Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.56 n|P a g e 4. The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet Alexandros SchismenosPhD student in Philosophy of ScienceUniversity of IoanninaGreeceORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8490-4223E-Mail: abonapartis@gmail.com Abstract Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the 'mechanization' of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize1, even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late '60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata2. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The emergence of the world-wide-web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities. Keywords Cybernetics, social epistemology, cyberspace, Cartesian humanism, information, discourses, ideologies, antihumanism, world-wide-web 1Richard Wolin, The Heidegger Controversy. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), pp 287-296.2Francisco J. Varela, Principles of Biological Autonomy. (New York: Elsevier North-Holland, Inc., 1979). Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.57 n|P a g e The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet When Martin Heidegger prophesized the end of philosophy, during his infamous lastinterview1 in 1966, the Der Spiegel journalist justly asked: "Who or what will take its place?"Heidegger responded: "Cybernetics", thus directing his descendants' attention towards thecybernetics movement, which was introduced earlier by Norbert Wiener2 as the scientific study ofcontrol and communicational systems of human beings and animals. Cybernetics, combining thetheory of information with the theories of control that sprung during WW2, attempted to describethought as calculation, using the algorithmic paradigm of the Turing machines.Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitivefunctions considered as algorithmic sequences and the 'mechanization' of the subjective were thetheoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize3,even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late '60s introducedthe concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata4. Recently, neurologists pose claims onthe traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, theequation of human cognition to cybernetic systems.I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since itscontext and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on theunderstanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginaryproposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects ofthe cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere 1 Der Spiegel. May 1st 1976 Paris: Hermann &(.Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machineWiener,Norbert2 .)MIT Press, 1961(Cambridge:&), 1948Cie3 Richard Wolin, The Heidegger Controversy. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), pp 287-296. ).Holland, Inc., 1979-New York: Elsevier North(Autonomy.BiologicalofPrinciplesFrancisco J. Varela,4 Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.58 n|P a g eof being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with uniqueepistemological attributes and possibilities.Regardless whether cybernetics represent the completion of Cartesian humanism, asHeidegger declared, or its destruction, as J.P. Dupuy claims 5 , most post-structuralists,deconstructionists and network sociologists like Bruno Latur used the cybernetic systems asexamples of the dehumanization of social and ideological formations and as justifications of aprofound anti-humanism. Underlying both those theories and the current claims of neurology andneuroscience on the traditional epistemological fields of consciousness and thought, is a simplisticontological axiom that seeks to replace the active subjectivity of the individual with an impersonal,dynamic plexus of information, discourses, ideologies and neuronal synapses. To use the terminologyof Cornelius Castoriadis6, it is an ensemblistic – identitary (ensidic) ontology, that is constructedupon the fundamental axiom of determination and the categories of identity and ensemblistic logic,an ontology enclosed in the frame of an ultimate determinism.When confronted with that current of anti-humanism we should recite Castoriadis: "(...) human theoretical activity lies in its discovery and exploration of new regions. It therefore only makes progress when it confers new significations upon the already available 'categories' and, even more importantly, posits/invents new 'categories'."7 Thought as a creative action, beyond algorithmiccalculations, as a vis formandi of the world of social significances, presupposes human subjectivityand the conscious activity of the actual individual. However, this individual cannot be radicallyseparated from his or her social-historical environment that is his or her ontological horizon withinwhich any concept is formulated, evaluated and justified.The emergence of the world-wide-web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internetduring the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme tomechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social 5 Jean-Pierre Dupuy, The Mechanization of the Mind: On the Origins of Cognitive Science, trans. M.B. DeBevoise,(New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000). hleen Blamey (Cambridge: MIT Press,Kat, trans.The Imaginary Institution of SocietyCornelius Castoriadis,6 229.-1987), pp 221 ),1984K. Soper (Cambridge: MIT Press,by M.H. Ryle &trans.,the LabyrinthCrossroads inCornelius Castoriadis,7p.219. Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.59 n|P a g eimaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitary organization thatcannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, aform of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational andthe symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to usethe terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution.I selected the word 'ontological' to describe the emergence of more than just a new social-historical being (such as the elementary information unit, which appears as a particle or wavecharged with significance), the emergence of a completely new plane of reality, within the social-historical plane, that has the ability to become independent of the basic physical plane, on which it is,ultimately, founded.The internet cyberspace creates, from the point of view of human subjectivity, sub specie humanitatis, a completely new objective surface, a novus locus for reflection and self-determination.The World Wide Web constitutes a form of objectivity, whose manifestation, appearance andsignificance has nothing in common with its material substructure or physical foundation. Namely,what we see and transfer via the internet, the semantic information, is something completelydifferent than its material bearer, the electronic wave or particle. So much different, that we couldnot describe it as the surface of a material structure, like, i.e. a building is perched on the joints of itsskeleton and refers to them directly or indirectly. Neither could we describe it as the semanticcodification of a fixed system, since the code on which it is matriculated remains strictly operationalwhile the significances that are transmitted construct and refer to autonomous semantic orimaginary inner universes.What appears on the screen is a visualized meaning, clearly autonomous as regards itscontent, and its significance. It constitutes the element of a digital universe, which is formed asspectral hologram of multiple private worlds, a new level of social reality with distinct properties andattributes. The epistemological attributes of the digital world, are the predominance of the visual,due to the complete absence of tangibility, where the objects exist exclusively as phenomena andimmaterial representations, constantly variable, where the socialhistorical actualities is more of ametaphor than a referent. Namely, an intrinsically timeless plane of social existence, quite platonic, Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.60 n|P a g ewhich is not mediated through matter, while simultaneously possesses an objective subsistenceindependent from subjectivity. As such, cyberspace indicates an implicit metaphysics of Space, sincewithin its boundaries, as a superset, Time becomes insignificant and is rendered to a simple logisticalcalculation, no more a rhythm of distortion or a rate of entropy. Only outside of the digitalboundaries, on the physical plane of the actual technical structures, the servers and the hardware,does Time exist as time. Only on the outer surface of its ontological sphere, on its foundation toreality, is the digital universe exposed to temporal becoming. Intrinsically, it is radically time-less,and spatially infinite.However, this is only one aspect of the internet. Another aspect is the social-historicaldimension, as a human creation and the problematic relationships which it erects with its socialenvironment from the point of view of the individual subjectivity.The emergence of the digital world within the social magma results in the emergence of anew avatar for human subjectivity, a body-less being, fabricated by the actual individual, whichconstitutes both an ideal shadow and a selected reflection of the latter. The digital identity of eachuser is already a multitude, a conscious re-composition of the individual, based principally on hisown self-image, on the self that the individual herself or himself chooses to fabricate from thefragments of her or his personal existence. The user creates a digital shadow, an 'ego' free fromcorporality and its restrictions.This avatar is suited to become a field for imaginary free self-recreation and, as such, itreflects and encompasses the elements that the individual recognizes or invents as the prominentelements of his social and private self-image, in constant reference to the Other without theendangerment that the corporal presence of the Other brings forward. The digital being is thusconstructed as an infinite reflection of the individual within the digital objectivity, no longer as asubject, but as an imaginary representation. Here, any terms of Truth are constantly variable.The digital communities that are created within the cyberspace, are imaginary communitiesdevoid of any actual territoriality, expect any territorial references of descent or imaginarybelonging, communities instituted on the basis of choice and free recognition. The borders of thesecommunities are not external, like actual territorial borders, nor are they imposed by any socialVol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.61 n|P a g ehistorical 'necessity'. They are specifications of taste, which overcome any spatial division, beyondthe divisions that the individual himself places upon himself. This does not result to any chaos but, onthe contrary, to an unconscious self-institution of the rules of every digital sub-space. The absence ofany external necessities renders those rules arbitrary and, at the same time, highly venerable.Consequently, what constitutes a delinquency within the internet is any attempt to restrictthe freedom of informative and semantic circulation and re-construction. The outlaw is not anyhacker that tears down firewalls, but rather any formal authorities that try to impose censorship. Anyeffort to tear down censorship obstacles is not a denial, but, on the contrary, an affirmation of thenature of the medium, the uninterrupted, free flow of information and re-creation of social imaginaryforms. That is why any efforts to control the flow ultimately fail and nothing remains truly hidden,because censorship and concealment are methods that radically oppose the nature of the internetand its constantly re-creative topology.These above observations could be misunderstood as a description of the isolation of theactual individual from his social-historical environment or as a description of a novel solipsism.However, the internet world is neither a social-historical isolation nor a cognitive encapsulation.On the one hand, it is obvious that every digital reference reflects manners and trends thatare also active in social reality. This is the one side of the coin, the reflection of real social-historicallife on the screen. The simultaneous worldwide spread of information in real time actually creates auniversal social temporality, with attributes like the un-territorial circulation, the global communalnetworking and the ability to re-present contemporaneous events of a potential synchronicity. It alsocreates a universal social historicity, with attributes like the ability to preserve, accumulate andperpetually represent cultural events of a potential diachronicity.Thus, the immanent historicity of society not only emerges but also expands as an aspect ofthe social imaginary, through this phenomenological timelessness of the internet that manifests asthe conjunction of a synchronic present with a diachronic past towards the future.Although the internet formulates a global composition of distinct social temporalities in auniversal social time, within the cyberspace the experience of subjective temporality crumbles downbefore the infinity of every possible enclosed proper time of each web page, every digital game, and Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.62 n|P a g eeach enclosed cyber-world. The phenomenological timelessness of an infinite space offers to eachindividual the provisional ability to subjectively transcend external temporality without having tosubmerge to the subconscious, thus absolving the individual from the historicity imposed on her orhim by her or his direct social environment. Within the internet, which is an indirect public space, theindividual is not imperiled corporally or really, but only symbolically.I should shortly mention the black economies of online gaming and the respective e-sports,where players compete for huge amounts of money like in real-life Olympics, in digital stadiums withmultiples of fans. This trend is prominent in East Asia, where some players enjoy the status ofcelebrity. But the black economies are more important, with digital game artifacts being exchanged'underground' for real-life money. Of course, every game-world is but a codex written by theprogrammers of each company and one would expect that the companies would easily control thepseudo-economies of each game. Yet, in the most popular online game-worlds, like the World OfWarcraft by Blizzard, black markets emerged beyond any administrative control. These blackmarkets, just like in real-life economics, created respective economic bubbles, where the prices ofdigital artifacts soon skyrocketed, and millions of actual US dollars were exchanged, invested, won orlost. Regardless of any administrative efforts these black markets cannot be confined by anything lessthan the complete withdrawal of the game itself, since infinite digital space is available to erect theirown 'underground' hubs.This 'invasion' of digital economics in the actual social-historical plane has resulted inconcentration camps in China, were prisoners are forced to play online games beyond exhaustion, inorder to collect valuable artifacts for the government to sell in the digital black markets. Meanwhile,private companies emerge in other parts of South Asia, which hire professional players to supply thesame growing demand.On the other hand, as recently as 2011, we came to realize that digital networkinginteraction goes both ways. From the wiki leaks to the Arabian Spring, we experienced an 'invasion'of the internet in history, in the manner that movements which appear firstly online are reproduced,introduced and transferred in the actual social reality. And indeed, in an emphatic way, whenfreedom of communication and interaction collide with a regime of censorship and obscurantism, as Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.63 n|P a g ehappened in the Middle East. It was not by accident that social media, like Facebook, assumed aliberating aspect in the Arabian world; it was because their function suggested ways of freecommunication to a society of closed, critique-proof imaginary significations. The digital subjectivity,without the burden of corporality, found the significance of freedom in its individuality. The mostsurprising thing was that the actual individual came down the streets to protest and thus placed heror his actual corporeal body in direct danger, in order to defend this significance. It was as if a virusof freedom was transmitted electronically.The fact that the Arabian Spring insurrection led to the emergence of new militaristicdictatorships or Islamic fundamentalists is just another proof of the limited penetrative force of anysignificances in a hostile, traditional, heteronomous and enclosed indigenous imaginary plexus.The new ontological attributes of constant communication and non material objectivity havethe potential to liberate the individual from the necessities of material identities. Thus, theconstitutive material foundations of belonging were shattered and new, completely imaginaryinstitutive forms emerged.The global 'Occupy' movement first started through digital messaging and quickly overcamedigitality without much effort, thus creating another form of free interactions, bringing forth theproject of direct democracy in the actual social reality. The individuals that occupied public spacefirstly met in cyberspace of the internet, without the need of a rigid ideological pact to ensureeveryone's presence in an ideologically confined space. On the contrary, what occurred was a freeand conscious reclaim and opening of actual public space. Since public space emerged a social placeoutside state authority, everything became simple. The faceless multitude or the masses are not theappropriate concepts for the foundation of a free community of individuals. Contrariwise, we saw aninfinite networking of collective personalities. 'Portals' of communication and 'interfaces' of actionwhere freely created, where each individual could participate where she or he chose, exactly becausethe concepts of desire and reflective choice replaced duty and metaphysical necessity.Autonomous individuality, reflective thought, free public space and time, the collectiveindividual, were all concepts that emerged from the depths of a society ruled by the imaginary ofheteronomy, outside and against it, in a most practical manner. The fact that this spirit of freedom Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.64 n|P a g espread like fire throughout western societies proves that direct democracy appears as an almostnatural way of social institution when the free collective individuality, the actual individual becomesthe subject of political decision. It also suggests that the manner of free networking of the digitalworld is a reflection of some already present ways of networking in the real world, which remainedregionally isolated until now.This virtual space that the internet provides, expands with a plethora of websites, portals,etc that is constantly created, communicated, recreated, and increases. Cyberspace, without atangible outer limit, equals the sum of the cyber-localities that exist in any given moment, butexpands chaotically, and can be presented as a potentially infinite superset that is also available as alocus for the transmission and transmutation of the social significances on the scale of a global, yetpersonal, human interaction and communication. A form of communication that is simultaneous, freeand essentially incorporeal, also allows minor or suppressed ideas to be presented worldwide andlocal confrontations or resistance to address a global audience. Without any actual censorshipauthority inside the means itself, the success or rejection of any transmitted information/significancedepends really on the broader socio-historical environment of the recipient.This makes the internet dangerous for authorities and makes authorities vulnerable to theinternet. Whereas the establishment clashes with society over public space in social reality, in thedigital reality there is also a clash between state and corporate organizations and the society ofindividual users. The movement for digital freedom meets the social movements in the internet, thustransferring social conflicts to the digital communication hubs. The struggle between state servicesand the hacker communities like the Anonymous, or individuals like Julian Assange, intensifies andescalates proportionally to the social conflicts of actual reality. The efforts to control the webresulted, among other things, to the emergence of the 'deep web' or 'dark web' where encryptedinformation are transmitted by techniques of dispersion and recollection, like, for example is theoperation of the Tor network. New digital ethics are created and the question whether these could beconventionalized is posed by necessity.The imaginary multiplication of the digital person is nevertheless accompanied, by asemantic leveling of the actual person to the specular dimension. Cyberspace is the surface of visible Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.65 n|P a g erepresentations that address directly to the sense of vision and the semantic field that is defined bythe visible dimension of reality and secondly to the sense of hearing as a sensationalistic addendumto the visible world. Not only is the reception of the digital information primarily visual, but thenavigation and use of the internet is also based and constructed around the sense of vision. I shouldadd that the visual dimension is just a surface layer of the representative magma of consciousness towhich all senses participate equally, but also a dimension to which the blind members of humanityhave limited access. So, although the cyberspace claims universality, this universality is practicallyfictitious.Therefore, beyond the ensemblistic-identitary dimension of the internet as a functionalnetwork for the direct transfer and spreading of information, its imaginary-semantic dimension as acyber-world for representation and reconstruction of symbolic significances and meanings presentsa horizon of limited amplitude but of a potentially infinite semantic depth. The fetishized images thatreflected the iconic significances of modern society become encoded points of diversity in a digitallyindifferent space, able to include any possible meaning of the global social imaginary.In conclusion, as I aforementioned, the relationship between the digital subjectivity and theactual individual and her or his social-historical environment is deeply problematic. It is arelationship of pure reference, without external restrictions, were the individual imagination canroam unbounded. Besides the obvious psychological perils for the individual, which have resulted tothe founding of gaming rehab clinics, the danger of an acquired digital autism, the internet opens newareas of endangerment as regards public discourse and public deliberation, since the internet publicspace is an indirect public space, and not subjected to the social variations, natural alterations andpolitical restrictions of actual public space and time. It lacks the accountability of actual public lifeand the temporal and objective directness of corporeal presence. In contrast to the use of the internetby social movements, the dominant majority leans towards a manner of 'public' privatization. The de-corporealization of consciousness within the internet most often results in a de-corporealization ofthe sentiment, which produces a fictional digital public discourse, which, however public, is projectedfrom the actually private space of the house. Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.66 n|P a g eRespectively, the direct and constant flow of information corresponds equally to a semanticdowngrading similar to the dialectics of quantity and quality raised to the superlative. Thecontraction of the temporal duration of the dissemination of information to near zero causes aproportional contraction of the significance charge of the disseminate. The potentially infiniterepeatability of information weakens its temporal gravity on the social imaginary. The object, havingbeen signified as the social representation of the object itself, now becomes a representation of therepresentation and so on, while the gap between actual and mental experience widens.Digital objects are par excellence phenomenological and essentially semantic objects,deprived of material value, charged with dense symbolic value. As icons, they are selectiverepresentations of actual objects with a self-reliant symbolic content that is reflected on thecyberspace as potentially infinite, by means of indeterminacy. As such, they compose an ever-presentdigital universe, which is a distorted representation of the superset of society, as every socialindividual herself or himself chooses to depict her or his proper world. Since every social mediaavatar or profile survives the physical death of the user, like a mummified and crystallized digitalself-image, soon a digital universe of the past of humanity will be formed, where the semantic tracesof the dead will continue to shine, like the dead stars on the night sky. References Castoriadis, C. (1987). The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge. Cambridge: MITPress.Castoriadis, C. (1984). Crossroads in the Labyrinth, trans. by M.H. Ryle & K. Soper (Cambridge. : MIT Press.Dupuy, J. (2000). The Mechanization of the Mind: On the Origins of Cognitive Science, trans. M.B. DeBevoise. NewJersey: Princeton University Press.Varela, F. J. (1979). Principles of Biological Autonomy. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, Inc.Wiener, N., & Cybernetics, (1948). or control and communication in the animal and the machine. (Paris: Hermann& Cie. Paris: MIT Press.Wolin, R. (1993). The Heidegger Controversy. Cambridge: MIT Press. Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016) IssueJune ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P)The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet by Schismenos, A. Page No. 56-67 Page No.67 n|P a g e Cite this article:The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet Citation Format: APASchismenos, A. (2016). The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet. S O C RA T E S, 4(2), 56-67. Retrieved fromhttp://socratesjournal.com/index.php/socrates/article/view/146 For more citation formats, visit:http://socratesjournal.com/index.php/socrates/rt/captureCite/146/0 Indexing metadata is available online on:http://socratesjournal.com/index.php/socrates/rt/metadata/146/