Digital: The Promise of the Unlimited?

Abstract

At the crossroads of notions of Technical and Human lies the notion of limits. Let us question the vocabulary: here, limits in the plural, boundaries, edges…, to be also nuanced with the meanings of bounded, limited. They seem negative: could limits be flaws, deficiencies, or challenges to overcome? Indeed, the Human appears to be limited by the body in the three dimensions of space and in that of time; therefore, there would be physical and material limits, or weaknesses, on which technology can certainly act concretely. But should we necessarily surpass them and seize upon technologies to achieve this? On the other hand, we have the impression that our mind, being more immaterial, could project itself infinitely and onto everything, including the technologies themselves. Could it be that humans are made of an unlimited spirit that creates technology, housed in a limited body served by it? The digital is omnipresent in our lives, and we must take the time to study the new technical-societal relationship developing with it. Guided by contemporary philosophers and thinkers, we will examine what defines a technique in its specific case: its lineage, technologies, dissemination, and interactions with humans. We will explore 1/how the digital represents a technical lineage, 2/how this technique and its technologies have evolved in contemporary societies, its widespread impact on communication and the construction of social bonds, 3/how humanity has adapted to these transformations by becoming hypermodern, 4/the new relationship between humans and time, and 5/why time becomes the place and moment of the social life to survive the digital regime and hypermodernity. Despite its theoretical content and level of abstraction, this paper speaks to us, inhabitants of a digital world, who continually use digital technologies and always desire more, faster, in an irresistible need for speed and unlimited.

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