What the Web’s ubiquity and omnipresence means for human consciousness.

Organising principles are funny things. In order for us to ‘make sense to ourselves’, we need broad, overarching perspectives within which to locate and position our sense of who we are. Yet, we are frequently unaware of the centrality of the outlooks that shape and determine our views on life, often coming to think of them only at the times they are challenged. Perhaps the clearest example of this idea is religion. In Western societies, for example, there was a time when the ethos of Christianity permeated all aspects of life; from day-to-day activity to how entire empires were run, religion was the set of guiding principles and philosophical precepts that systemitised experience.

Religion, in a very real sense then, ‘existed in people’s minds’. It was – and for those who are religious, still is – an omnipresent world view that makes sense of things, functioning in the way that any and all ideology does: as a sort of operating system for consciousness. But while religion was the dominant organizing principle for centuries, in various parts of the world we have now spent a century – maybe a century and a half – working under different systems of rules. Things like nationalism, science, democratic-capitalism and, perhaps most importantly, individualism, have come to be the new lenses through which we see the world, the overlays we use to give shape to our lives.

As such, to ‘makes sense of oneself to oneself’ in the contemporary era is to focus on our immediate sphere: our careers, families, love life, friends, and so on. To position and locate the relative worth of these things, we often project a vision of them into consciousness or imagination and then judge them based upon rough, general criteria: success, status, happiness, intimacy, fulfilment etc. Rather than conceiving of my life on Earth as either a fleeting movement toward God or a series of many rebirths, I approach my life in broadly materialist terms – i.e. this world is all there is – and judge its progress by some of the criteria that I and society have deemed important.

So, where does the Web fit in all this? Well, increasingly, one of these criteria that is becoming important to me – and I’m sure I’m not alone in this – is the status, worth and ‘reputation’ of my online presence. How ‘well my blog is doing’, how ‘good my Twitters are’, or whether my Facebook status updates are ever funny or interesting – these are all starting to occupy a position in my mind, forming part of my self and self-image.

In the ‘post-religion’/pre-internet age (I use ‘post-religion’ loosely), the individualism at the core of our time meant that when one envisioned oneself, it looked a bit like a flow chart with a single body, the individual, at the centre and various important things – family, friends, career etc. – spanning out to the sides. In the ‘religious age’ (again, I realise it’s not really ‘over’ as such), such a flow chart would have to be underpinned by God and by the Christian world view, with many of the points on the chart being determined in relation to the Bible etc.

So we have a historical progression of organising principles from a sort of religious communalism to a capitalist individualism. But I’m suggesting that the internet will form part a new sort of system of thought through which humans organise their existences as its place and function within human consciousness changes as a result of sheer ubiquity. Here’s why:

1) The internet is the new social, an abstract, virtual space in which one’s ‘ self and friends and family are’. Conceptions of the social have always been abstract and virtual – to wit, your friends and family are ‘there with you’ even when they’re not. The internet provides a place for those people to exist at all times, anywhere.

2) As such, as a very smart person recently said to me, the internet, particularly lifestreaming, is a place to make yourself and others present. Although it’s a metaphor I’ve used many times, it bears repeating: one’s online identity is a ‘fixed’ pivot point around which one’s ‘real self’ moves and orients. But furthermore, so are the online presences of those one is close to, particularly when one considers the mobile internet and the fact that we can ‘be online anywhere’. Bodies are often absent, even when they’re ‘there’ (ever hang out with someone, feel totally unimpressed, and later find out they’re a playwright, or an awesome blogger, or whatever else? That’s what I mean). The internet makes individuals marginally present.

3) The internet is the new public space. As a persistent combination of network and text (by text, I mean both repository of knowledge but also an infinite collection of personal and collective narratives; by network I mean a dynamically evolving collection of these narratives and sites) the Web is a place where the public space, rather than being an entirely abstract thing that involves things as disparate as people’s conversations and municipal meetings, is instead the location in and on which to ‘find culture’. Culture is always virtual, always something one has to imagine and project so that when someone asks you “what is Canadian/American/whatever culture?”, you form a story of it in your head. The Web gives shape and place to this always-already virtual culture.

As such, if the Web is the site at which we will increasingly locate the social and public sphere, those things by which we determine some of the meaning of our lives, then the place of the internet within human consciousness will continue to expand, perhaps to the point that the space of the internet – the life that we lead that is in some way informed, inflected and shaped by the online presence of both ourselves and those who are important to us – will begin to constitute an organising principle, a way in which to form and shape our lives, evaluate the difference between good and bad, locate the system of thought through which we make sense of ourselves to ourselves.

Of course, while the internet has no inherent ideology, I guess I’m arguing it will become the ‘place’ where we put culture, coming not only to occupy a position in consciousness but becoming equivalent to religion or nationalism or democracy in shaping our views of ourselves. Who I am will increasingly be a question not simply of who I feel I am, but which visions and versions of myself I project into the new public text of the Web, and how I judge my life, how I determine the worth of things will often route themselves through consciousness via the internet. But the Web, more than being a repository of knowledge, will begin to constitute a dynamic, ongoing social sphere. Imagine being at a party and coming upon a lively group of people chatting about a topic you are knowledgeable about. You will want to inject your views into the discussion but also learn from the constant back and forth, the shifts and changes in idea. The Web is this ongoing conversation and its dynamic, omnipresent nature means that it could become the epistemological successor to the book: the place where human knowledge and sociality not only ‘happens’, but is stored.

So, I am obviously not really arguing that the Web will replace God. I am, however, suggesting that in much the same way that the printed book reshaped consciousness such that knowledge no longer had to be ‘carried in one’s mind’ and located ideas (and selves) ‘elsewhere’, the internet will extend and morph this change into something entirely new. Selves will exist online as much as they do in bodies and, as a result, individuals will increasingly see themselves through the culture, projections and identities that exist online.

My final point – and like all this, it’s entirely provisional and likely to change – is that if we have moved from communalism to individualism, the potentially social, mutliple nature of the internet means we may return to a new sort of communalism, an emphasis on community and the social sphere.