The notion of Self (1): Will the extension of the Self lead to its disparition?
Humans have for a very long time created tools to help them survive and develop. While these tools were at first physical extensions of their body (e.g., wood sticks to reach fruits in a tree, stone tools to grind grain), they more recently began to be an extension of their mind as well.
A first not-that-recent good example would be books. Writing books can be seen as transferring information from an individual mind to the common/cultural/societal mind. More recently, pictures, video recordings, and other ways to store information have progressively increased our memory power: there is an external extension of stored information, thus more directly available to society.
However, one can wonder if this extension of memory is not also jeopardizing intrinsical human abilities. Indeed, once a book is written, one can refer to this external extension (supposedly) whenever they want: there is no need for one to keep this information in their internal memory. So, in some sense, this external extension of memory is leading to its internal disparition.
With the recent improvements in the AI field — everyone has ChatGPT in mind — even more human abilities have been extended, and externalised. This is the case for competences as diverse as writing, translating, coding… Overall: language and creativity skills. But what is truly in play here? Will this externalisation intrinsically change human beings? The answer seems quite clear: yes. But how much? And in what way?
With the machinisation of human competences, we can wonder how current human values will evolve in the coming years. These values rely strongly on the way we perceive human beings, so if our perception of what constitutes a human being changes, our values change. Amongst other consequences, these changes might progressively lead to a strange realization: that the Self is just an illusion.
What does the notion of Self refer to? First, it is clear that its definition varies with culture and generations. To put it simply, it refers to an individual intrinsic characteristics: your Self is what makes you you, and not someone else. What are you made of? Well, amongst other things: your memory and your skills.
We can imagine that this externalization of the Self might lead to a very different view of human beings. The Self as we know it today, which is likely not grounded into some physical truth but more into a mix of evolutive an cultural adaptive mechanisms, might disappear in the coming years. Most of the current values in many fields such as politics or justice will not make sense anymore.
