The Virtual Identity

I was thinking about something on the plane into Arizona, and my first evening here at Arcosanti only intensified my conviction of its truth.

The life I lived in Baltimore, and even in Silver Spring (as in, my parent's basement) was something of a virtual life. In a lifestyle that is dependent on constant (internet) connection, in a world of relationships that are defined by Facebook and text messages, and where the only way to stay sane is to have a constant inflow of information, no matter the quality or the content—"real" becomes a word, and not a definition. It's like not knowing what is up or down. My moods could be mapped by my music collection. My web of relationships delineated by my Facebook Friends list. My recent interests by the latest web pages I visited, and the projects that require my most attention, the most consistently opened files. I'm living in suburbia, and the economic downturn of this time necessitates that I not have a car, so I am landlocked unless I wish to take the bus downtown—but why would I do that? To shop at Borders to spend money I don't have?

So I stay put, in front of my terminal screen, moving onto the next task or train of thought without moving from my seat. I am an actuator at the keyboard—a mind surfing the infinite internet, defined by a biological clock based on necessity, and not the sun.

It is frightening to think about it. Virtual reality, originally a conduit for Real Reality, suddenly begins to define Real Reality, or at least mirror it such that the difference becomes moot. Who am I? Am I person, with dreams, hopes, visions, and fears? Or are these just binary recordings on a harddrive, and I am an agent that happens to exercise them via QWERTY at specific intervals of the clock? The idea that my brain is actually twin silicon disks, and that the gray matter in my head was nothing but a tool for inputting information into those disks, was a freakish idea, but one not at all a far-fetched one. My brain is the computer, and my identity being exercised, like an application, in the cloud.

And it's not just about being locked in one certain place and "not getting out." It's the urban identity—maybe a term Soleri would coin. The human identity that has become so dependent on machines—whether they run on gasoline, are powered by lithium-ion batteries, store data on a server, or transmit information via cell phone towers—that, if the machine were taken away, the entire organism would collapse (I think that's the definition of a cyborg; an organism that is as dependent on its machine parts as it is its mechanical parts). Or, and I think this is even better—if the machine was just programmed to do all the things the organic agent was doing, and the organic agent disappeared overnight—the world would continue running as if nothing had ever happened. It's encouraged by our lifestyle, by our urban sprawl, by our business models, and by advertising. We are becoming the passive agents of a technological civilization that would run itself, if we just gave it the code.

Obviously, we're all Cylons. I miss you, Battlestar Galactica.

Seriously though. If there was ever an antithesis to this "Urban Identity," it might be fostered at Arcosanti. Even though I've only been here a single night, I can already feel it. The organic structure of this microcosm of city forces humans to notice and interact with other humans. The nearly tee-total recycling programs reminds one constantly that nothing needs to be wasted. Moving from one place to another requires a bit of walking and fresh air, and the human presence integrates with presence of nature beyond, with either side being little disturbed (I doubt you will ever, ever find this in a place like Phoenix or Baltimore).

For me, this workshop is a bit of an experiment in combating the urban cyborg. I was fully aware of my virtual identity, and on most days I did not stop it. I dared it, wishing to see how far it would go. At this point, with everything from the car to Twitter—I see no reason to believe that my body could just be—that I myself could be—nothing more than a passive ghost in the machine, with odd bodily requirements that are little more than an annoyance to my 24/7 operating schedule. I am not interested in seeing Twitter be wiped away in favor of a monkish life without computers. We will all end up being Cyborgs—the thing is, we have to learn how to be healthy Cyborgs—Cyborgs that affirm the human side, and tend to its holistic, and not just bodily nature, just as we do our remotely wired technological selves. And this means changing everything, not just our technology. It means changing our educational institutions, the products we consume (I always thought the marketing term "consumer," which is now a cultural one, to be horribly betraying of the wastefulness of our society), the foods we eat, the programs we create. It means a shift in the American Dream, which never saw past its own white picket fence, to a shift in popular religion.

Humanity can be eaten by Twitter and Facebook. It's a shame they're so addictive, and so useful.

But again, it's all about unity and harmony. I'm not for the abolition of technology, and not from any ideological perspective—simply from a pragmatic one. The internet was invented, and there was never an off button. What we've started will continue, whether we like it or not, and whether it is healthy for us or not. I believe it can be healthy, but that depends on how we use it. And it may not be the internet that's the problem. It may, in fact, be the city itself, and how we build it. At least, that's what Soleri would say.

And I don't think he's too far off.