Abstract
The paper discusses ubiquitous computing and the conception of the self, especially the question how the self should be understood in the environment pervaded by ubiquitous computing, and how ubiquitous computing makes possible direct empathy where each person or self connected through the network has direct access to others’ thoughts and feelings. Starting from a conception of self, which is essentially distributed, composite and constituted through information, the paper argues that when a number of selves are connected to one another in the ubiquitous computing network, a possibility opens up where the selves can directly communicate with one another. This has a potential finally to solve the problem of other minds, and in fact any philosophical conundrum based on the supposed distinction between self and the world. When selves have direct access to others’ thoughts and feelings, they know the content of others’ mental states directly without having to make inferences or employing some other indirect methods. As they are interconnected through the ubiquitous network, and as they are essentially constituted through information, the selves then are spread out across the network. What this implies is that any boundary between a self and another is not as hard and fast as hitherto may have been understood. Toward the end, the paper also discusses how freedom and autonomy are still possible in this ubiquitously networked world.
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Notes
There are currently many terms that refer to closely related phenomenon. Apart from “ubiquitous computing,” another phrase that is being used is “pervasive computing.” According to the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NITS), pervasive computing refers to devices that are numerous, casually accessible, often invisible; thus, it is essentially the same kind of technology as ubiquitous computing. In fact, the two terms are being used interchangeably in the literature (NITS 2001 ).
In this paper, I take the self to refer to the referent of the first-person pronoun, namely what is being talked about when one refers to oneself using words like “I,” “me” or “mine.”’ It is this sense that is the basis of the philosophical problem surrounding the self. It is this referent of “I” that is the subject of knowledge and subject of moral deliberation.
This view finds its support in Buddhist philosophy, which argues basically that the self, as commonly understood, does not actually exist. See Mark Siderits’ “Buddhist Non-Self: The No Owner’s Manual” (2011) and also Siderits (2007 , 2003). However, this position is criticized by Dan Zahavi in the same volume (2011). See also Zahavi (2009).
My argument here, then, is different from one offered by Dan Zahavi (2007), who argues that the leading accounts on the problem of other minds, namely what he calls the “theory-theory” and the “simulation theory,” both suffer from a deficit stemming from the presupposition that one has to infer the content of others’ minds. In the account being offered here, there is obviously no need to infer, because the content of others’ mental episodes can be accessed directly via the ubiquitous network.
An obvious rejoinder to this proposal is that it seems to do away with the existence of the selves all together. If a self can have direct access to another’s first-person feeling, then it would seem that any boundary between selves would disappear, since our commonsensical notion is that the first-person access defines a boundary between the selves. However, even though selves can have direct access to each other’s feelings, they still exist separately because they belong to different places or nodes on the network. Metaphysically speaking, since the very notion of a self is a construction, this implies that any putative boundary between them would be a construction too. That a self is a construction does not imply that it does not exist.
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Acknowledgments
Research for this paper has been supported in part by grants from the Thailand Research Fund, grant no. BRG5380009, and from the National Research University Project, grant no. HS1025A and AS569A. I also would like to thank the anonymous referees of this paper, whose comments and criticisms led to many improvements of the paper and corrections of many mistakes.
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Hongladarom, S. Ubiquitous computing, empathy and the self. AI & Soc 28, 227–236 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-012-0395-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-012-0395-1