The Compilation of You - showcasing identity issues on The Future of You podcasts

Podcasting as a technology emerged as an attempt to move around radio, to open up radio formats to people who would be shut out otherwise. It was an amateur medium. It was a medium for those who were disconnected, disaffected, marginalized, silenced, whatever we want to say. And its history has been largely shaped by that. It's also shaped by the fact that it was NPR in the US and CBC in Canada and BBC in the UK that were the first to use it. It started— the earliest broadcasters to move into podcasting were almost all public radio people, public service radio people, not commercial radio people. And the result is that its logics, its programming are much more about smart conversation than they are about playing music with commentary. For example. So this is a case where institutional histories start to shape how things play out. The other thing I think about is the earbud, and this is where I slide more into the McLuhan side of the spectrum here, because I think the ear— in the case of the earbud, the medium is the message. The intimacy we have of a voice directly in our ear, almost directly in our brain, changes our relationship to radio. So the radio world talks about driveway moments, where you pull into your driveway and you've stopped your car, but you're not getting out yet, because you want to hear the last bit of something that's so compelling that you don't leave your car. And that's the high point in radio. In podcasting, it's where you start to just become entranced by the voice in your ear. And the first time I did a program recently with a bunch of my favorite podcasters all in one place, and I said it was so reassuring to discover these were real people and not voices in my head, because since I listened to it going to sleep at night, it's like I dreamed the podcast that I'm consuming, and that intimacy becomes part of the experience of the podcast. And so I think that's something I think about a lot is intimacy and podcasting. As opposed to publicness and liveness in radio as being kind of crucial divides between the two formats.

That's brilliant, I thought.

Yeah, those are some very interesting notions. It's interesting to think, and here I am with earbuds in my ear, although I don't prefer it that way. I prefer to listen to speakers if I can. But it's interesting to think about, you know, the voice being directly into your brain, almost like an auditory hallucination or a mystical experience even, because that's what it kind of closely resembles.

I guess when you talk about some of the other aspects of transhumanism, like cognitive intelligence and mind uploading and things like that, we'd be inhabiting a different kind of sphere, perhaps we might call it the cybersphere, that isn't really chronological time. So do you think the more that we consider that and try to bring it about in reality, the more we will get used to sort of a different time construct and that will take us away from the whole idea of a limited life and a chronological time?

Yes, I do. I think that we're seeing the beginnings of this. It's on the horizon. For example, the virtuality and gamification of education, the awareness of space exploration and coming back into the biosphere, the weight of gravity once having been freed from gravity, going back to gravity, It's, it's hard to walk at first. Seeing experience with, in again, virtuality, going into that sphere where you move information and synthetic structures and virtual agencies back and forth through time, and then you go back into this physical material world, it's quite different to get a grasp on it again. So I think that we're developing this, this equilibrium through different modalities, different environments. And I think, again, that's just on the horizon for what we can be doing, where time will not be exclusively linear. It'll be varied, going back and forth in time, across time, leaping through time. There are some movies that kind of exemplify this in a very entertaining way. Limitless is one movie that is quite exponential in its time prognostication. Other movies like Memento, you know, where you have no memory and you have to really rely on what you write on your skin to remember day to day. You ask those who have been in a coma or, you know, suffered from some type of time differentiation what it's like, and it's hard to adjust.

It's a true story. I had this kind of existential crisis, I think, as many teenagers have. Around the age of 16 or so, when I noticed— because that was still very much in the age of authenticity, and so growing up was basically the task. You have to become, and very soon, an authentic person, and only in this way you can basically exist in your peer group as a teenager. So becoming authentic and knowing, and also being able to demonstrating this is very important. Now, I still remember this, that I had this crisis that I found out, oh, I'm acting different with everyone, right? With these friends and with the girls, I'm acting different with the boys. And with these friends, I'm acting different than those. When I'm playing soccer, I act different than when I'm at school. And then I thought I'm just like, I'm a total cheat or anything, right? I'm just who I am. It was a real existential, my first existential crisis. And I had no way of resolving this. And then later on, I started Chinese philosophy. And then I learned that from a traditional Chinese perspective, that's actually a good thing. And then I remember this because according to Chinese philosophy, which is traditional sincerity thing, it's an art. Whenever you're with a different person, it's a different relationship. And you have to have, you know, develop different personality in order to make this relationship function very well, right? You can't act in the same way as a parent, then you act as a kid, right? And you both a parent and a kid most of the time of your life, right? So you have to interact with your children and your parents, and you just can't do it the same authentic way. It's always a relational thing, right? So again, it's not— we're not in control of these. It's just like a national relations we're in. And in each of them, we have to learn to act in a different way. And so I found out then, after studying this, like 10 years later, that my experience I experienced as an experience of my own fakeness. But that was just because I was applying the age of authenticity paradigm, right? If I would have lived in a sincerity context, I would have not experienced this as an existential crisis at all. I would have experienced as a good way of growing up and my relationship network becomes richer. I become like more, how to say, more nuanced, right? I develop different personas as it should be with different people. Again, that violates the ethics of authenticity. But again, this goes directly to your point, Tracey, that I think in profilicity, we can learn to, to get away from this paradigm of authenticity. In the book, I refer to an article by a colleague of mine, a sociologist, about electronic music, how electronic musicians in the same gig in the same night, like play under like 3, 4 different names, and they play different kinds of music. And not only this, in this music, they relate differently to the audience and relate differently to the persona they are. And it's like a whole different thing. And again, I'm just saying this in order to support your point, Tracey, that through profilicity, we kind of rediscover this ability that we once had in sincerity, We have to assume different identities in different relationships, which is a good thing.

As we draw to a close, I've got a bit of a mad futurist question. You're a futurist as well, so I'm sure you've thought about this. Say we've uploaded our brains, we've done some mind uploading or downloading, however you want to think of it, and say, and I know we have to suspend our disbelief a little bit here, say that we can put our brain in some sort of digital substrate. Will that digital brain or mind have the same rights, the same cognitive liberty as our human meatspace version?

Is that a good question, right? I mean, it's basically the AI question too, right? Which is, you know, like, is the digital representation of self, you know, something that is self? Is there something uniquely human about our cognition and our processes? I hope there is something uniquely human about what it means to be human and that is different from machines. But, and I also think that the idea that we could fully upload our brains ignores that a lot of our cognition and our affective experiences are extended beyond just our brains, right? And so we would have to upload so much more than just literally our brains to make—

To clone ourselves really, wouldn't we?

Essentially, yeah. And you know, and it's not just, It's not just your brain and your nervous system and, you know, how you have this extended personality throughout your body and what you interact with, but it is your interaction with the environment that gives rise to a lot of the different experiences and mental processes that you have. And so in that world where all of that could be captured, right? And we're not just talking about brain uploading, we are talking about the full human experience being uploaded. Then yeah, I think that we would have the same rights and, you know, we would have the right to cognitive liberty in that form as well. But you can see that as a futurist, I have some disbelief about being able to reduce the entirety of the human experience into digital bits and bytes that can then be uploaded. Yeah.

It is different, isn't it? The analog brain and the digital substrate. So, Nita, then what's your final message for people in terms of getting more involved in this subject matter, understanding more, you know, initiating more conversations around it so that we can push this agenda of cognitive liberty?

I mean, I hope to make many, many more cognitive liberty advocates out there in the world to be part of the conversation. And I think the very first step is to get educated. I think, you know, my purpose in reading this book is ideally to spark a global conversation and to make it accessible to everybody for people to understand what's happening and to be familiar with and understand what the issues are that are at stake. Like what rights are at stake? What does it mean to connect your brain to corporations and governments. Like, what is it that you really are putting at stake in the debate? So first is to get educated. And I think a good way to do that is, of course, to read my book. So I hope people will, which is to read The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. But I will say I am far from the only person in this debate. There are so many thoughtful, you know, scholars, advocates, you know, big thinkers.

Where else would you recommend people look? Are there journals? Are there good websites?

So, I mean, you know, there was a wonderful Nature Electronics journal that just came out that declared BCI, the brain-computer interface, the technology of the year. There are, you know, the OECD has recommendations for regulation of neurotechnology. The UN has, you know, dug into this issue. There are thoughtful scholars across the globe who are coming to the table and are offering different perspectives on on these issues. And, um, and I think that diversity of thought is so important to push this issue forward and have helped push my thinking forward as well. But I'd say it's so important for people to get educated, become part of the debate, and then realize that they have choices to make, right? It isn't just like at a societal level, like, oh, let's hope somebody passes cognitive liberty. People have to start exercising their own right to cognitive liberty, and they have to treat it differently. They cannot unwittingly give up their brain data just as easily as they've given up all of of their data. They need to make deliberate choices as they buy EarPods and headphones and watches that have neural interface and not just think like, oh, this is the next cool technology, but figure out what the terms of service are under which that technology is being offered to you. If their employer is mandating it, demand that it be put into writing about exactly what they plan to do with that data, what they're collecting, and demand a transparent policy about that and push back. If the employer says, I'm going to track your brain activity, push back and join with others to push back against that and say, no, you know what? This actually violates the fundamental dignity of what it means to be human. And so I want people to be much more active in this debate and in this conversation. And you start by becoming aware, and you then transition into using that awareness as a tool of empowerment.

So really, cognitive liberty is as much a responsibility as it is a right, isn't it?

Absolutely. It is as much a responsibility as it is a right.

Thank you for listening to The Future Review hosted by me, Tracey Follows. Check out the show notes for more info about the topics covered in this episode. Do like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you know someone you think will enjoy this episode, please do share it with them. Visit thefutureofyou.co.uk for more on the future of identity in a digital world and futuremade.consulting for the future of everything else. The Future of You podcast is produced by Big Tent Media.