The Algorithm: Mind of a Virtual Era

Abstract

As soon as something implicit enters consciousness human thought undergoes a radical change. The introduction of any new tool or code brings a shift in cognition; every micro-step layering new semiotic forms within each macroevolutionary-stage has buttressed a new semantic leap. Stemming from a longer essay, and undergirded by a survey of the role that tools play in human evolution, this study arrives at our already well-entrenched new era: the digital, screen-mediated age. Revolutionized by the algorithm, introduced by computers, our time is dominated by the addictive quality of instant contact, unlimited information, social platforms, virtual gaming, and titillating service-forms, all at our finger tips. Our mechanization of everyday life and the tech-systems we interact with are impacting communication, cultural norms and values, market-aesthetics and economics, in societies at large. Aside from the interpersonal impact on the new humans growing up with devices in hand, how does this disembodied, digital code-form, through which our interactions are mediated, condition human cognition? How does its seductive efficiency interfere with how we relate, feel, assign meanings, think? Rooted in macro-evolutionary and psychoanalytic principles, this paper examines the algorithm itself and takes a sweeping interdisciplinary approach to the developmental, psychosocial, and cognitive implications for the human mind as it interacts with its technological extension.

Presenters

Anna Aragno
Theoretician, Independent Researcher, New York, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

2024 Special Focus—Traveling Concepts: The Transfer and Translation of Ideas in the Humanities

KEYWORDS

Transforming Macro-evolutionary Tool, Code-power, Psycho-social, Cognitive Developmental Implications