Sentient: A social media environment as a conscious living system

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet has become a global survival strategy. As a result, the need for an online platform, where participants can connect with each other on a deeper level than is possible on existing social media, has acquired a fresh urgency. We have decided to call this platform Sentient. The interface design draws on Rupert Sheldrake's system of biological and social morphogenic fields, as well as Arthur Koestler's theory of holarchy, among others. It will have the structure of a living body, possessing the seven processes vital to life, and holarchical systems ranging in scale from the subcellular to the whole organism. Users can create memes which evolve through conscious verbal and non-verbal interactions with other participants' memes. Sentient's live events are perceived as the ritualistic heart-beat that regularly generates the subtle body of the environment. Drawing on Roy Ascott's theory of technoetics, as well as cyberperformance aesthetics, the live events, including all modes of activity and interchange, are being designed to have a transformative as well as therapeutic function through participation. Sentient is developed on the premise that telematic technology can be converted into a conscious living system, leading to a holistic worldview of human and planetary life.