I wanted to share some upcoming events as Are We All Cyborgs Now? hits the road.
Paideia Presentation in June
I will be speaking at the third annual Paideia Conference, held at Antiochian Village in southwestern Pennsylvania from June 3rd to Friday, June 6. My talk, titled “The Metaphysics of the Machine and the Quest for Digital Transcendence,” will cover material from Part 3 of the book. I hope to see you there! Here is a copy of the abstract for my paper:
From the simulation hypothesis to merge theory to the quasi-spirituality of transhumanism, our society is now awash in a network of theories that invest computation with a quasi-transcendence. What is emerging is a new metaphysic echoing the quest of the Presocratics, who hoped to find a single explanatory principle to simplify the universe. Yet instead of water or motion or atoms, contemporary thought leaders are increasingly looking to the language and logic of the digital ecosystem as the fundamental substrate for all reality. Accordingly, our machines are becoming the sacred icons through which we access what is really real and truly true. This new spirituality of the machine offers hope for transcendence without undermining the materialism on which it ultimately depends. This paper explores the nature of the new philosophies, while also showing how the metaphysics of the machine is driving engineering and policy decisions at the highest level of innovation, with economic and political consequences that impact us all.
OCAMPR Presentation in October
I will be leading a panel on digital addiction at the 2025 OCAMPR conference on October 2-4. This panel will give other health professionals an opportunity to weigh in on the material on digital addiction that we cover in chapters 29 and 31 of the book. One of the areas where I believe we can really contribute to the discourse on mental health (although this perspective is not unique to us, and our book merely curates wider clinical research) is that the main threat to our attention posed by digital distractions does not occur because of direct actual distractions, but the obliquitous impact of “information readiness” – the continual sense most of us unconsciously feel that we might be interrupted at any moment by a message or notification. Our contention is that the full impact of constant information potential over a lifetime (or during the formative years) has been under-appreciated in much of the current discourse.
Book Signing at Touchstone in September
The book was originally released at last year’s Touchstone conference, where our publisher, Basilian Media & Publishing, had a display table. Here I am with Dr. Cyril Jenkins, the president of the company to whom Joshua and I owe a debt of gratitude. While I am not a speaker at the Touchstone Conference, I will be there again this year to sign books. So mark your calendars from Thursday Sept 25 to Saturday Sept 27. (The speakers have not been publicly announced yet, but there will be a fantastic lineup of Christian intellectuals to help us explore the difference between optimism and hope at this turbulent time of cultural history.)
Joshua Pauling on the Road
My co-author, Joshua Pauling, also has some exciting things in the pipeline.
He will be speaking this summer at the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education Conference at Concordia University, Wisconsin. His talk, titled, “Recovering the Lost Tools of Living: Connecting the Common Arts to the Liberal Arts,” will draw on material in Part 5 of the book.
Mr. Pauling also has some podcast interviews coming up, including the Jack Roycroft-Sherry podcast, and Chad Potts’s Rev Rx Podcast, and an interview with Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt for their Mortification of Spin podcast.
For information about past speaking events (many of which were recorded) see “Cyborg Creep; Cyborg Buzz.”