I recently found out that there is a call for papers at my school for philosophy essays. I'm seeking a peer review on the legibility and coherence of this essay.
Dasein, Digi-Sein and Being in-the-World-Wide-Web
The philosophical works of Martin Heidegger are strongly highlighted by the questioning concerning that of being, or Dasein. Heidegger explores Dasein's relationship to that of other Daseins and also explores the relation of Dasein to technology. Heidegger's approach upon the subject of Dasein and technology in relation as two completely different Beings was explored by Joohan Kim in his article, The Phenomenology of Digital Beings . Heidegger, as a Dasein existing in the atomic age , was unable to experience the newfound relation that now exists between Dasein and Digi-Dasein. Today, modern technology has advanced to create its own world, a new world in which Dasein is able to find its existence, as a Digi-Dasein being-in-the-World-Wide-Web.
Joohan Kim, exploring Heidegger's concept of Dasein relates the ontology of a digital information or the nature of digital-being. Kim, whose article was published in 2001, is a Dasein existing in the digital age. Kim explores digital beings through first establishing that they are not tools as Heidegger defined technology as. The first electronic computer was built in 1946 , only nine years prior to Heidegger's Memorial Address , therefore in Heidegger's realm of Being, the computer was a completely different item than what it is today in this age. Kim argues that in this "sweeping trend of computerization" there are new uses than just computation of numbers, shifting the essential function of a computer from just processing to communication, "Computers have already become indispensable tools for various kinds of socio-economic interactions". Kim further explores the phenomenology of a digital-being, and the ontology of such beings.
Kim explores the thing-like property of digital-beings in relation to Heidegger's three types of representation, "digital-beings do not exactly belong to any of the three types of representation that Heidegger offers: "bodily presence," "empty intending," and "the perception of a picture."" "Bodily presence" refers to when something stands for itself, in the case of digital-beings, some are representations, yet some digital-beings stand for themselves and represent themselves to us. When something is "empty intending", it "exists only in our conversation and imagination, but has no bodily presence." Kim argues that this representation is not sufficient to describe digital-beings because although it has no "bodily presence", it has a "quasi-bodily presence". Unlike dreams and hallucinations, the images created through digital-beings are not limited to an individual's own perception. Kim argues against a digital-being as being a "picture thing" through the example of a word processor, "when you write a paper with a word processor, what you see on the computer monitor is your paper, rather than a representation of your "real" paper somewhere else." What Kim is claiming, is that although what appears to be a picture or representation of a real thing, is actually a "virtual reality" of digital-beings.
Kim further explores the usage and understanding of Heidegger's three forms of representation as he explores digital-beings as tools and their relation to Dasein. "According to Heidegger, the fundamental way in which Dasein is connected to the world is to find an association with a "tool" or "useful thing" (something in order too...)" Kim argues that,
...every digital tool (computer program) is always "something in order too.." All kings of computer programs, whether they are word processors, Web browsers, graphic programs, or spread sheet programs, are always designed for specific "serviceability, helpfulness, usability, and handiness." The only difference between digital tools and physical tools is this: while we "discover" a specific handiness in mind. Physical things come before the handiness, but digital-beings follow the handiness.
Kim is claiming that Heidegger's definition of a tool coincides with that of a digital-tool, however it is different from Heidegger's definition because digital-tools are not confined to the limitations of a computer. This difference could be exemplified through the comparison of a physical tool such that of a hammer and a computer. A hammer's telos, "that which gives bounds, that which completes" , is to be used as tool in order to build something using nails. However, "in the case of digital tools, "the totality of useful things" is not confined by a computer but embraces the global networks."
Joohan Kim further explores digital-beings and digital-tools through establishing the world that is created when Dasein employs the tools and begin functioning as an "environing world" (Umwelt).
My web browser is a window through which I can get connected to the world. We may acquire a specific identity or an "individual character," which is a peculiar mode of being in the cyberspace. On the web, I exist as my user ID. I meet other people, talk with them, shop for products, enter a chat room, or visit this or that site-I "dwell" in this "intelligible functionality whole" called the Web.
Kim, writing upon his experiences of the Web twelve years ago is unable to write upon the complexity of the digital world that many exist in today. With new handheld cell phones with "smart phone" capabilities.
Today many are able to dwell at the same time in both the digital-world and the physical world. In 2001, Kim was able to acknowledge,
...the internet becoming an umbilical cord to the social. Digital-being on the global computer networks is another form of intercorporeal relationships. The body can be more effectively connected to other bodies and the world through the internet.
Today with the introduction of modern technology, many can easily experience the world in real time through face-time, video call and skype. Dasein is able to interact with other Dasein as well as being "in the world".
With digital-beings on the net, we can establish intercorporeal relationships without necessarily being constrained by spatio-temporal conditions of thingly beings. The cyberspace called the Net is opening up new horizons of the world where we can experience the existence of others and reveal our existence to others...Being in cyberspace means being with others and being in the world
Kim argues that the world exists as Dasein does and the net opens up "new horizons for Dasein's existential spatiality. As a being-in-the-world, Dasein takes care of the world." Ontologically, digital-things do not exist in both the virtual world, as well as the real world,
...we are "in" the web-the "familiar world" where we interact with other people, get information, buy things, make love, build a community and so on. When we say we are existentially "in" the web, it means that we are "in" it; and therefore, being-in-the-World-Wide-Web would be another authentic mode of Dasein's being-in-the-world.
Kim is introducing the concept of a new world in which Dasein can dwell in, "Dasein realizes itself out of digital-beings as well as physical things." Kim thus concludes that Heidegger's "Dasein as being-in-the-world" expanding to include "Digi-Dasein as being-in-the-World-Wide-Web."
Joohan Kim's claim of "Digi-Dasein as being-in-the-World-Wide-Web" can further be explored through Martin Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology . Heidegger expresses the freedom each being must have between the essence of technology and technology itself. Heidegger begins through affirming the modern definition of technology to be, "[One says] Technology is a means to an end, [The other says] Technology is a human activity" However, in today's day and age of computerization, technology is not just a human activity, but another world in which Dasein finds its existence. Heidegger claims, "everything depends on our manipulating technology in the proper manner as a means" , however this claim today could be argued through explaining how since the technological advances of the world-wide-web, technology is no longer a manipulated tool, but has become another world in which Dasein finds existence, being.
Heidegger claims, "whatever has an effect as its consequence is called a cause. But not only that by means of which something else is effected is a cause. The end that determines the kind of means to be used may also be considered a cause." However, with Dasein, "being-in-the-World-Wide-Web" one cannot assert the cause or effect of the digital-being at use.
Heidegger describes four causas that give technology its means. Causa materialis, "the material, the matter out of which, for example, a silver chalice is made," with the technology of computers the causa materialis could be the plastic or metal framework used to house the wires of the system. Causa formalis, "the form, the shape into which the material enters" , the monitor of the computer, the keyboard and the mouse. The causa finalis, "the end the sacrificial rite in relation to which the required chalice is determined as to its form and matter" is skewed when examining the technology of digital-beings and a computer. The computer, as physical monitor, keyboard, and mouse made up of plastic, metals and wires are not required to perform tasks for Dasein determined by its form. The computer which has advanced into its own digital-world are now limitless forms of technology, a creation of its own world, existing Digi-Dasein. Thus, the computer and digital-beings have a different and multiple causa efficiens, "which brings about the effect that is the finished actual chalice" Modern technology today in the example of a computer has not only the computer maker as the causa efficiens but each and every Dasein which exists in the digital-world.
Heidegger examines the meaning of technology through establishing the definition of the Greek word it stems from, "technikon", which belongs to "techne". Heidegger relates techne to poesis through establishing the relationship between the activities, and skills of a craftsman and the arts of the mind and the fine arts as being techne, and belonging to bringing-forth. Heidegger acknowledges the relationship that techne shares with episteme,
Both words are terms for knowing in the widest sense. They mean to be entirely at home in something, to understand and be expert in it. Such knowing provides an opening up. As an opening up it is a revealing.
Here Heidegger's definition of technology coincides with the digital-world that now exists in the computer age.
The computer, and digital-world is allows for Dasein to reveal itself as an existent thing. Through web searches, wikipedia, and scholarly journal databases. However, unlike Heidegger's claim of techne's relationship with episteme can also be further explored through the web through the interaction of Daseins with other Daseins. Now Daseins can exist within technology whilst also acting within the unconcealment of truth, to knowledge.
The essence of modern technology has not yet been revealed according to Heidegger and lies within Ge-stell. "Enframing belongs within the destining of revealing" , and because of this, man is endangered.
Since destining at any given time starts man on a way of revealing, man, thus under way, is continually approaching the brink of the possibility of persuing and promulgating nothing but what is revealed in ordering, and of deriving all his standards on this basis. Through this the other possibility is blocked-that man might rather be admitted sooner and ever more primally to the essence of what is unconcealed and to its unconcealment, in order that he might experience as his essence the requisite to belonging to revealing
This claim is stating that man is continually lost in the essence of technology rather than fully experiencing the revealing that could occur. Man is lost in the essence in a way that is enframing upon the way of thinking, in which it constricts man from perceiving outside of the context of cause and effect and thus preventing other forms of revealing.
However, man today can challenge Heidegger's argument and claim that the technology and advancement of the World Wide Web, does not enframe Dasein's way of thinking, but exists as another realm, another world in which Dasein can reveal his existence. The digital-world does not endanger his way of thinking, it is used as another means for Aletheia, truth. Kim argues that Dasein, now has new forms of communication,
Before computers, different types of information required different types of communication channels, phone lines for voice transmissions, electromagnetic band widths for radio and television signals, postal systems for letters and printed materials, and so on. And different types of information also required distinctive methods for storage, magnetic tapes for sounds, films for images, papers and inks for texts, for example.
These new forms of communication that are found in the digital world do no enframe the truth, but aid in revealing new ways to reveal truth. The world has been expanded, yet made smaller in the way that it allows for other parts of the world to become accessible. Daseins are now able to experience and reveal truths that they may not have even pondered prior to this new technological world.
Heidegger, if he existed today might not have been so concerned with the purpose or importance of heimat if the digital world existed the way it does today, in 1946. This digital-world becomes a digital heimat in which Daseins are able to find truth and explore the world. Digital-beings are described by Kim, as res digitalis, existing between Heidegger's two basic ways of being, res extensa (being of nature) and res cogitans (being of mind) face Dasein with "the co-presence of the self and the Other" This relationship, of cyberspace with Dasein allows for a significant exchange of experienced in the form of digitized perception, existing in two different worlds. The real world, and that of the digital-world both act as means of Dasein's existence. The digital-world, as a part of technology however does not act in a way that modern technology acts in that it enframes and slows down the exploration of truth. The digital-world begins to exist and act as a new world in which Dasein can exist as a being and seek truth. Heidegger's four forms of causa cannot be established in this new technology and must further be explored and understood in order to understand Dasein in the worlds that Dasein exists in. The concept of "Digi-sein as being-in-the-World-Wide-Web" can further be explored, however due to the limitlessness of cyberspace one can only continue in the pursuit of aletheia.
