Written by: Fabian Schäfer
Abstract: Time, the irrevocability of choice and commitment as well as the finality of death are central premises in modern moral and political thinking. This irreversibility is understood to reflect something about the organism, and something about the world. As culture comes to be mediated more and more by digital architectures in which time can be skipped, reversed, and begun again, it becomes important to revisit these premises. This paper seeks to bring together thinkers across nations and across disciplines to organize the question of time in the digital age. In particular the relationship between human beings and the virtual/digital world of knowledge databases and online video games.
Keywords: Animalization, Azuma Hiroki, Walter Benjamin, databases, digital games, digital media, Martin Heidegger, the Internet, otaku, subjectivity, video games