In the story of constructing identity in the culture of simulation, experiences on the Internet figure prominently, but these experiences can only be understood as part of a larger cultural context. That context is the story of the eroding boundaries between the real and the virtual, the animate and the inanimate, the unitary and the multiple self, which is occurring both in advanced scientific fields of research and in the patterns of everyday life.
We are able to step through the looking glass. We are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone as we navigate virtual oceans, unravel virtual mysteries, and engineer virtual skyscrapers. But increasingly, when we step through the looking glass, other people are there as well … We have the opportunity to build new kinds of communities, virtual communities in which we participate with people from all over the world, people with whom we converse daily, people with whom we may have fairly intimate relationships but whom we may never physically meet.
Will neural interfacing be commonplace in a future we live to see? If so, what biomedical and bioengineering feats will be necessary? Most important, what function-restoring neural prostheses are being researched that show promise for the disabled, and may eventually lead to function-amplifying implants?
There’s a rapt, mindless fascination with these disembodying or ability-augmenting technologies … The desire to be wired is part of the larger fantasy of disembodiment, the deep, childlike desire to go beyond one’s body. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly for the handicapped it can be very liberating. For others, who have the desire without the need, there can be problems. Political power still exists inside the body, and being out of one’s body or extending one’s body through technology doesn’t change that.
Computer network and hacker slang is filled with references to “being wired” or “jacking in” to a computer network, “wetware” (the brain), and “meat” (the body). The human body is becoming a hack site, the mythology goes, a nexus where humanity and technology are forging a new and powerful relationship.
There’s a kind of gymnastic ability just mentally that’s needed to stay with this kind of thing, so there is a frightening aspect to it. I think part of what we’ll be doing over the next decade or so is figuring out some ways to somehow make ourselves comfortable with that, maybe by slowing down the pace of change. We don’t want to live with things that break that bad – if a whole Net goes down it takes down the international currency with it, things like this. “OK, that’s a problem – let’s slow down.” That’s one way it might slow down. Another one is just people saying, “This is too fast, I can’t bear it.” And that’s, I think, the likelier way it’ll go.
Cyberspace can be seen as extending an inexorable process that began a long, long time ago and which gained new impetus earlier this century, namely the dematerialization of buildings.
Online conversants will pour forth such cybernetic dreams as computers driven by thoughts, implanted memory chips, bionic limbs and, of course, the full-blown desire to have one’s brain patched directly into “cyberspace,” the globally-connected computer networks. The romantic allure of the “cyborg” seems to captivate the fringes of digital culture, especially on the nets.
I strongly believe that we can solve two problems with technology. One is communication; more wars are caused by miscommunication than anything else, and technology can help there. The other is ignorance. With technology, we can address the problem with things like distance learning. And we can return to the idea of the master craftsmen teaching apprentices. We can leverage the skills and experience of the really clever and make them accessible to everyone.
They are very afraid of computer hackers, but I think mostly they are afraid of computers … Computers are a challenge and a threat, and they’re changing our society in ways that we can’t control and don’t understand. They’re not to be trusted.