Abstract
The goal of this essay was to address concerns that the Internet is harming our brains by placing our current historical moment in a deeper historical context. By expanding our temporal context we may make better sense of the present moment, and in the process draw different lessons than the-Internet-is-damaging-our-brains narrative. This essay also explored potential future paths that our coupled cognition might take. Considering different scenarios allows us to identify those drivers that will determine the future shape of the system called the brain-Internet interface. The most important driver is the evolutionary impulse to expand our cognitive capacity through symbolic objects fashioned by the human mind. The Internet is a coupled system with our brain that will help define what it means to be human.
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Notes
William McNeill, ‘Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians,’ in Mythistory and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 4.
Kees van der Heijden, Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), 36.
F.R. Ankersmit, Historical Representation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 89.
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© 2014 David J. Staley
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Staley, D.J. (2014). Conclude. In: Brain, Mind and Internet: A Deep History and Future. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137460950_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137460950_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49883-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-46095-0
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