The Algorithm: Mind of a Virtual Era: Our Code of Codes

Abstract

As soon as something implicit intrudes consciousness human thought undergoes a radical change. The introduction of any new tool or code brings a shift in cognition; every micro-step layering new semiotic forms within each macroevolutionary-stage has buttressed a new semantic leap. Our mechanization of everyday life and the tech-systems we interact with are impacting communication, cultural norms and values, market-aesthetics, and economics, in societies at large.

Undergirded by a survey of the role and significance of tools in human evolution, this study arrives at what is already a well-entrenched new era: the digital, screen-mediated age. Revolutionized by the algorithm, introduced by computers, this age is dominated by the addictive quality of instant contact, unlimited information, virtual gaming, and titillating service-forms, all at our finger tips.   

Aside from the interpersonal impact on the new humans growing up with devices in hand, how does this disembodied, digital code-form through which our interactions are mediated condition human cognition? How does its seductive efficiency interfere with how we relate, feel, assign meanings, think? Rooted in macro-evolutionary and psychoanalytic principles, this paper examines the algorithm itself and takes a sweeping interdisciplinary approach to the developmental, psychosocial, and cognitive implications for the human mind/brain as it interacts with its technological extension.