Luciano Floridi, a professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, stated in “The Fourth Revolution: How the Information Revolution is Reshaping Human Reality” :
“The Fourth Revolution has changed our conception of ourselves as the center of the universe and the most intelligent beings. We no longer control the content of our minds, even though we once thought we were the species completely responsible for our own thoughts. Our higher mental capacities for thinking were the implicit line of defense that still exists for our exceptional place in the universe. Simply put, we assumed we were also the center of the infosphere, and that no one competes with us in that regard. However, this notion is undermined by the design of autonomous machines that are smarter than us at processing information logically. We are no longer masters of the ‘infosphere’; our digital devices execute commands for smart thinking and analysis on our behalf and certainly better than we can. Furthermore, we are not ‘Newtonian’ elements that are independent and unique; rather, we are interconnected informational beings, and an integral part of an informational environment (the infosphere).” Hence, the term “infosphere” has come to denote “the informational environment that comprises all informational entities, their properties, interactions, processes, and mutual relationships.”
While the informational environment encompasses the world as a whole without discrimination between different regions, Floridi’s philosophical view of the significance of the Fourth Revolution and the Information Age has been inspirational and revealing of many details that must be taken into account.
The biosphere or aeriform or informational layer is the space where life, air, or information exists, and within this space or layers are found the observable differences in current societies, which have transformed into a rampant chaos, unable to self-regulate. We have not become affiliated with a singular collective identity as globalization was intended to lead us toward; instead, there has been a plan to erase regional identities in favor of forming detailed digital identities for each locality separately.
Digital technology, multimedia, and social media have created a state of distrust, distraction, indifference, and an inability to focus on important and genuine issues, resulting in increased alienation and discord, along with rising populism and polarization, all under one informational umbrella. How?
Natural Geography:
“At this stage, we are in dire need of a complete understanding of our identity and our place, our potentials and possessions, our contradictions and shortcomings, without embarrassment or bias, and without evasion. My book is not a defense of Egypt, nor an attempt at glorification; rather, it is an objective scientific dissection that couples merits with flaws equally, diagnosing weaknesses and strengths” (Jamal Hamdan).
Professor Jamal Hamdan, an eminent figure in geography, argues that geography is not just about lines of latitude and longitude; rather, it embodies the values contained within those lines in terms of social constructs, identities, cultures, products, and resources. Every individual on Earth is a product of their region, locality, community, and family, following them in ethnicity, identity, and culture, along with their behaviors, values, and way of life. Each region has a distinctive fingerprint that sets its people apart from their peers in other regions, allowing them to integrate with others based on their differences. To illustrate the late Jamal Hamdan’s perspective on the content of longitude and latitude lines and the formation of cultures, we turn to a more precise concept: regional geography.
The Concept of Regional Geography:
Regional geography studies a region as a part of the Earth’s surface characterized by shared phenomena and internal homogeneity that distinguishes it from other regions. It addresses all natural and human phenomena in that region with the aim of understanding its character and its relationships with other regions, defining the region based on clear foundations, which can be at the level of a single continent, a single country, or a single administrative entity.
Regional geography aims at many goals for the sake of integrating research in a given region, which highlights its reliance on foundational geography in reaching an understanding of the dimensions and phenomena of each region. Two primary objectives stand out:
- Linking Phenomena: Regional geography connects different geographic phenomena to highlight the reciprocal relationships between populations and nature within a single region.
- Defining the Region’s Character: It also aims to define a region’s character to emphasize regional variation within the chosen spatial unit.
This is the natural geography that shapes the traits of all living beings within its confines. Today, we also have a new virtual geography that shapes new identities and conflicting cultures, igniting a state of chaos that necessitates our analytical scrutiny.
The Emergence of Virtual Geographical Identities:
This is a newly coined term by the author to explain the existence of new virtual geographical boundaries in people’s lives following the emergence of virtual kingdoms or republics that control their populations or followers in an authentic manner, establishing cognitive boundaries that constrain awareness from different facets. We see that every country or region has its own search engine: we have Google Egypt, and Google United Kingdom, each search engine broadcasting information specific to that country.
In the same vein, these search engines and platforms gather knowledge specific to each natural region to transform it into a knowledge region with new geographical cognitive boundaries. Even the user is fed knowledge tailored to their interests, derived from the information they have consented to share in exchange for creating an account, or in other words, liberating their membership bond to that kingdom, transitioning from a national ID card to a digital identity card.
If a group of friends in disparate regions or different countries decide to search for a single topic or the same phrase, each will receive a different answer according to the interacting data, through the artificial intelligence peculiar to each region used to search a specific topic. Even friends from the same region may not necessarily receive the same search results based on each individual’s interests.
Artificial intelligence seeks to maximize the utility of all our data, while also analyzing our reactions, facial expressions, body language, emotions, and desires in order to adapt and keep the user within the designated virtual geographical scope.
As seen in “The Truman Show” (1998) starring Jim Carrey and directed by Peter Weir, each of us inhabits a unique reality with individual truths. Yet we accept these truths as they are presented to us, marking the reply of Ed Harris (Director Christof) in the film to the interviewer’s question about whether Truman has discovered his reality thus far.
You should know, dear reader, that one of the essential roles within virtual kingdoms and digital environments is that of specialists in the sciences of persuasion and ethics, responsible for providing technology that molds human behavior towards increased gains and control. The desire of these kingdoms is not for you to become a mere consumer of the application, but rather they strive to dominate your subconscious to instill within you an unawareness habit. Thus, the human brain is reprogrammed anew without your realizing it. The digital or electronic environment’s primary purpose is to manipulate you and adjust the grounds of human behavior. It is not merely a tool waiting for your atypical use; it has its own goals and means to achieve them, leveraging our psychology against us.
Today, it is possible to study thoughts, ideologies, psychological trends, issues, societal, economic, and political movements through algorithms analyzing publicly shared data on social media. Moreover, Google Maps also employs algorithms to suggest the most suitable routes, indicating radar locations and warning drivers against speeding to avoid traffic violations.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, Netflix provides suggestions and recommendations for films based on an analysis of the viewer’s preferences. Amazon utilizes AI technology to identify products that you might be interested in purchasing and displays them before you without any human intervention. Our lives and choices have now become subject to the influences of smart technology software, all of which are invaluable and critical resources used to shape policies and grand strategies for controlling societies and nations.
Indeed, the new cognitive geographical boundaries overlap as part of the objectives of globalization and the new global identity. Nonetheless, each country retains its unique virtual geographical boundaries that shape its character and new identity.
Cognitive Boundaries: These are an individual’s limits in accessing information from available engines, shaped in two ways. The first is the informational outputs of the digital citizen, which they relinquish in exchange for creating an account in the virtual kingdom they are about to join. This data is reused in both direct and indirect commercial fields. The second is the desire of the engine or application owners to maximize their benefits from you as a commodity.
All knowledge built on the shared information is analyzed to ensure the citizen remains within those geographical boundaries, thereby safeguarding their new identity and culture while maintaining a state of alienation in accordance with the natural limits of regionality.
Therefore, it can be said that virtual geographical identities are essentially temporary new digital identities directed towards individuals within the newfound virtual geographical regions; they now belong to another realm, characterized by their modern temporary identity.