The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet. Ivo Ph.D. Quartiroli

and sacrilegious. If so, he has proven his point. The Internet, Ivo suggests, might just be the new opium of the masses. Agree with him or not, no other book to date brings together the multitude of issues related to how the seductions of technology impinge upon and affect the development of the self and soul.”

      —Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University

      “The Digitally Divided Self is a refreshing look at technology that goes beyond the standard, well-worn critiques. Ivo Quartiroli charts new territory with a series of profound reflections on the intersections of computer science, psychology and spirituality.”

      —Micah White, Senior Editor at Adbusters magazine

      It is nearly half a century since Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the medium is the message. In the interim, digital technologies have found an irresistible hook on our minds. With the soul’s quest for the infinite usurped by the ego’s desire for unlimited power, the Internet and social media have stepped in to fill our deepest needs for communication, knowledge and creativity – even intimacy and sexuality. Without being grounded in those human qualities which are established through experience and inner exploration, we are vulnerable to being seduced into outsourcing our minds and our fragile identities.

      Intersecting media studies, psychology and spirituality, The Digitally Divided Self exposes the nature of the malleable mind and explores the religious and philosophical influences which leave it obsessed with the incessant flow of information.

      Ivo Quartiroli has been a software programmer, publisher of Italian technology and spirituality books, and computer science book author. Complementing his professional accomplishments in information processing, his interest in consciousness processing has led him to spiritual explorations. He shares his perspective on the intersection of media studies, psychology and spirituality on his blog www.indranet.org and writes for Italian magazines about technology and society. He sits on the Italian Club of Budapest’s science committee.

      The Digitally

      Divided Self

      Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet

      Ivo Quartiroli

      silens

      Milano – www.silens.org

      Copyright © 2011 by Ivo Quartiroli

      All rights reserved

      No part of this book, whether in physical, electronic or other form, may be copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, publicly performed or displayed without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. Nor may derivative works such as translations be produced.

      Published in eBook format by Silens

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      Cover design and page layout by Moreno Confalone

      Editor: David Carr www.MovingWords.us

      Copy editor: Dhiren Bahl www.WordsWay-Copyediting.com

      ISBN-13: 978-8-8972-3301-5

      silens

      Milano – www.silens.org

      To Angelo,

      Carmen,

      Christian,

      Jiab,

      Leo

      List of permissions

      The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce copyright material from the following journals, books, authors and web sites:

      Advaita Press for permission to reprint from Ramesh Balsekar, A Duet of One (Advaita Press, 1989), p.15, from Ramesh Balsekar, Consciousness Speaks (Advaita Press, 1992), p.16, 28 and from Ram Tzu, No Way for the Spiritually ‘Advanced’ (Advaita Press, 1990), p. 57.

      Alan Wallace for permission to reprint from Alan Wallace, The Taboo of Subjectivity, (Oxford University Press, 2000), p.41 and The Attention Revolution, (Wisdom Publications, 2006), p. 37.

      Alliance for Childhood for permission to reprint Alliance for Childhood, Fool’s Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood, (Alliance for Childhood, 2000), p.4, 22, 32, 62, 97. www.allianceforchildhood.org

      Anthony Aguirre for permission to reprint his answer for “The Edge Annual Question 2010”.

      Douglas Rushkoff for permission to reprint from Digital Nation, Interview with Clifford Nass, from Digital Nation, 1 Dec 2009: and from an interview with Sherry Turkle on Digital Nation, 2 Feb 2010, www.pbs.org

      Evgeny Morozov for permission to reprint from “Texting Toward Utopia: Does the Internet Spread Democracy?” Boston Review, March/April 2009, www.bostonreview.net and from “Wrong Kind of Buzz Around Google Buzz,” Foreign Policy, 18 Aug 2010, www.neteffect.foreignpolicy.com

      Frederic Lowen for permission to reprint from Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics, (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975), p. 328.

      Gary Small for permission to reprint from Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, (William Morrow, 2008), pp. 31-32.

      Standpoint Magazine and the author for permission to reprint from Gerald Block, “Out of this World,” Standpoint, August 2008, www.standpointmag.com

      HarperCollins Publishers for permission to reprint from James Hillman and, Michael Ventura, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy: And the World’s Getting Worse, (Harper Collins, 1993), p. 95.

      Iain Boal for permission to reprint a part of an interview with George Lakoff, from James Brook and Iain A. Boal, Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, (City Lights, 1995), p.115.

      Institute of HeartMath for permission to reprint from “Science of The Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance,” (Institute of HeartMath, 2001), www.heartmath.org

      James Harkin for permission to reprint from Lost in Cyburbia: How Life on the Net Has Created a Life of Its Own, (Knopf Canada, 2009), p. 23, 26, 84, 121, 135, 169.

      Jerry Mander for permission to reprint from Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, (William Morrow, 1978), p. 236 and from In the Absence of the Sacred, (Sierra Club, 1991), p.3, 66

      Jim Brook for permission to reprint from James Brook and Iain. A. Boal, eds., Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, (City Lights, 1995), p. XIII.

      Joseph Chilton Pearce for permission to reprint from The Biology of Transcendence (Inner Traditions, 2002), p. 192 and from “Gathering Sparks,” interview by Parabola magazine, selected by David Appelbaum and Joseph Kulin (Parabola Books, 2001), p.73

      Kevin Kelly for permission to reprint from “Technophilia,” Technium, 8 Jun 2009, from “Why Technology Can’t Fulfill,” Technium, 26 Jun 2009, from “Expansion of Free Will, ”Technium, 13