‘On being human in a digital world’: the self-reflective voice of Charles Darwin

Abstract

As part of his groundbreaking theory of evolution, Charles Darwin described emotions as inherited, unchanging brain mechanisms. This view of emotions has implications for humans living in a digital world, and concerned about preserving their humanity. AI technologies have adopted Darwin's view of emotions as 'real entities' in programs of emotion recognition, and in efforts to make robots emotionally intelligent. In contrast, the neuroscientific Theory of Constructed Emotion (TCE) argues that emotions are part of the human brain's unique ability to construct social reality, including self-construction through self-reflexivity. According to TCE advocates, the TCE understanding of emotions is more compatible to Darwin's own evolution theory. Adopting a narrative position on autobiographies, this psychobiography study explored Darwin's autobiography as a reflection of his implicit philosophical notion of 'self' including emotions. The narrative-dialogical analysis indicated that his autobiography stands out as an example of self-construction, through specific processes of self-reflexivity. His implicit view on emotions contradicts his explicit view on the same topic. We discuss that, like Darwin, all humans use their unique self-reflective ability in order to create social reality. It appears that this ability has evolved in the history of humankind. With the right understanding of how humans construct emotions, an ethical use of AI technologies could be promoted, and concerns about preserving humanity could be lessened.