Digital Selves
The MIT Press eBooks February 3, 2026 DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/10284.003.0021 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the self is constituted through material engagement and that the "digital self" is the most recent manifestation of self-bounding, a situated process of self-designation and individuation. Contends that digital environments shift engagement from the movement of atoms to the movement of digital bits, and that the goal of combining sensory richness with machine intelligence is yet to be realized. |
Abstract
Our concern in this book has been to understand how the self is constituted in human becoming.We have been looking at the suprapersonal lived space between human bodies as well as at the engagement between human bodies and material objects.I have used some early but diachronic examples of self-bounding and enactive in/dividuation to describe the making of selfconsciousness from a situated person perspective.In the previous chapter, we saw how early toolmaking and personal decoration provided a new material ecol ogy for getting in touch with dif fer ent aspects of the experience of being and having a body-and through that with the minimal aspects of oneself.In this chapter, I want to give the question of self-becoming a con temporary twist, asking how the self can be understood in the modern virtual environments dominated by new information and communication technologies.1 Digital environments and media are hard to define.From a cognitive archaeology perspective, they signify a change from a mode of engagement based on the movement and exchange of atoms to one that is primarily based on the movement of digital bits.The aim of this transformation, one would hope, is to effectively combine "the forces of sensory richness and machine intelligence." 2 However, this objective is yet to be realized.In this chapter, I shall be using the term digital self 3 to refer to those aspects of human consciousness constructed or performed as we engage with or immerse inside this new virtual lifeworld.I have described self-bounding as a situated process of self-designation and in/dividuation by means of material engagement.What I call digital self is the most recent manifestation of that process.It seeks to capture the va ri e ties of self-bounding that are pos si ble 11 Digital Selves