In the blogosphere, a curious notion is spreading and gaining momentum: namely, the idea that information is the new soul—a kind of Soul 2.0. Something over and above the nitty gritty of the brute matter. Something better. Information is taken to be something different from matter and yet real. This view is becoming the metaphysical undertone of many state-of-the-art technological breakthroughs and commonly-accepted opinions. The view has been propelled by flamboyant declarations of savants and entrepreneurs–the ubiquitous Elon Musk, the futurist Ray Kurzweil, bold entrepreneurs like Martine Rothblatt–let alone the impact of movies–from the classic Wachowski’s Matrix trilogy to the upcoming Rupert Sanders’ adaptation of Ghost in the Shell (2017)–and countless sci-fi novels. [...]
The philosopher Luciano Floridi suggests that we live in an infosphere made of information that is getting more real than the world of objects. Several philosophers have wondered whether the universe might ultimately be non-material—a notion recapped by John Archibald Wheeler’s motto “It from bit." [...]
It is only a sad irony that the number of serious injuries and deaths in which the victims gets either wounded or killed to take a selfie is increasing every year. The craving to upload ourselves into the collective and immaterial cloud is so strong that many individuals seem ready to risk their lives to do so. Yet, this is only the logical consequence of conceiving the digital version of themselves as important as the original, or maybe even more, since it will not decay and perish. The digital version of ourselves, a sort of digital version of Dorian Gray’s painting, will remain forever young and beautiful. In a sense, death-by-selfie could be seen as a form of proto-martyrdom to the dream of a fully digital self.
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