The Algorithm: Mind of a Virtual Era

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Anna Aragno  

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.