EVENTS

 

Following Mark Weiser’s vision from 1991 that the digital of the 21st century weaves itself “into the fabric of everyday life” until it is “indistinguishable from it,” we are today facing an evolution of the digital toward its naturalization. In this context, the miniaturization of technology plays an important role, but even more so the increasingly natural access to the digital, which brings the digital closer to emotions, affects and intuitions. The term “naturalization” ambiguously refers on the one hand to the digital as a technology that becomes (second) nature, and on the other hand to the naturalization (citizenship) of us in the digital sphere. The lecture analyses from a philosophical perspective the increasing acceptance of digital technology as an affective infrastructure and the phenomenological consequences for us. In particular, the concept of implicit knowledge (Michael Polanyi) plays an increasingly important role in this naturalization process. However, naturalization does not answer the question of whether machines or we as individuals will be tamed. Looking at current developments, it seems more likely that we will be the ones who will have to adapt to the rationality of machines.