The Digital Nature of Man: On the limits between organic and digital lives

Digital technologies are rewriting our history, our society, our future and certainly one day they will rewrite life. A life that finds its way without too many constraints in the two worlds (digital and organic) with such ease and speed that it seemed important to me to trace, at least partially, its path, its impact. As I walked through the two spaces and species of progress, I was surprised, amazed and worried.

Life is digitalized, like the Caenorhabditis Elegans: a small worm whose neural network's complexity (the connectome) is now totally under control, and which can be fully simulated on a computer. From neural activation to behavior, we know almost everything about this tiny life form of just over a millimeter. The organic connects to the digital with or without wires, but always by opening new avenues.

Men control insects with electrical impulses to make them run in the direction men wish.

Men rewrite the genetic codes of life to simplify, arrange or synthesize it. Others are working to create a general artificial intelligence capable, at least, of equaling us.