Digital technology will become part of our biology

2 Jun 2023 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:56

In this brief monologue, the speaker revisits the classic Cartesian view of identity—whether it resides in the mind or the body—and argues that a third domain, technology, is now merging with both. Digital tools that once existed externally, such as newsfeeds and apps, are projected to become embedded within our cognition and biology, effectively turning the internet into an internal, verifiable component of the self. The speaker highlights the profound shift from "visiting" the internet to having it inside us and raises the critical question of who will control this integrated digital self.

Chapters

We used to think about identity on these Cartesian terms, of course, that identity either resided in the mind, our consciousness, you know, in our thoughts and our memories, or it resided in the physical body. You know, if I change my body too much, am I still the same person? But those two realms, the psychology of the self and the biology of the self, have now been joined by the technology of the self. The digital technology that once sat outside of us, say, as a newsfeed to scroll through or an app to download, will soon, very soon, be part of us, part of our cognition and part of our biology and part of our officially verifiable self. So we'll no longer visit the internet or go online. The internet will be within us. And the question is, who will control that?