In this paper, we will re-elaborate the notions of filter bubble and of echo chamber by considering human cognitive systems’ limitations in everyday interactions and how they experience digital technologies. Researchers who applied the concept of filter bubble and echo chambers in empirical investigations see them as forms of algorithmically-caused systems that seclude the users of digital technologies from viewpoints and opinions that oppose theirs. However, a significant majority of empirical research has shown that users do find and interact with opposing views. Furthermore, we argue that the notion of filter bubble overestimates the social impact of digital technologies in explaining social and political developments without considering the not-only-technological circumstances of online behavior and interaction. This provides us with motivation to reconsider this notion’s validity and re-elaborate it in light of existing epistemological theories that deal with the discomfort people experience when dealing with what they do not know. Therefore, we will survey a series of philosophical reflections regarding the epistemic limitations of human cognitive systems. In particular, we will discuss how knowledge and mere belief are phenomenologically indistinguishable and how people’s experience of having their beliefs challenged is cause of epistemic discomfort. We will then go on to argue, in contrast with Pariser’s assumptions, that digital media users might tend to conform to their held viewpoints because of the “immediate” way they experience opposing viewpoints. Since online people experience others and their viewpoints as material features of digital environments, we maintain that this modality of confronting oneself with contrasting opinions prompts users to reinforce their preexisting beliefs and attitudes.
Joint action among human beings is characterized by using elaborate cognitive feats, such as representing the mental states of others about a certain state of affairs. It is still debated how these capacities evolved in the hominid lineage. I suggest that the consolidation of a shared practice over time can foster the predictability of other’s behavior. This might facilitate the evolutionary passage from inferring what others might know by simply seeing them and what they are viewing towards a mutual awareness of each other’s beliefs. I will examine the case for cooperative hunting in one chimpanzee community and argue that it is evidence that they have the potential to achieve common ground, suggesting that the consolidation of a practice might have supported the evolution of higher social cognition in the hominid lineage.
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