Personal identity in the 21st century: anyone, nobody or someone? |
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At the present time this self, the ‘Someone’ scenario, is being challenged by two very different forces. On the one hand, an increasingly pervasive information technology coupled with an ever more invasive biotechnology, is leading to a culture of passivity and hedonism that obliterates the individual altogether: the ‘Nobody’ scenario. On the other hand, as never before, fundamentalism is suppressing the uniqueness of the individual, and imposing a collective narrative: the ‘Anyone’ scenario. If the only two possibilities are indeed loss of private identity to technology, or its suppression to a collective public an obvious and urgent question, is: what other alternative might there be for the human race?
All EE-members can address questions to Susan Greenfiels via the comments underneath:
I shall argue that being an individual ‘Someone’ is the most pivotal feature of our lives, and one worth preserving: so, we must find an alternative not only to obliteration by technology (Nobody) or suppression by fundamentalism (Anyone), but also a means of becoming a unique individual other than via an unfettered materialism that merely turns out to leave the consumer unfulfilled, dissatisfied, and depressed (1). We shall see, finally that there might be the possibility of redefining our identity, not through the traditional routes of ownership and status,- but through another strategy altogether.
Perhaps we need to develop a means of ‘internal’ status, where the self could in some way gain a sense of being unique, but independent of a relation based on aspiring superiority to the appearance, belongings, and behaviour of others. An alternative way in which a human being can feel a strong sense of their individuality, is when they have a new insight, or idea, -make a connection that has never been made before. Not only are such ‘eureka moments’ extremely stimulating, they also reinforce the feeling that you are special because only you have had a certain thought. Unfortunately, such moments are rare, and certainly not in everyone’s repertoire. Indeed, as the 21st Century unfolds, we are increasingly concerned about the decline in creativity in our education and society.
‘It is suicide to live in a society dependent on science and technology, where virtually no one knows anything about science and technology’. As we contemplate a society inseparable from a remorseless march of technology, we should surely be exploring how the inevitable transformations in how we think, feel and learn, in education therefore, as well as the goods and services of the mid-21st Century, could be geared to optimising these mental processes. This form of identity would be both private AND fulfilling!
Acknowledgement
Susan Greenfield is Director of the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind, funded by the Templeton Foundation
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Thanks for a thought provoking session!
1. What is the effect on the development of the brain of tomorrow’s people because of long digital exposure?(spending 4 to 5 hourse behind the screen)
2. Which new competencies do tomorrow’s people develop because of the merging of fysical, mental and virtual realities and b) what does this mean for their way of learning and our way of teaching?
3. How do tomorrow’s people create meaning differently then us(parents)
4. What is the difference in impact on brain development through primary experiences and secondary experiences(Reed)
I hope you will be able to elaborate on these questions and give us a report from the discussions at the world economic forum this week.
Interesting session! Fascinating to know that the brain is such a dynamic and flexible part of our body, and more important able te grow and create multiple connections and a tremendous network. Therefor i am very interested in question 1 of Albert. How does technology affect the brain? I actually missed that part in the lecture. The showed research about the piano was interesting, but what happens after exposure through technology (question 1 Albert), wasn’t that where we came for?
Instead of the “fear” we have of the posible transformation of humans in to robots, or the technolization of people, can’t we put it the other way around. How can we humanize technology?
Looking forward to reactions! For people interested in learning and education, look at the website of institute of the mind and one of their reports: http://www.futuremind.ox.ac.uk/downloads/learningAPPG.pdf
Mijke… I was still thinking about the session yesterday and I will comment some thoughts later… but two words in your comment triggered me. HUMANIZE TECHNOLOGY? What do you mean by that? Could you give example what needs to be done?!
Humanize technology. I am referring to the physical aspect and the aspect of decision making; HOW and WHEN do i want to integrate technology in my life. Now we have the feeling that technology is taking over our lives, that technology is dominating our lives.
Why not the other way around..Why technology needs to look technical? For example a digital photocamara..My hobby and tool for visual education. I enclosed two pictures which gives an example about how humanise technology, give a human touch: a digital camara decorated by people, children, which in the end does not look like a camara and does not scare away people. A lot of times adults get shy, uncomfortable when one is taking a picture.
Furthermore, also think of our digital equipment. Our television, a flatscreen on the wall. I think it is horouble to have a screen like this in my room, I would love to hide it. Why not inventing a cover for the screen, for example a painting or a poster.
As well what is important to me is that I can choose, whether I want to use technology. For example in your bathroom of your office…It gives a laugh entering the transparent door (I liked that detail!!), and very comfortable to feel a warm toilet. For me the toilet is the ONLY place where no one disturbs me, where I can “hide� away, have some moments in more or less silence. But in your toilet, even a television is hanged up, and the moment I sat down, the 12 o’clock journal started mentioning the fighting’s in Irak…Fffff…On these moments I wish we could more manage, or give people the opportunity to have access or not…..
I agree, it was an inspiring session with Susan Greenfield. I must admit I have many doubts at this moment. Those are the lectures I like most… thought provoking, unthought I don’t think Susan Greenfield had the same doubts in mind as I have. I think it was pretty clear that she want’s us to use our brain to escpae the three ism’s she described. And as a good storyteller it all fitted together… we are not doomed since the brain can be trained! So, in short, we could help ourselves.
That is the part I liked best. Especially her explanation of the development of our brain from 0-2 years old, the effects of isolated and enriched rats were striking. I see many connections with theories like Flow (Csikczentmilahyi) and Play (Kathy Salen). The games people play are enriching our brains. And apparently frameworks (as she secriberd the narrations of a book) help to create new aha moments (Malcolm: Blink) which by itself might provoke new connections and thereby stimulates the creative mind.
Than we get to the tricky part…
Susan Greenfield explains us being human by the fact that we want to stand-out, to be an individual, to be someone by measuring one against someone else. I don’t know yet if I want to agree on that part because we live in exactly that culture but other cultures could be well explained from exactly the opposite direction. But that is not my expertise…
What I find more interesting is this piece about frameworks and narration.
For one, can we ourselves be our narrator? Can we have a dialogue with ourselves and train our brain… the first-person perspective? (like described in Flow). So who is to set the framework… the author of the book, society in general or me, myself and I?
I find that question of importance because of the, to my opinion, a little short sighted view Susan Greenfield gave of tech and life. A big part of her lecture is based on Screenculture (Kevin Kelly)… and from that the step toward YUK and WOW experience like orgasm-economy is close (the world with now frameworks, no narrations, like isolated rats). But isn’t the thought of Screenculture one of the ninetees?
If at a nice-family gathering you would suggest to watch some movies together… Grandpa jumps up ald climbs to the attic to ghet the slide-projector working again while grandma is setting up the screen. (depending on age) your father gets his favourite position on the couch and claims the remote control of the VCR (or DVD). While you (or your kids) have settled behind the pc with Youtube.
I just want to stress that the phenomena of a screen is very generation determined. Generation millenium doesn’t view the screen as a TV-screen. To them taht is a boring piece of wallpaper. The real screenagers expect interactivity… control. Playing a game is one of the most intense enriched environments available. Even playing a simple game like soccer demands total control (mind over machine) to respond instantly within a framework via 32 finger-combinations to win your game. Reading the manual is of no use…. you need to experience it yourself… with many, many aha moments… escpecially modern games like World of Warcraft, Second Life, Spore are full of open ended or community-based narrations.
So the 6 hours of screen-time kids experience might be training their braines for beyond the 2 hours of book-reading the used to do!?
So before I sumamrize, In this chart I would probably be known as a cyber-fundamentalist (would probably even wear a T-shirt of it), and like the guys on DutchCowboys-blog… I had a WOW-experience looking at the neuro-chip images in the slideset.
Summary: I like the explanaition of Susan Greenfield. I even like the three isms, but found her stress and fear of the new-technologies to much. Many of those technologies are +10 years from now. That doesn’t mean that we should walk in to the future looking into the rearview-mirror, we shoudl discuss social, economic, ethical etc aspects of these innovations… but that has nothing to do with the first part of her speech, the works of the brain. Where are her observations on consumerism and the brain and fundamentalism… as extensive as technoism.
And indeed we should do a lot of research on what interactivity, virtualization, digitization, transparency, self-determination etc etc have for an effect on us as a society. But please let us think very carefully what to research and what are the stakeholding arguments. Let’s study kids and learn from them… since this generation of kids is already better equiped to deal with some of those questions than those in the College hotel last monday watching a slideshow on a projectorscreen.
Although your example of watching a movie is a nice one, it can’t be denied that there are more screens in all forms and sizes around us, than ever before. And in the coming decades, the growth of that amount will increase even more rapidly. And they will all be more ‘interactive’ in their communication toward us. I do believe that will have a profound impact on the brain. It’s already hard for generations past 25 to sort through the clutter. If younger generations are better able to select the messages from all that input than we are; what are those selections based on?
Writing a narrative of yourself will always be based on a context that is provided to you through external experiences and opinions of your peers. Constructing your own meaning is enhanced when more associations are being made (as I understand correctly). With more visual information more associations can be made, but eihter way a selection has to occur. Will the overload of information ‘cloud’ your own perception?
And I’m sure the brain is able to adapt and in that sense very flexible. But how fast does that adaption occur? Can it keep up with the rate of changes and speeding up of technological innovation?
I totallly agree that we need to be carefull with the claim of screen-culture since it is largely based on passive TV-screens not interactive displays generation millenium is growing up with. The interactivity adds indeed active narration.
One more question to the European Center for the Experience economy:
1. Susan Greenfield talks about ‘meaning’ - something close to your work?
I can’t tell yet if it is complemantary, conflicting or the same. Could you explain a bit about that?
2. She also talks about the dislikes of the experience-economy. She calls it the YUK and WOW wolrd of Peter pan… lack of meaning! What is your response to that?
Very interesting questions. Already the presentation made me think, but the discussion over here adds more questions. What I kept thinking of after the presentation:
If experiences that people have, have an influence through all those levels of organization of the brain, ranging all the way from genes to the consciousness, like malfunctions as schizophrenia and depression, wouldn’t the kind of linear relations between the –isms and the individuality and fulfilment of people mean that consciousness has to be left out of the equation? I mean: there are people who get very depressed after some experience they have had and people who have been in the same conditions don’t (Victor Frankl’s books are a great example of this).
I think it is all an issue of meaning, whether you take the scenario of techno-ism, fundamentalism or consumerism. Meaning is not IN objects and given to you, you construct it based on your framework and experience. Looking for meaning in the outside world, whether it is in the Yuck and Wows, the booming buzzing confusion in a computergame, drugs, a holy book, or a brandnew car, is not going to result in meaning if you don’t do something with it. I keep repeating Aldous Huxley: it’s not about what happens to you, it is what you DO with what happens to you. The same reason why Dewey said that experience is not just undergoing, but doing and undergoing.
I appreciate the fact that people may have fear of what all the time in front of screens and all the shooting games might do to the brains of their children, but I see that as the old issue of meaning: how do you, in this case, motivate kids to do something more ‘meaningful’ than spend 6 hours a day killing avatars? Isn’t this kind of the same issue as how do you motivate them to do their homework instead of playing football all day, or how do you motivate them to get interested in algebra etc? Before worrying about technology I would personally like to know why my kids were interested in shooting avatars instead of doing something else. I think the intention or motivation behind an action might explain whether I as a parent should worry or not.
It all starts and ends with the person in my opinion. Any external force that causes a diminishing of internal possibilities of the individual should be deemed ‘bad’ according to Dewey, Cornelis, Wilber, Graves and so on, so the question for ’scenario 4′ is indeed: how can people be supported in developing their talents, passions and possibilities? Is that an answer to your last questions Arjan?
I agree with you that meaning is created, based on your experiences and framework. However, I don’t think that those experiences and context created around you by others is unbiased or neutral. So when children are bombarded with images, those messages sure enough have meanings incorporated in them. And yes, it is what you DO with what happens to you. However, those actions are based on the framework you have created for yourself. How does that work, when you’re a child and you are (still) forming your framework in very fundamental ways? Isn’t most of our reasoning and knowledge based on the abstract connections we make about various concepts, that can not easily be translated in an image? I believe Greenfield asks questions about the absence of such abstract concepts in the screen culture…
Of course you could try to motivate children to play or study instead of staring at a screen. But increasingly those screens can not be ignored in your environment. And more and more those screens are not passive broadcasters of messages but actively seek to make a connection with you, making it harder to ignore them. So besides thinking of the reasons why your kid is killing avatars all day, we should think about the possibilities this increased progress of technology can create for constructing meaning, frameworks and experiences.
In the context of fear of technology another thing: If connections are everything and experiments like the one with the taxi drivers exam and playing the piano show that mental activity has a physical influence on the brain in terms of those connections, like also Michael Kubovy refers to in the context of his ‘Pleasures of the Mind,’ couldn’t it be that especially by all the ways in which technology gives us new opportunities to explore things, we can imagine things now that we have never been able to imagine before, and that this may in fact be a good thing for the creativity of people (scenario 4)? Like people working in the field of Presence Research are looking into ways to give us the chance to ‘be’ inside of an atom, to ‘be’ in space, etc? Not “living in a permanent Google� but experiencing things (whether those experiences are only mental doesn’t matter if we look at the experiments) that we would have difficulty experiencing or that would be impossible to experience in the ‘physical reality’. Perhaps this, albeit virtual, experience, may well trigger me to think of new creative things, to make new meaningful connections. Connections that someone without those experiences might not have…
Another thing, for example in the scenario Fundamentalism: I don’t see how the statement that even clones are unique based on their never having the exact same experiences, and the statement that in fundamentalism the individual is sublimated by the collective narrative can both be true at the same time. Narratives, even the collective ones, are interpreted by human beings, and if all human beings have a unique base of experience, a unique circuitry of neuronal connections in the brain, they will interpret it differently. In other words: it would still be their own narrative in my opinion. Or wouldn’t it?
I thought of a possibly interesting area of research: Since Spiral Dynamics describes how depending on the life conditions (experiences?) people learn how to think in a more complex way (I apologize in advance for doing a great amount of harm to the theory describing it in this one sentence), wouldn’t it be interesting to combine the results of brain research and Spiral Dynamics? To see if the results would be in line? If the neuronal connections and branches are in fact more extensive in for example people who are at that moment showing second-tier thinking? Spiral Dynamics is just an example, it could be any developmental theory that deals with increasing complexity for human beings.