We are the most disconnected connected race of humans ever to live. Constant computer use is changing our brains and making us more impatient and dangerously impulsive. This kind of rapid change is unnatural. Nature evolves slowly, but we are evolving more rapidly than any other species before us. What will this mean for the adaptation that emerges?
It is not just in our imaginations that this evolution is happening faster than previous editions. It is not just that we sense an imminent mutation that it all seems to be happening so fast. Evolution is speeding up, but that speed is not tied to one direction. Evolution is a multi-dimensional and multi-directional phenomenon.
The speed of it all is overwhelming us. As a species we are more connected, but we are fragmented, thinned out, and more depressed and lonely than we ever been in past epochs. We need to unplug to reconnect with what it means to be human, to stay in touch with that, and to create. We need to use our right brain more, the side that is least like the computer, to return to the depth of our imaginations and break away from the consumerism that is speeding up the evolution beyond our capacity to adapt.
We are in an age of digital dualism, meaning we are replacing human contact with digital contact. Cyberspace is filling human psychological needs and the void left by religion that has not adapted to the Einsteinian world view. In this new age technology promises salvation and immortality in the same way religion once did. Transhumanism is the use of new technologies to improve our mental and physical processes and become a new species better adapted to the world as it is. This mutation can be a good thing, but if we let it happen without compassion and foresight, it will be disastrous for the human species.
Reflections from Ilia Delio retreat based on her new book A Hunger for
Wholeness: Soul, Space, and Transcendence.
