Agency and Autonomy in the Age of Hyperconnectivity

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287). This special issue belongs to the section "Virtues".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 4085

Special Issue Editors

MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Interests: complexity; social systems; self-organization; dynamics; AI
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Interests: mapping; spatial analysis; urban planning; economic geography; geomatics; networks; human dynamics

Special Issue Information

The world has dramatically changed in recent years. The interconnectedness of individuals, societies and markets is unprecedented in human history. Whether through virtual or physical connections, the world has become hyper-connected and extremely interdependent. As a consequence, a global society has emerged and everything is influenced by things happening everywhere.

The establishment of interdependencies between individuals is fundamental for the creation of social systems. In doing so, individuals inevitably lose part of their autonomy in pursuit of a collective purpose. Traditionally, the geographical location of individuals and organizations determined the possibility for establishing social relationships among them. The current digital societies and the avoidance of physical distances are changing traditional paradigms. Philosophical reflections are required to frame and understand the consequences and effects derived from the ongoing changes.

The focus of this special issue aims to explore unanswered but relevant questions about the behavior of individuals and the properties of social systems in the age of hyper-connectivity. Connectivity and interdependencies affect core aspects of human behavior such as the sense of purpose, autonomy or agency, and the capacity for acting independently or collectively. Are humans becoming more constrained? Are their actions decoupling from one another? What sort of social dynamics are expected to arise from this unprecedented global context? We welcome papers exploring these sorts of questions and providing a view into the future.

References

Dr. Alfredo J. Morales
Dr. José Balsa-Barreiro
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • digital humanism
  • social networks
  • complexity
  • globalization
  • emergent behaviors
  • agency
  • autonomy
  • social sciences

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 230 KiB  
Article
The Machine in the Ghost: Autonomy, Hyperconnectivity, and Residual Causality
by Barry M. O’Reilly
Philosophies 2021, 6(4), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6040081 - 30 Sep 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3061
Abstract
This article will examine the unnamed and potentially devastating constraining effect of software on human autonomy. I call this concept residual causality, where software design decisions made long ago in different circumstances for different reasons constrain human action in an unknown future. The [...] Read more.
This article will examine the unnamed and potentially devastating constraining effect of software on human autonomy. I call this concept residual causality, where software design decisions made long ago in different circumstances for different reasons constrain human action in an unknown future. The less aware the designers of software systems are of complexity in social systems, the more likely they are to introduce residual causality. The introduction of intricate, ordered machines, to a world largely defined by disorder and heuristics, has caused philosophical perturbations that we have not fully dealt with. The machine in the ghost is the belief that machine thinking can be applied to the environment in which the machine will operate. As hyperconnectivity increases, the ghost becomes more unpredictable, unmanageable, and even less like the machine. If we continue to indulge the machine view of the world, the design of software systems presents real dangers to the autonomy of the individual and the functioning of our societies. The steadfastness of machine ontologies in the philosophies of software architects risks creating increasing residual causality as hyperconnectivity increases. Shifting the philosophical position of software architects opens up the possibility of discovering new methods that make it easier to avoid these dangers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agency and Autonomy in the Age of Hyperconnectivity)
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