Digital Technologies and Changes to Human Perception: our Venture into the Impossible.

An Exercise in Critical and Creative Thinking

J.G. Horta
Jul 28, 2017 · 17 min read

On the Impossible

Events and inventions in the past century have challenged the concept of impossibility in practically every ambit of human experience, from life expectancy to massive warfare, both made possible by technological development. Today, scientific theories like those of Quantum Mechanics, Chaos, Systems and Relativity, present conceptions of the universe that perhaps only our most superstitious ancestors deemed possible. The acceptance of quantum superposition amongst the scientific community defied the impossibility that a rational man, let alone the elite of rational men, could believe that a cat can be both dead and alive as long as we are not watching, or that a single particle was in two places at once.

Two classic examples of the Superposition Principle, which states that a system is in all of its possible states at the same time until observed, are:
1) Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment — a cat inside a sealed box with a flask of poison that may or may not break, will be both dead and alive until we look inside the box, when our observation will define if the flask is either broken or not, and the cat is therefore either dead or alive.
2) The double-slit experiment — two slits in a barrier allow for the passage of a single electron. The result suggests that the single electron has gone through both slits at the same time unless observed while being shot, when it will go through either slit but not both.

Quantum superposition contravenes not one, but the three traditional laws of thought that have commanded scientific and philosophical thought for over two millennia: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle. These three laws were the pillars of Aristotelian logic, and were further analyzed and reconsidered by prominent philosophers throughout the ages. The law of non-contradiction can also be found in Indian philosophy as early as the 4th century BCE, in the works of Pāṇini, and in those of Vyasa and Madhvacharya.

With this in mind, what is truly inconceivable, is for human kind to hold on to outdated paradigms. As technology develops, it reshapes the confines of our reality, as it does our perception of, and interaction with, time and space. Digital technologies are indeed setting the stage for the disappearance of politics as we know them. They are interconnecting the world in a way that is changing the structure of our perception and experience, every bit as much as they are changing our daily lives, to the point that the practical implications of digital technologies are comparable to the changes that the written alphabet brought to humanity on its advent and since.

As we will explain, the written alphabet gave rise to a series of private experiences that provided a rationale for the individual within society. All our known political systems were developed on the basis of this technology, and are therefore concerned with concepts like property and privacy, often of an elite. Digital technologies are not only rendering these notions and their legislators obsolete, but they are also reminding us that the individual is but a node of information in absolute symbiosis with its environment, and that its survival depends on the resources available in it.

After centuries of trying to reduce the universe, and alienate ourselves from nature by means of reason and culture, human kind has created tools that both imply and require us to reconnect with our surroundings. This will inevitably yield unprecedented changes in the administration of both resources and power, which is the goal of politics.

This essay is a short exercise in creative and critical thinking, as well as groundwork for a broader understanding of the relationship between digital technologies, natural and economic resources, and our political reality.

Methodologically speaking, we will first define the concepts implicit in the question, and then propose a brief answer in terms of the dynamic presented above. To conclude, we will review the argument proposed, and pose questions for further consideration.

On Politics

Politics, in general, deal with the empirical world in which people relate to each other, in thought and action. These relationships take place in the dimension of public space, which is thus the substratum of all politics. Also, like any interaction of energy in the universe, these relations entail power, which is why it is imperative to speak of resources when we speak of political power — Politics speculate upon how the power implicit in the relations amongst people would be best administered, as economics do with the resources that represent this power, mediate said relations, and make it possible for us to live at all.

All political and economic systems, whether implemented or not, consist of sets of principles and criteria that legitimize certain power relations over others, so while in a monarchy, for example, the line of sovereignty is predisposed by lineage, in a democracy it is set up by popular election, and in a meritocracy, power to govern is bestowed on the basis of merit. Likewise, resources are allocated differently amongst populations by free-market, socialist, or communist economic regimes.

On Resources

For the brevity of this essay, and unless otherwise specified, when we speak of resources, we will be referring mainly to energy supplies. Out of intellectual rigor, however, we can mark here a distinction between natural and economic resources. The former term refers to the finite earthly supplies that fulfill the material conditions for our survival — first and foremost, clean air, clean water, inhabitable earth, and nutritious food. The latter refers to the financial assets and products that represent power to acquire the former; and in between, we have those that concern us most — non-renewable energy sources like fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are the natural finite earthly resources on which most technology currently depends, but also play a major role in the economy, for, as sources of energy, they are also sources of power, including acquisitive power. Plus, their misuse and abuse cause unnecessary deterioration of the environment, generating scarcity and waste. Scarcity, in turn, is the basis of our current economic system, and tilts the political scales in favor of those who control access to the remaining resources.

On Technology

Technology refers to the plethora of techniques and tools that human beings have developed, whether consciously or unconsciously, to participate in said relationships throughout history. These tools and techniques function as extensions of ourselves, and range from artifacts and mechanisms that extend our bodies in space, like hunting spears, microscopes and satellite networks, to techniques and procedures that allow us to stretch through time or to compress it, like mnemonic devices, time zones and metaphorical constructions transcending generations.

Digital technologies are defined as those that incorporate the electronic circuit.The electronic circuit is more appropriate a choice than the electric, because the former conveys information while the latter conveys only energy. Both circuits differ in terms of the extensions they entail.The electric circuit is extension of our nervous system in that many of the impulses that travel through our nerves are purely electric, until they reach designated centers in the body that interpret them into stimuli. The electronic circuit, in contrast, is an extension of the more sophisticated features of our nervous system that interpret stimuli into meaningful experience. Artificial intelligence will then be the extension of our sentient capabilities.

Much like our nervous system, which functions on account of the energy that the body extracts from nutrients in our food, digital technologies require electricity to function, which is why they are wholly dependent on energy sources for power.

On the Written Word and Politics — the Paradox of Human Rights

Our political reality is based on technological developments insofar as different technologies shape both the societies that implement them and the perceptive faculties of their members. Technology, in turn, responds to socio-economic and political changes, creating a mutually dependent relation that is nevertheless not reciprocal, for although technology is highly influenced by the spirit of its time, it often evolves according to the interests and needs of those with the means (the power) to develop it. Its impact on political structures, however, cannot always be foreseen, and it often has unintended consequences for those in power.

In his book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, Walter Ong offers a compelling argument to the effect that our current political reality is based upon the technology of the written alphabet. This political reality culminates in the paradox created by the Declaration of Human Rights, which is inapplicable to oral cultures.

In short, Ong’s argument explains how, on the one hand, human rights are conceived as being universal, based on an inherent dignity,and on the facts that all human beings are born free and equal, and that we are all endowed with reason and conscience, while on the other, certain rights (to education, to a lawful trial or to medical care) can only be provided by people with access to the body of knowledge that humanity has amassed throughout history by means of literacy. This body of knowledge, we could say, is actually a collection of power recipes, so that, knowledge in medicine, for example, bestows the power to heal.

The paradox poses a problem regarding the freedom and autonomy (rights also granted by the declaration) of oral cultures. It resides in the fact that, in order to participate of these rights, oral cultures must either renounce their orality and become literate, so that they may have autonomous access to said body of knowledge, or they must renounce their autonomy in favor of their orality, by allowing outsiders with access to this knowledge to precede over their rights.

Both possibilities change the power structure of society. The loss of autonomy has obvious political implications, but it is the transition to literacy that interests us here most, because when writing is introduced, knowledge becomes less dependent on experience, which is a function of a life lived, as well as one of age. In oral cultures, elders were considered wise because of their experience, and were therefore trusted with power. Furthermore, knowledge needed to be collective, for it was the only way to preserve it, and so, it was passed on in form of song and poetry. This also meant that the process of learning and partaking of the power of knowledge were communal experiences.

In literate cultures, knowledge is available to anyone who can read. This made way for at least three structural changes: first, much more information is available, because not all of it needs to be remembered; second, elders are no longer in power, for younger people have both access to knowledge and the vitality to implement it without them, so their role in society is relegated; third, participating of this knowledge and power isn’t necessarily a communal experience anymore. We can read and learn on our own, as we can keep a journal to ourselves. This creates the conscience of the self as individual, and feeds the delusion that individuals and their behavior can exist in isolation from their environment. Over and above, knowledge, and therefore power, could now be kept from others, held by a person or a group of people.

On Digital Technologies and Power Struggles

The above is one instance in which technology has irreversibly changed politics– by introducing the written word into oral cultures, former power structures (or political relations) became untenable. Digital technologies are having a similar effect on current political relations. The position of Secretary (of State or the UN), for instance, is precisely the post for the person entrusted with the institution’s secrets and power. Phenomena like hacktivism and WikiLeaks are challenging not only the legitimacy of these positions, but also their usefulness.

It is noteworthy that Ancient Greece, one of the cultural hubs in which the transition from orality to literacy occurred, also incubated early prototypes of democracy. I call them early prototypes because Greek democracy and the Roman Republic upheld secular laws and voting rights, but these were reserved for a very narrow group that did not include slaves, women or people without property. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so much, the revival of western democratic projects concurred with the development of electric technology. It was merely 25 years after publishing his paper regarding lightning and electricity that Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers of the United States picked up the Republican project where the Romans left off. Soon after came the French Revolution, and with it, the first attempt to fully apply the doctrine of natural right (a prototype of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) to an acting government.

Electric technology precipitated the Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution. Where the First Industrial Revolution introduced the factory system, thus fragmenting and mechanizing both our work-flows and our perception, the Early Technological Revolution introduced the railroad and the telegraph, effectively beginning a process of decentralization that would unfold into globalization, shortening distances and compressing time.

Where the printing press popularized information as a source of political power, digital technologies constantly add layers of digital information to the public sphere, which is the substratum of politics. In this new integrated sphere, a single concept, the Arab Spring, sufficed to refer to a wave of social uprisings that swept over and beyond ten countries, as millions of people took the streets to express their discontent with their political reality, while the world followed the events in real time on social media.

There are grounds to argue that any socio-political success these uprisings may have had was short lived, and it may be so. This, however, shall not obscure the fact that these historical events created a pattern of unprecedented proportions in terms of speed and reach, and that people across the globe were immersed in the process.

It may also be argued that digital technologies are a smokescreen, nothing but the impression of transparence, power, involvement and freedom; also, that we are exposed to so much so often that we participate only superficially in every case, which in turn has a numbing or desensitizing effect; or that all of the above is exploited by politicians and marketers alike, to promote their own interests and manipulate people. These arguments even fall short on how these same technologies are serving terrorist groups and criminal organizations around the globe. Yet, all of these forces alike are precisely those that politics deal with: people, their interests and resources, their actions.

This essay explores a different perspective: Not what we will make of technology, nor what will technology make of us, but rather… Under the premise that the most powerful forms of technology are those that get woven into our own evolution, like language and timekeeping, how will humanity evolve as digital technologies change the makeup and character of our perceptions and relations?

Granted, the socio-political success of the Arab Spring is a matter of political and historical interpretation, still, it changed a millenary tradition, because due to the central role played by social media in both the organization and the news coverage of The Arab Spring, participants began to write vernacular varieties of spoken Arabic with the same written alphabet that had been strictly reserved for the standardized form of formal Arabic until then. In other words, the many revolutions that brought colloquially spoken Arabic into written form prove that digital technologies are empowering marginalized groups and individuals to eradicate more and more hierarchical structures, while common politics struggle to preserve the integrity and legitimacy of hierarchical institutions.

This too is untenable, for we are at the hieroglyphical stage of what digital technology is going to become.

Those who oppose these developments in favor of prior political structures and values might not realize that digital technologies aren’t merely offering the possibility to partake in this process, but as McLuhan explains, our electrically-configured world has forced us to move from the habit of data classification to the mode of pattern recognition. We can no longer build serially […]because instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience coexist in a state of active interplay.[5]

In other words, the process of digital adoption is reshaping the fundamental structure of our relations and the legitimacy of power at the level of our perception, experience and interaction, just like the written phonetic alphabet did.

On Legislation and Resources

While powerful agents, like record labels and movie studios, for instance, are pushing evermore zealously for tougher legislation and harder punishment for the infringement of patented works and copyrights, technology is enabling collaborative platforms that willingly renounce such concepts of individual intellectual property at the onset, changing the way creative people relate to each other, and gradually rendering former legislation obsolete.

The blockchain, together with all open-sourced programs and systems are an example of this, but my favorite is the case of HitRecord.org, a creative online community that works as a production company. The only condition to participate is not to infringe copyright laws outside the community, that is, you must be the author of the work you upload to the site. Now, simply by uploading, you grant every member of the community the right to use and modify your content freely. In addition, you grant the company non-exclusive rights monetize your work. If and when any part of your work is used in a project that generates revenue, you get paid according to the weight of your contribution as decided by the community. The quality of the work earned the company an Emmy Award in 2014, as well as commercial partnerships with LG and other companies. Recently it completed a project in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union, which analyzes the impact of the internet on democracy. It is entitled Are you there, Democracy? It’s me, the Internet, and features contributions by Edward Snowden himself.

Cryptocurrencies are other examples of technologies that are dismantling core hierarchical economic-political structures. Bitcoin was the first non-profit grassroots project that created a currency supported by cryptography, networking and open-source software. This makes it hard to forge and easy to store and trade without a bank. Moreover, it is completely decentralized and does not depend on any financial institution, which means it is not subject to the kind of inflation national currencies face when the government decides to print more money. Its value is granted by mathematical algorithms and the consensus of its independent users.

Legislation is currently the preferred way to establish the legitimacy of power because it is expected to replace violence as the acting arm of politics, but if we consider it closely, slavery was once legal, and in some places today, totalitarian regimes rest upon standards of law. This means that legality, and the legislation that upholds it, are a matter of power, not of justice. Legislation cannot provide a true rationale for the legitimacy of power precisely because it is subordinated to it.

On the future

Digital technologies are forcing us back into our environment in two strategic ways, perceptually and physically. Perceptually, by introducing us into the virtual public sphere, in which it is impossible to exist if not by connection; physically, because digital technologies need energy to function, and this energy comes from limited resources, so, by making us aware of the fact that our lifestyles will be our downfall unless we find a solution to the scarcity of our resources, digital technologies are forcing us to reconnect with our environment, and to redefine each other in reciprocal dynamics, both in mind and body. Buddhism refers to this state of interconnectedness as interdependent co-arising. Herein lies the potential of technology to change the focus of our social strains, from the struggle for equality that gave rise to the paradox of human rights, to the accomplishment of equanimity — a state in which people learn to administer their own individual power in relation to themselves, their environment and others; for, if, as philosopher Kitaro Nishida suggests, we are all vectors of the universe, and it is indeed an infinite sphere, then every point is its center. And in a world where everything is in a state of active interplay, digital technologies are spiralling us upwards into to a communal form of knowledge independent of human memory, accessible and everchanging.

If people can learn to self-organize, we no longer need to beg the question of legislation as both master and serf of power. This point of relatively stable equilibrium would mean reaching homeostasis in a truly free political system. Sadly, even if humanity does achieve this state, it is very unlikely that we get to live it. So, while digital technologies may be setting the stage for this transformation, we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves.

What we are likely to see within our lifetimes, is the total consumption of petroleum. It is not a coincidence that fossil fuels in general, and oil in particular, are the monetary-financial system’s most coveted resources nowadays (apart from the information that shapes public opinion on how it is legitimate to obtain and administer these resources, and the massive amounts of data on which this information is based). Fossil fuels are the basis of this system because they represent the power to keep the world, as we know it, moving. This representation is not merely symbolic, it relates to natural resources — the material conditions for our survival, and a precondition for us to enter into any relation whatsoever. This is why the economy bears so much weight over politics, and why certain people do whatever they can to control it.

In such a short essay, it is difficult to explain the metaphysical principles behind the conception that power struggles have always existed, and will always do, for it is the dynamic tension between opposing forces that weaves the fabric of reality. But if the reader will grant me this much, I will argue that just like sports present a harmless outlet for the same kind of competitive impulses that drive many a soldier to war, alternative forms of sublimation for impulses of control over our resources will become not only possible, but preferable. This will happen when the scarcity of our resources, which is the basis of our current financial system, forces us to harvest energy from renewable natural sources by means of local technologies (readily available), and the process of decentralization further empowers communities to disrupt current hierarchical political structures.

These transitions will not be smooth, nor will they be even around the world, but they are happening. Of course, a more apocalyptic scenario in which we consume and pollute all of our earthly resources beyond the point of return is also possible, but this essay is too short to be so fatalistic.

Some of the implications of digital technologies may yet be unpredictable, but the return to a state of aware interconnection with our multilayered environment, and the inversion of hierarchical structures that we discussed, are already cardinal transformations to power relations, even before we consider changes to education, healthcare, social media and other aspects of human interaction, or even our perception of time.

We must then ask, what is the future of a resource-based technology? What kind of political structures will it make possible? And, what kind of processes do we want to partake in?

In his book Technology, Joseph Agassi suggests that if our main criterion for the legitimacy of political power is rationality, we are bound to justify only scientific utopias. This understanding incited much of the canonical anti-utopian literature of the 20thcentury, which also envisioned dreadful political realities. Interestingly enough, however, technology in the 21st century is becoming less rational and more intuitive. Virtual Reality promised to denude us from our senses and our physical world, to immerse us in an alternate reality, yet one of its best and unintended effects was helping people with spinal cord injuries awaken dormant neural connections, and regain sensibility and mobility in their own limbs. Augmented Reality will soon unfold a layer of digital information over our physical world creating a blended environment — Will this allow us to be in two places at once? Will we need to, once everyday objects are internetworked in the Internet of Things? How will we perceive time once Augmented Intelligence and Cognition allows us to predict even the next upcoming second?

In Short

We began by questioning the notion of impossibility, to assess whether digital technologies are making politics impossible, and postulated an affirmative response. We then defined politics as the administration of the power implicit in human relations; economy as the administration of the resources that make these relations possible; and technology as the plethora of tools and techniques we develop to participate in these relations.

We assessed the surface of the dynamic between these three elements, and found that technology is powered by the same resources that mediate political relationships; political structures guide technology insofar as they allocate the resources for its development, while technology delivers not only human relations that define said structures, but also the application of the resources on which they depend. Digital technologies are reconnecting us to our environment, ensuing more communal experiences and sustainable economic practices if based on renewable energy sources.

Quantum Mechanics argues that existing in an unobserved and undisturbed state means an uncertain state of existence. It is the observer who creates a definite reality, and as we move into an interconnected world, we remember that we define ourselves through each other, in a reciprocal dynamic. This state is a universal truth that the hubris of rationality prevented us from apprehending, but as technology and experience vindicate intuition, our political reality has little choice but to follow suit, just as it did with the introduction of the written word.

This short essay was conceived as an exercise in critical and creative thinking, and as groundwork for future consideration of this triad, in depth. I hope these goals have been met, and that the loose ends that have been left, serve us to think about shaping the future that will soon be our present.


Originally published at twomoleculesthick.wordpress.com on July 28, 2017. Revised for Medium May 1st, 2018.

J.G. Horta

Written by

Applied Philosopher @ Fractal Paradigm

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade