Special Address: 'The Global Human Self'

Global human-self – who is the ‘we’ that we like to use in our narrative.

It is a collection of ‘self-interest’.

Depending on trajectory of human history and interconnectedness of human kind, and like any plot to a story, this collection of ‘self-interest’ involves complications in different point of views.

Persistence of ‘otherness’ complicates narrative.

We tend to close ranks against each other and distinguish ourselves from others deemed different to our ingroups. Thus, meaningful metaphors are needed to unite the collective self and to bridge these differences.

A global “we” narrative that captures imagination is needed.

The current pandemic crisis exposed different underlying issues, e.g., climate change and inequality. We need to turn self-interest into a positive force with a “we” and “where” that is more clearly defined.Social beings include emotions, self-interest and differ from biological beings.

A collective-self is a collection of culture and personal behaviour.

Social beings include emotions, self-interest and differ from biological beings.

Biological beings are a physicalized collection of cells, but social organisms have the ability to pursue a collective goal while preserving self-interest.

Language is a main way through which the collective self is formed.

Through language, shared identities can be built by circulating stories about who we are, who were our forebearers, and our sense of a common quest.

Culture is another way to form the collective self,

as culture is to society the way personality is to an individual. Furthermore, the strength of a society’s culture allows the distinction of the “other” and the identification of individual groups that are not part of the same collective self.

As technology becomes more intertwined in human lives, it is important to reflect on how we are utilizing technology and how it is shaping our society.

Algorithms are funnelling all of us into conversations with ourselves.

AI has made our preference tailored from music selection to social media. Personalisation has unintended consequence of narrowing people’s point of view.

Social context gives meaning to data.

Humans have empathy and ability to imagine other people’s point of view, unlike machines. We need social context to give meaning to the data narrative.

Be mindful of the use of tech and its evolution.

While tech can solve a lot of problems and make humans dispensable, we need to be mindful that it does foster distrust. Technology as tool can be used to construct our collective narrative.

How do we keep lives interwoven & not separate from our own self-story.

Technological innovations and template solutions may not work everywhere. To increase global human-self narrative, people need to have actual social relationships to reduce the divide. The idea of a shared global solar grid could be a powerful metaphor to bridge individual narratives.