№ 3 (2024)

It is highly important to provide reflections on the digitalization process, its achievements and challenges from the perspective of the humanities within a broad interdisciplinary discussion. An example of such a discussion was the II All-Russian Scientific Conference with international participation ‘Light and Shadows of Digital Reality: the Artificial and the Natural’. The note analyzes the main content of the papers included in this thematic issue and prepared by the Conference participants or presented by the authors independently. A plan is presented for a conference to be regularly held as a successor of the Conference ‘Light and Shadows of Digital Reality’ (Perm State University, 2023–2024) and the Conference ‘Image of the Engineer in the 21st Century’ (Perm National Research Polytechnic University, 2014–2019).

The development, implementation, and further improvement of artificial intelligence (AI) systems tend to be related to the problem of experience. Unlike programs as closed algorithms, such systems interact with the environment and are able to change it in practice. Thus, contemporary discourse appears to ascribe «abilities», «learning skills», «decision-making», etc. to artificial agents. However, is it correct to extrapolate to artificial intelligent systems (AIS) the sense of phenomena characteristic of living beings? Is a machine truly able to gain experience, learn, and make decisions? The search for answers to such questions encourages investigation into the category of experience, its structure, and its gaining by living beings. Due to the ambiguity of this category itself, the use of the phenomenological approach seems to be the most productive. It allows us not only to clarify the essential features of experience but also to explore its multidimensional connections with practice, memory, imagination, will, setting and achieving goals. An analysis of specific examples also helps in evaluating analogues of these components for artificial agents and in systematizing problems that arise with further improvement of AIS. The presented results show that the category of experience, in the strict sense of the word, is not applicable to the currently functioning «weak/narrow» AI. However, the possibility of modeling this phenomenon seems to be open within the framework of future developments of «strong/general» AI. In conclusion, the reader may find factors that should be taken into account and implemented when creating AIS that would be able to gain experience and to carry out conscious practical activity.

This article explores the problem of defining and distinguishing between the concepts of human and posthuman, analyzes the attributes and aspects ascribed to them from the perspective of technological posthumanism. The author connects the relevance of this study with the active development of NBIC technologies, with the expectation that humanity will soon reach the point of technological singularity, and with the implications of the theory of integrated information developed by J. Tononi. The study refers to the integrated information theory, which develops the concept of the completeness of phenomenal experience and ways of its empirical fixation both in humans and in other entities, as well as to the theories of R. Kurzweil and R. Braidotti. As a result of research conducted, the paper provides the following definitions of human and posthuman subjects based on the functional approach to the definition of a human being by R. Kurzweil: a human subject is a biological or non-biological entity of natural or artificial origin, possessing consciousness or the potential for its actualization, and capable of performing the function of a subject associated with civilization; a posthuman subject is a man-made, active, intellectual agent that is benevolent to life, possesses the form of reflection of reality that is superior to consciousness, and has motives for activity that lie in the material world. The author suggests that the criterion for the diversification of such subjects is the parameter of the completeness of phenomenal experience. The existence of human subjects is associated with a certain degree of manifestation of internal and external causality, as well as with various risks for the existence of life in general; the existence of posthuman subjects is associated with the overcoming of such limitations and of existential risks for life in the universe. The results obtained are proposed for use in social philosophy and social theory.

The article presents an analysis of modern students’ self-presentation issues in virtual communication. The «Self-image» of students was studied using the following methods: a questionnaire survey, the questionnaire «Level of Subjective Control», the Twenty Statements Test «Who am I?» by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland, content analysis of the respondents’ personal accounts on social media. The study has shown that in 100 % of cases modern students use social media for the purposes of virtual communication, receiving news, creative self-realization, and entertainment, while spending an average of 2–3 hours a day online. More than half of the respondents state their ability to realize their personal potential without the help of virtual space, indicating that the impact of social networks on their real life and behavior is minimal. The general internality indicator shows the predominance of respondents with an internal locus of control. The content analysis of the respondents’ personal accounts in social networks was based on the study of conceptual components such as information about oneself, obscene language, writing style, nickname and avatar, conflicts and manifestations of aggression, additional accounts, subscriptions, posts, personal notes. The analysis of young people’s self-representations identified the following conceptual blocks of statements that highlight the significant focuses of self-representations of the experiment participants: «The Social Self», «The Acting Self», «The Perspective Self», «The Reflective Self», «The Communicative Self», «The Physical Self», «The Material Self», «The Virtual Self», with «The Reflective Self» category dominating. Virtual space today is an environment of educational, professional, and communicative activities in which modern students are actively integrated, demonstrating a multifactorial «Self-image». The consideration of its nature and components determines the success of virtual interaction among all participants of the educational process.

The purpose of the article is to explicate the concept of «being» in symbolic reality, to trace the reasons for the significant growth of interest in language, communicative space in modern philosophy, to show that the symbol not only acts as a means of communication but is the basis of a person’s creative attitude to reality. The authenticity of presence in being does not follow from cognitive subject-object relations to things, but from the embodiment of a symbolic image formed in consciousness and discursively shared with others. In the philosophy of the 20th century, the symbolic system becomes the main field of knowledge about being, about things. Consciousness and the external world are increasingly viewed only as a result of description. The logic of language remains the only support in the search for an objective means of cognition. If we consider the symbolic system only as a means of communication, then its main function is missed — a living connection with being. Language is not only a description, an understanding but also construction, creative thinking. The definitions of things contain the idea of their potential, undisclosed properties, inaccessible to empirical perception, but cognizable through naming, definition. The paper gives three examples in which the feelings of authenticity of being and connection with it are derived not from rational and logical cognition, but through a creative attitude, the embodiment of the idea of the potential inherent in things: in the process of creating things according to their own project; in the collective reproduction of folk culture, tied to everyday life; in the education of the individual corresponding to the idea about the proper, ideal person. In these examples, the authenticity of being is revealed based on the response in consciousness from the discursively determined results of creativity.

A personality’s experience of their own destructiveness is becoming increasingly important in the life context of a modern person. Despite the intensive growth of research interest in the problems of destructive behavior and human destructiveness, the question of the role of the integral personality system in the implementation of destructive activity remains unclear. The article deals with the theoretical and methodological problem of the correlation between the concepts of destructive behavior and personality integrity. The traditional understanding of destructiveness in scientific discourse assumes the definition of this phenomenon as a «dark» and negative property of a «disintegrated» personality, as well as the emphasis on destructive behavior as being conditioned by mental disorders and irregularities in emotional-volitional regulation. At the same time, phenomenological analysis of the experience of one’s own destructiveness allows us to detect the subject’s activity and involvement, volitional initiation and realization of destructive actions and deeds. It is only at first glance that destruction and integrity seem to be oppositions through which we can describe the inner conflict of a personality and ambivalent tendencies in intrapersonal dynamics. The process approach to personality research allows us to consider binary oppositions through the prism of the principle of complementarity, according to which opposite personality tendencies are complementary. In this connection, a personality’s experience of their own destructiveness also includes integrative processes conditioned not by disruption in the functioning of the integral personality system, but, on the contrary, by its subsequent recovery, reconstruction, and self-organization. The review of psychological literature on the research problem allowed us to conclude that specific theoretical approaches to the study of human destructiveness are based on authors’ implicit or explicit ideas about personality as an integral or differentiated entity. Based on the results of the study, we propose a description of the integrative and disintegrative aspects of the experience of personal destructiveness. The dominant tendency is the maintenance of integrity and stability, since the activity of experiencing is aimed at integrating the subsystems of personality in order to overcome a difficult life situation, as well as at integrating life experience.

The article examines the definitions of social and cultural capital through the prism of sociological science. The types of social capital are also given: open and closed. Types of cultural: incorporated, objectified and institutionalized. Emphasis is placed on the main factors of social capital - trust, norms of reciprocity and social networks. Robert Putnam identifies indicators on the basis of which the level of social capital can be measured. The authors defined habitus as one of the important indicators of the formation of cultural capital. The article identifies factors that influence cultural education. The factors are as follows: level of education, environment and family, social circle. The importance of social and cultural capital for students has been updated. The ratio of capitals is considered in the context of socio-economic conditions. Through the functions of capitals, their interrelation and influence on each other is revealed. Also based on the specifics of capital formation, the authors determined their relationship in the student environment. An assumption has been made about why these types of capital are unevenly distributed in society. The authors also found that closed social capital in conjunction with incorporated cultural capital contributes to the development of intragroup trust. Extracurricular activities are highlighted as a factor in the connection between cultural and social capital. The family heirloom is the aspect in which capitals are combined. Folk art (folklore) is presented as a factor that unites capital. Education is the embodiment of cultural capital in incorporated form. The authors define post-industrial society in order to further indicate it as a connecting element. The methodology of the work is the structural-functional approach of Pierre Bourdieu.