Digitalization and Anthropocentrism

Abstract

The current situation in society is largely constituted by that wave of computeri­zation, or, as someone say, digitalization, which has covered, in fact, the entire society and sets certain behavioral frameworks at all levels of social communica­tion. Computers organized in a network are coordinated today with the many bodily and mental acts that once constituted the characteristic features of the be­ing called human. What makes a person a special being if the computer network surpasses him in many ways? How much does the concept of “human” change if we consider the latter as one of the agents of a vast digital network? How much do we understand those operations that take place in such a network it­self, as well as those that are implemented between a person and a computer? At the same time, it should be taken into account that computers not only trans­form society. They produce and provoke special recursive connections, both among themselves and with a person, giving rise to a special sensitivity in the lat­ter – sensitivity to the virtual. Virtual reality is not only in the network, it is also updated in the physicality of the individual and in his mentality. So, an individ­ual could integrate with computers and use the advantages that they give: upload themselves to the digital world and be one with computers, choice of communi­cation strategies. However, this question can be somewhat redefined. The ape turned man and Kafka’s “Report to the Academy” says: “No, I didn’t want free­dom. All I wanted was an exit… I had to move forward!”. It seems that today it is worth talking not so much about freedom (no matter in what sense of the word), but about finding a way out of a seemingly dangerous, if not cata­strophic, situation.