the prosthetization of mind and body (if this duality exists).
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