Kevin Kelly has written a great essay on the current challenges to human identity, challenges from tech, society, and new knowledge.
I think this ties a lot into some previous comments I made related to emergence and the like.
Link: Kevin Kelly — The Technium:
A major theme of this present century will be the pursuit of our collective identity. We are on a search for who we are. What does it mean to be a human? Can there be more than one kind of human? In fact, what exactly is a human?
I posted the following comment:
A while back I had a thought about how things go from simple to complex, hopping to the next layer of complexity and then complexifying once more (the basic emergence thinking). It’s similar to SBJohnson’s Long Zoom and comments from Alex Wright on information architecture.
One thing that struck me was some sort of subservience to the network above – best exemplified by ants, who seemingly have subsumed their lives to the network at the hive-organism level.
Logically, I concluded that humans (who are clearly a network of individual cells who have subsumed their existence to the human-organism) must at some level subsume their existence to the network above them – society.
Sure we do that, sort of. But I get a feeling that current society is like the volvox to multi-cellular creatures. Or isn’t it?
And consequently, what _is_ the network next up that societies must be subsumed under?
But, in all this, I see what gives us humans the anxiety of identity is that we think we _must_ be individuals with free will. But as the network above us gets more complex (indeed mobile phones and the intarwebs are part of this) we refuse to turn ourselves into subsumed parts of a greater network. We try to have a global view or control of that network a layer up.
In summary, our identity was simply a construct as we solidified the strength of the organismal network. Now as we become ‘cells’ in the next network up, that network will force us to subsume our global views as we become parts in a network.
One more thing: Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Childhood’s End’ sort of is a story of humans stepping up into the next level and subsuming their identity.
you’re really digging these long now foundation podcasts, which ones do you recommend?
Saw your comments on kk.org and I believe we have very similar views (nice writing style as well).
I agree with you that our present identities are largely constructs. In my view, the major reason is due to the constraints of physical space & time, forcing us into associations from a very limited set of options (i.e. top-down). As technology makes the world smaller, our options increase dramatically, and we can make our associations volitionally, based on common interests.
Eventually, the number of choices grows so large that we have no choice but to concede that the network is too complex for control (or even real objectivity) – or as you say: ‘our global views become subsumed’. In the end, the only thing each individual controls is their own associations and context. The way ants only know about their neighbors.
Please check out my new blog at http://theconnective.org… would love to know what you think.
-Eyal
Stefan – Heh. All of them. I listened to them chronologically and the first few year all in a row. It was mind blowing.