Thursday, July 5, 2012

Carl Jung, The Borgs & Twitter


Carl Jung believed in a collective unconscious shared by all members of a species. This idea echoes in Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance where he posited that acquired changes in one individual of a species will instantaneously benefit other members of the same species.

Subsequently, wouldn't it make sense to think that Twitter is a new medium capable of broadcasting the collective unconscious to the world and can therefore modify humanity as a whole through our sharing of conscious & unconscious thoughts?

One may argue that Tweets aren't unconscious but many Twitterers will answer that most of their tweets are either semi-conscious or at least less censored by their super-ego than oral speech.

I can't help but think about the Borgs in Star Trek that are connected to "the Collective" via a subspace link in a somewhat similar fashion than my favorite aforementioned social network. They are all inter-connected but this network deprives each individual of their freedom. Call me an optimist, but I believe that Twitter is, on the contrary, a powerful liberating tool that will enable us to better understand our neighbors as well as our species in its entirety.

Let the little bird tweet and liberty will certainly ring!

No comments: