Towards an affective philosophy of the digital: Posthumanism,hybrid agglomerations and Spinoza

Introduction

Our lives have been profoundly transformed by the digitization of the everyday, particularly in terms of the fluidity and malleability of our own selves and our attributes, belongings and characteristics. Likewise, a significant power to shape our actions and living conditions has been accrued by the digital architecture (code) and the gadgets with which we interact. These changes necessitate a rethinking not only of human agency but also, more broadly, of the role and place of the human person. Hence, this article promotes post-humanist rejection of anthropocentrism, particularly through demonstrating radical human embeddedness within hybrid agglomerations of digital and nondigital components (biological beings, physical nature, technological artefacts, networks, signals, data, code, etc.). Within such agglomerations, the relative weighting of every element is determined by their affective capacity and affective relations vis-à-vis one another. To better conceptualize this relationship, the article draws on Spinoza’s Ethics, particularly, his monism, ideas about causality and the striving to persevere in existence, characterized by the affective capacity of each thing. It is argued that there not only is a functional parallel between Spinoza’s ideas and the current condition of hybrid technological, biological and digital assemblage (all of them comprising what Spinoza in Ethics (Id3) would identify as substance, i.e. that which is ‘conceived through itself’ without the need of a concept of any other thing) but also that such an analogy is productive and conducive to better understanding both human embeddedness within the broader context of existence (something also pertaining to posthumanism) and the broader reciprocal relationships that exist between the diverse elements in today’s hybrid agglomerations. Also, referring to Spinoza allows one to better appreciate how the hybrid nature of today’s agglomerative fabric of the world is not a sign of weakness or some conceptual overstretch but only a manifestation of pervasiveness and strength: after all, plurality of attributes is a sign of power (EIp9), and containment of all attributes within itself is a characteristic of Spinozist Deus sive Natura.

The first part of this article is geared towards a discussion of the recent changes in everyday human condition, particularly underscoring the ways in which the role and position of the human person has been displaced. That is particularly the case with the power of the non-human components of hybrid agglomerations to determine the conditions for human action, feelings and sociability. As a result, we are witnessing the melting of traditional boundaries and hierarchies into a single monistic plain, better characterized through flows of affect. In this environment, the human person is further de-privileged because the datafied representation of them becomes more important, more impactful and possessing greater affective capacity than the underlying actual human being. Moreover, this datafied representation exerts direct influence on the person by establishing prescriptive benchmarks (as in classification) or by constantly exposing new ways for improving the unavoidably imperfect physical person to make it more efficient, that is, computer-like (as in e.g. self-tracking). The progressive cumulative effect is unavoidably becoming one of human inadequacy if separated from the remaining elements of hybrid agglomerations. Here, once again, emphasis must be put on Spinoza’s conceptualization of existence (reality) as being premised upon affective capacity, conceived as power (EIapp).

To better understand the changes in today’s environment, the argument then shifts towards post-humanist critique of anthropocentrism. Instead of occupying an exceptional place in the world, humans are seen as merely some of the elements within hybrid agglomerations, incapable to disentangle themselves. It is precisely in the intersections and interconnections between different elements of such agglomerations that knowledge, presence and agency are located. It is in this context of in-betweenness that affect, as a quality of permanent move and exchange, becomes crucial. It is described in the second part of this article in terms of relationality and change in the characteristics of interacting elements, subconscious driving force behind immediate bodily and mental reactions to the environment. And it is precisely the circulation of affect thus conceived that connects and binds the disparate elements within hybrid agglomerations.

Finally, the third part of the article opens up with a Spinozist definition of affect through changes in bodily capacity, thus immediately connecting it with conatus, or the striving to persevere in existence, thereby underscoring the fundamental role of affect in Spinoza’s monistic universe. Moreover, Spinozist monism is also seen to have an explanatory role in itself, uniting the elements within hybrid agglomerations into single substance under the attributes of thought and extension. It is within this network of hybrid agglomerations that affect reveals its full potential, determining the reality-qua-power-qua-perfection of every single element, human beings among them. Moreover, this focus on affective capacity, coupled with the datafied nature of human existence, forces a reconsideration not only of what is good and bad but also of matters of life and death online. Focusing on affective exchange and the corresponding changes in power and reality also reveals the inadequacy of both the utopian (infinite extension of human capacity) and dystopian (machines taking over) scenarios. Instead, the focus on interaction and exchange allows to better understand the interdependence and malleability within hybrid agglomerations in which causation is always multiple but also ever-present.

Technological change and entering hybrid agglomerations

Key changes have happened in the way in which humans relate to their environment and their own selves. First, these include dematerialization, referring to the shift from hard copies to digital representations of everything from photos, communication or information to music and data. Second, re-embodiment, whereby across ‘social media, virtual worlds, online games, blogs, web pages, photo- and video-sharing sites, Internet dating sites, and so forth, we are disembodied and reembodied as avatars, photos, and videos’. ¹ Third, the self becomes co-constructed, whereby interaction with other individuals but also with databases and algorithms leads to ‘constructing our individual and joint extended sense of self’. ² Fourth, memory itself is becoming distributed, rendered contingent upon not only ‘our online actions but those of others who post images of us and “tag” us in them’ as well as upon our representation on databases of all kinds. ³ The preceding also means that the self cannot be imagined without the devices and infrastructures that sustain and allow access to the dematerialized, re-embodied and distributed lifeworlds and enable sites of co-construction. All of that has the combined result of the self-becoming malleable, shareable and hybrid. The latter is the result of complex agglomerations involving the individual, other online users, code, data, digital signals, devices and gadgets of various kinds and communications infrastructure, all of them jointly but only precariously sustaining a kind of self that should be better conceived of as post-human. These are best conceived as agglomerations due to their lack of fixed structural characteristics, coexistence of diverse elements and contingent, context-dependent, combinations and relevant weightings of these elements. The above developments clearly lend themselves to a Spinozist reading: whereas for Spinoza, as shown later in the article, all things are characterizable through their own manifestations of the striving to persevere in existence (conatus), thereby being interrelated in multiple ways along and across a monist ontology by affecting others and being affected in return, the multiple elements of digital agglomerations are only describable and understandable through their own multiway interactions that, being a combination of digital, physical and technological causes, are nearly, but never fully, infinite in their combinations.

Partaking in hybrid agglomerations is key. In fact, when engaging in almost any activities characteristic of today’s mediated life and involving the use of devices, we are permanently rendered under the influence of our digital counterparts, ‘constantly presented with search results, ads, or personalized recommendations’ based on grounds that are, at best, opaque and knowable only through being encountered. ⁴ While we might be familiar with the outcomes of code that underpins our communication, search for and retrieval of information, dating, shopping, professional activities (including the writing of this article) and most other aspects of life, the actual variables, values, presentation structures and so on written into the digital architecture in which we are situated remain opaque. This opacity is the result of, at the very least, the specialist knowledge required for reading the code and, typically, the proprietary nature of such architecture. As a result, our everyday lives become subject to something that we neither have access to nor have control. The difficulty is only enhanced because of algorithms and software being ‘dynamic and performative rather than fixed and static entities’, ⁵ constantly revised under strict commercial and performance metrics as well as though A/B testing – different versions of the same code run simultaneously on different populations to check which one performs better. The latter also has the effect that different groups of people will be subjected to different versions of the algorithm at a time, thereby rendering everyday experience variable across groups, courtesy to the different versions of code. In that sense, it is almost as if some whimsical deity was playing capricious games. At its most serious, the effects of such variation could perhaps even be comparable to the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel. However, it is Spinoza himself who would ground any allusion to the whimsical in the ultimate source of superstition: people being ‘ignorant of the causes of things’ and falsely imagining that that there must be God directing everything towards human ends (EIapp). Instead, all that exists and takes place, is determined by causal relationships, and if fragmentation ensues, that must have been inherent within the chains of cause and effect and, hence, natural. Seen in this way, code (as well as data which it employs) ceases to be independently agentic, but only something that brings forth what has already been predetermined by previous causal interactions – hence, meaningful only within hybrid agglomerations. Hence, the simplistic assertion that ‘the algorithm did it’ or that it is all exclusively down to data (however ‘big’) would be akin to blind worship, which Spinoza calls ‘the asylum of ignorance’ (EIapp).

Definitely, it is by no means far-fetched to claim that ‘[t]he convergence of Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things marks […] a genuine ontological shift’ especially in terms of deepening ‘the tendency to experience others primarily through technological mediation’ as well as fundamentally changing human–machine relationships (at least as far as digital machines are concerned, although currently almost all machines are shifting towards ‘smart’, i.e. digital). ⁶ Moreover, whereas in the past connection to online interfaces required an explicit act via an evidently external device, today ‘digital networks are embedded everywhere, including inside us. They are enabling constant and ubiquitous connections to sensor-equipped objects, and to the scanners worn on, and placed in, our bodies’. ⁷ We are, in other words, increasingly less separable from the digital–technological component of today’s world – it is, instead, seamlessly integrated into our lifeworlds and everyday practices, making immersion into hybrid agglomerations unfelt and, therefore, more pervasive. In this context, any dualism between mind and body, natural and artificial can hardly be expected to survive, instead revealing all of those biological, technical and digital entities involved in hybrid agglomerations as merely different manifestations of a single underlying whole or, as Spinoza would have it, substance.

Digital affordances and the data generated through them, particularly once socialized through online platforms, create a specific kind of temporality, one of incessant present, ‘concerned with “the now”’ while simultaneously ‘stretched and condensed in various ways’, also incorporating other, different, temporalities that are experienced by users or groups thereof (again, A/B testing is a noteworthy example), rendering this temporality of perpetual present ‘alive’. ⁸ Hence, one is immediately drawn into ‘the happening of the social world – its ongoingness, relationality, contingency, and sensuousness’, ⁹ which clearly invites a discussion in affective terms, as shown below. Nevertheless, what matters here is that the experience of temporality is fundamentally altered by digital technology. This presential temporality, happening and ongoingness particularly manifest themselves through algorithmic structuration of the online environment, which sets the agenda for everyday lives by shaping what it is that we think about, framing the ways that we think about it, and thereby exerting direct influence on our actions. ¹⁰ As a result, then, ‘[a]lgorithmic selection shapes the construction of individuals’ realities, that is, individual consciousness, thereby shaping social order in modern societies’ and turning algorithms into ‘a highly strategic factor’. ¹¹ This structuration in itself becomes a zero-sum game where some objects are presented as worthy of attention at the expense of others, meaning that what we immerse ourselves in is one of many possible versions of the world, one of many potential happenings ¹² – and it is clearly not selected by the human users themselves but, instead, by algorithms, informed by their own autonomous decision-making rules. Moreover, as algorithms increase in their autonomy (including moral), for example, through machine learning, accountability becomes debatable while the outcomes themselves turn ever less predictable than in the case of traditional structuration of the online environment through mass media or with traditional regulatory frameworks, effectively leaving humans outside the loop. ¹³ Simultaneously, though, even (or, perhaps, particularly) learning algorithms do not operate in a vacuum: they need something to learn from. And that learning material is nothing else than human behaviour itself as well as their reactions to algorithmic structuration. Hence, potential variations are never infinite while humans and algorithms remain locked in a mutual mechanistic relationship of cause and effect.

Moreover, the regulation and management function typically involves provision of ‘emotional architectures’ for anything ‘ranging from our emotional reactions to news from our private and public life, to our performative alignment with particular causes’ that are indispensable to ‘facilitating the identity construction of networked selves’. ¹⁴ Hence, as we feel our way within and through digital architectures, the flows, directions and the ways of expressing and experiencing such emotions are not only mediated but also enabled and disabled by digital architectures. Moreover, as we typically feel with and for others, the matter of whom we feel together with becomes yet another variable inscribed in code. Therefore, groupings and agglomerations in which humans partake originate precisely through the interaction of humans and technologies. ¹⁵ That, in turn, shifts attention to what could be called ‘programmed sociality’, referring to ‘the specific programmed arrangements of social platforms, and the activities that are allowed to take place within those arrangements’. ¹⁶ Consequently, matters of association, affiliation and collective identification are transplanted from the domain of human self-determination (admittedly, imperfect and laden with power relations and other factors that reduce agency) into one of algorithmic determination. And as much of that sociality is enacted not for its own sake (remember – algorithms are performative and goal-oriented) but at the bequest of or, at the very least, driven by brands or other paying actors (including political groupings that are themselves increasingly becoming brand-like), we are witnessing ‘the dissolving boundaries between consumers, others, objects, and brands’ ¹⁷ as well as the digital architectures and physical infrastructures that enable the coming together of other elements. Again, the presence of hybrid agglomerations is laid bare, also revealing a landscape composed of interacting – mutually affective – entities. But the affective capacity of the interactive entities can easily (and correctly) be seen as uneven. To that extent, it would be erroneous to assume lack of hierarchy even in a monist ontology; here, once again, Spinoza’s ideas come in handy: since, as demonstrated below, Spinoza equates reality with affective capacity, it becomes possible to trace how entities change and fluctuate in their reality in relation to one another. However, what must be stressed particularly clearly is that unevenness is fluctuating and dependent on particular interactions rather than on pregiven characteristics (such as being human or any other agglomerated entity). In addition, this encroachment on reality by entities other than human (which, under a dualist logic, would have been seen as inferior) only reinforces the post-humanist drive of the subsequent section.

As subjects, engaged in digital interactions, become knowable and predictable through the data they generate, seamless tailoring of the digital architecture and, though it, of the physical environment becomes not merely a possibility but actual reality, resulting in ‘a frictionless world that surreptitiously adjusts the environment to the needs and desires of its users’. ¹⁸ Simultaneously, though, all this tailoring, management and grouping only operates around a certain gap – one between the actual individual and the datafied version thereof. In fact, the gap itself is an unstable one because ‘[w]e are likely made a thousand times over in the course of just one day’ due to the multiple nature of our digital referents that are ‘composed of an almost innumerable collection of interpretive layers, of hundreds of different companies and agencies identifying us in thousands of competing ways’ thatare ‘functionally unconcerned of what, given your own history and sense of self, makes you you’. ¹⁹ Moreover, in this digital-first world, it is the digital representation that is of prime importance, determining our place and function in and impact on the world: not only rendering us into data but also making the data more ‘real’ than the reality they purport to represent, ‘more important than who we really are or who we may choose to be’. ²⁰ It, therefore, becomes evident that ‘[s]table, singular truth of identity, also known as authenticity, is truly a relic of the past’. ²¹ As data about us are collected and analysed in real or near-real time (and so is the case with others), any changes in our own behavioural patterns or in those of others lead to reclassification of our own identities and redefinition of categories that we had previously been ascribed to – in other words, ‘the foundry of who we are online lacks epistemic stability’. ²² The result is an ‘aggregated self that is created via a joint project between a consumer and his or her connections on social media’ ²³ as well between those beyond the networks of connections that still serve as benchmarks that one is compared against as a matter of classification. Hence, the self is not an autonomous entity, but one determined and shaped by endless interactions within a single substance.

What happens in this context is, therefore, not only the constitution but also the regulation of the self through data as individuals are squeezed into predefined categories: for example, in the algorithmically tailored environment, ‘a user is a “man” according to how closely “his” data stacks up to pre-existing models of “man”’. ²⁴ Hence, these data interpretation process also become a high-stakes game of power, setting forth normative models, which are easily enforceable and allegedly objective (because they are based on and rendered in data). There is, however, a further, interactive, aspect to today’s digital environment: on the one hand, the data on which today’s digital architectures run can be seen as encoding of everyday social life, and a detailed representation of it, while, on the other hand, such data end up actively conditioning that which they merely purport to represent through ‘directing and limiting action by providing a “grammar of action” that make certain activities doable, and thus rendering social activities available for measurement, analysis, commodification, and manipulation’. ²⁵ As a result, any data-based models, predictions and structurations, despite their alleged objectivity, are in fact stuck in cycles of self-referentiality that condition humans at least inasmuch as are conditioned by the lives and behaviours of their human users within the haphazardness of hybrid agglomerations.

Some of that conditioning, however, can be self-imposed, as in self-tracking, where emphasis is simultaneously on ‘self-knowledge through numbers’, thereby seeking ‘to quantify as many aspects of your life as possible’, and on actively changing behaviour and routines to achieve maximum efficiency and performance. ²⁶ In such circumstances, devices, particularly the diverse wearable trackers available, become straightforwardly directive of human life. However, even in simpler settings, courtesy of the immersion into human–digital agglomerations, devices through which the digital is experienced assume a crucial role, becoming embedded in everyday routines, even as a kind of bodily prostheses. ²⁷ As a result, then, some scholars even propose the idea of ‘digital companionship’ that brings together ‘psychological closeness, trust, and preoccupation’ with devices by their users and a dual kind of stress: one caused by the devices themselves (e.g. anxiety when a device is not at hand and a related fear of missing out) and, second, external stress with which device use helps to cope. ²⁸ Hence, the extensive use of digital devices can be reconceptualized ‘not in terms of addictive and pathological behavior, but as a multifaceted, meaningful relationship’, thereby turning devices from mere technological artefacts to psychologically relevant entities. ²⁹ Moreover, devices are embedded ever more deeply as intermediaries, particularly in the form of ‘[t]he naturalistic interactions enabled by the touchscreen and smartphone sensors’ contributing towards further blurring the lines between digital actors, technological artefacts and individual selves, ³⁰ leading again to the creation of hybrid agglomerations that become not merely and neutrally present but also meaningful. Once again, here we have entities mutually affecting each other to the extent that neither can be meaningful without the others: just like there is no outside of Spinoza’s all-encompassing substance, no entity can properly exist taken away from the agglomeration.

The relationship between humans and objects is further augmented through the Internet of Things, that is, networks of ‘smart’ devices communicating autonomously and surreptitiously adjusting themselves and our environment to our needs (or their interpretation thereof). Ultimately, the Internet of Things becomes ‘a system for measuring, monitoring, and controlling the activities of objects and living organisms though sensors that gather, process, and report data’. ³¹ Instead of things that we manipulate, these objects become ‘smart’ enough to manipulate themselves, our environment and, through it, us. Hence, even ‘[t]he term Internet of Things is not precisely accurate because the devices that comprise it also connect people’. ³² In fact, it would not be far-fetched to say that the Internet of Things is completely not about things but about people, that is, gathering data on users, their characteristics, behaviour, bodily processes and so on and then monetizing such data through both direct use and sales to third parties, in both cases ultimately leading to readjustment of digital architectures and, through them, our lived realities.

Post-humanist affective entanglements

The challenge posed by technological change strikes at the very heart of anthropocentrism – the idea that the cornerstone of human well-being is in independence from any constraints, concerns, dangers or influences originating outside the human person ³³ – be it the natural or human-made environment. In other words, what must be avoided, under anthropocentrism, is the acknowledgment that humans are part of this world: instead, the aim would be to overcome the world trough enhancing, inasmuch as possible, comfort, pleasure and consumption without being consumed in return. ³⁴ The preceding, then, is often also seen as justifying a unique standard of care: that, allegedly, ‘as beings who have unique and exceptional qualities, humans deserve a standard of care that exceeds that of other beings, and that the instrumental use of other beings is acceptable in the pursuit of human wellbeing’. ³⁵ Indeed, one could probably identify a threefold supremacy of humans in anthropocentric accounts: that ‘humans are special and privileged entities compared to other living beings (ontology), they are the only sources of knowledge (epistemology) and the sole holders of moral value (ethics)’. ³⁶ Of course, this world view is unsustainable in relation to the natural environment, both morally and in the face of the looming environmental catastrophe. However, as evidenced in the preceding section, such limitation is no less present in the digital realm: just as humans are always embedded within complex ecosystems, whether they admit it or not, they are also embedded in hybrid agglomerations that they cannot disentangle themselves from. It is here that posthumanism’s emphasis on dismantling the dualism between humans and nature (or, more precisely, humans and their environment in the broadest sense possible, technological included) becomes strongly relevant. The aim here is ‘to unseat the human as the dominant subject of social enquiry while rejecting onto-epistemologies that render humans as categorically separate from the worlds they co-inhabit with proliferating forms of life’ ³⁷ and, increasingly, with data, code, devices, infrastructure and other elements of hybrid agglomerations. It is certainly noteworthy that the above criticisms of anthropocentrism are waged essentially along the same lines as is Spinoza’s critique of Cartesian dualism, manifesting ultimately in the focus on the monism of God/Nature/Substance. ³⁸

The key in adequately comprehending the present situation is in displacing ‘the notion of species hierarchy and of a single, common standard for “Man” as the measure of all things’. ³⁹ After all, the assumption of the objectively and self-evidently human is even no longer feasible in functional terms, necessitating additional tools to differentiate between humans and digital agents – such as bots – or, even more disturbingly from the viewpoint of the traditional anthropocentric outlook, leading to situations where humans need to prove their own humanity. ⁴⁰ Across varied technological contexts, then, ‘the ontological, epistemological, and ethical coordinates of anthropocentrism’ ⁴¹ are not only overcome – they essentially fall apart. Ontologically, humans cannot be treated as privileged entities as they are neither self-sufficient nor accessible independently but only through the digital and technological conditions of their existence. Epistemologically, knowledge originates outside the human – its locus is the intersection of humans, datafication infrastructure (collection, transmission, storage) and analytic capacity (code, which is more than often capable of learning and evolving without human guidance). As for the ethical aspect, even though the nature of the ethical relationship with technology is still a matter of debate (Gunkel’s seminal treatment of robot rights is a notable case in point), ⁴² it is nevertheless clear that the deep immersion of humans within hybrid agglomerations and dependence on flows within them does not allow for a hierarchical relationship among any of the interrelated elements. Indeed, strong anti-hierarchical critique is also present in Spinoza, particularly his stark dismissal of imagining things in nature being arranged for human use and on their account as simply ignorance (EIapp) and prejudice (EIVpref). Instead, to reiterate once again, relationships must be seen as embedded within the flat plain of causation, with any inequalities, as stressed above, being only temporary occurrences, caused by uneven affective capacities vis-à-vis the agglomerated elements at the time, but by no means pregiven.

Indeed, we are witnessing a novel relationship between humans and their technological environment: whereas in the past ‘technical extensions were used as a mere extension of human creativity and invention’, as tools that help humans express intention, with the advent of automation, this relationship has been severely disrupted, ⁴³ refocusing ‘basic unit of analysis as humans + tools’, the latter encompassing ‘all forms of technology’. ⁴⁴ As Mahon stresses in relation to artificial intelligence (although one does not have to go as far – the code that sustains everyday platforms is sufficient), it ‘listens to us, watches us, responds to us, remembers us, organizes us, answers our queries, communicates for us and to us, makes things for us, entertains us, guides us, transports us’ and so on and so forth. ⁴⁵ This erosion of difference between the human and something ostensibly manufactured is the ‘explicitly posthuman’ element of today’s technology. ⁴⁶ It also thus necessitates ‘a qualitative shift in our thinking about what exactly is the basic unit of common reference for our species, our polity and our relationship to the other inhabitants of this planet’, introducing an additional (and extremely thick) layer of complexity to any social, scientific, moral or political considerations. ⁴⁷

It is under these post-human circumstances that affect comes to the fore, arising ‘in the midst of in-between-ness: in the capacities to act and be acted upon’ within ‘a momentary or sometimes more sustained state of relations as well as the passages […] of forces or intensities’. ⁴⁸ As a result, then, affect pertains to ‘those intensities that pass body to body (human, non-human, part-body and otherwise), in those resonances that circulate about, between and sometimes stick to bodies and worlds, and in the very passages and variations between these intensities and resonances themselves’, ⁴⁹ essentially, ‘a constitutive relationality between bodies and bodies and objects’. ⁵⁰ Similarly, following an oft-repeated definition by Deleuze and Guattari, affect refers to ‘the ability to affect and be affected’, being ‘a pre-personal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act’. ⁵¹ As a result, then, it is imperative that the hybrid agglomerations conceptualized above be also conceived of as affective ones. ⁵² As humans are embedded in ‘affective relations with other actors, ideas, or objects’, the net result is ‘a “web” or “field” or affect’ which is simultaneously stable and dynamic, exhibiting both ties that are concrete and relations that are positional, constantly fluctuating between these poles. ⁵³ Indeed, the relationship aspect is crucial as affectivity can only arise in the relationship between the object and the environment, which, in today’s context, unavoidably implies a relationship between humans and technology. After all, as Tucker insightfully observes, ‘[w]e are “leaky bodies” in relation to data with our porous bodies in continual transformation through moving in and through lines of affective individuation’ which subsequently ‘form into meshworks of entangled lines of body, data and technology’, ⁵⁴ as it is indeed the case in hybrid agglomerations. Once again, we come across an element of shared partaking in something thoroughly all-encompassing that clearly evokes Spinoza’s substance, which is only internally differentiated by intensifications and flows of affect. ⁵⁵

The dynamic element is further underscored by Papacharissi, for whom ‘affect contains a particular energy, mood, or movement’, stimulation of sorts, illustrated by ‘the force that drives the unconscious tap of the foot to music, the bob of the head as we listen along to conversation, the rhythm of our pace as we walk’. ⁵⁶ To further extend the musical example, affect would pertain to ‘[t]he subconscious humming or tapping along to music’, that being ‘an indicator of the intensity with which we experience music’, prior to even perceiving it emotionally. ⁵⁷ It is also not a coincidence that Papacharissi refers to affect as ‘energy’ – just like in physics, where energy might pass from body to body or change forms but neither originates ex nihilo nor disappears, affect, despite being on the move, is nevertheless sustained by the objects it passes to, from, and within. This within-body affective flow is stressed by Damasio, who also happens to use music as an example. In his account, the affect of sound triggers a bodily response, manifesting in ‘the release of specific chemical molecules in certain sites of the central nervous system or their transport, by neural pathways, to varied regions of the nervous system and of the body’, triggering in turn ‘changes in the geometries of viscera – the calibre of blood vessels and tubular organs, for example, the distension of muscles, the change of respiratory and cardiac rhythms’, increasing the body’s own affective capacity. ⁵⁸ However, prior to the drive towards datafication, the path that affect took, particularly in a consumption context, was often linear, from trigger to body (often also involving internal changes to the body) to objects in closer or further proximity to that body but without a defined feedback loop that would return affect to its source. Here, we can see affective dynamics as having grown in intensity through an extended number of interactions and channels thereof. This has indeed increased the amount and spectrum of causal chains and potential outcomes in a universe conceived Spinozist mechanistic terms. However, due to the physical components still involved and data being largely structured by code, the number of variations must remain finite.

To demonstrate the change, not straying away from music, imagine oneself at home, listening to either a vinyl or digital record on a pre-’smart’-era record player (live concert is, of course, a completely separate matter, manifesting its own – interactive – affective flows that are absolutely paramount to a live show’s experience and success). While affect would pass to and through the body to other bodies and objects around, there would be no immediate feedback loop (other than, perhaps, a physical record being worn down by repeated listening, thereby, following Deleuze and Guattari’s definition, reducing its capacity to act). Today, meanwhile, affective feedback loops can be sustained ‘that generate and reproduce affective patterns or relating to others that are further reproduced as affect’. ⁵⁹ The very fact of listening, the affect experienced, the actions triggered (and, equally, not triggered), the circumstances under which the affect is experienced – the entirety of it is recorded as data that in return affect (i.e. pass affect onto) the previous producer of affect (such as a music streaming service) that is affected in terms of refining the selection of music to be offered to you and to the proverbial ‘people like you’. In this sense, we can witness a manifestation of Spinoza’s mechanistic universe and its unbreakable chain of causation, whereby energy from the record (as sound) affects one’s body through the ear, altering energy flows within the body (release of hormones, changes in bodily parameters a la Damasio) that is registered either as such (through wearable devices) or through actions to which the body is triggered (e.g. swiping a touchscreen), in either case translated into a digital signal and recorded as data, which then triggers an algorithm to send another digital signal (e.g. an automatic choice of a new song to be played), which then passes to body through the ear and so on. It is also here that the understanding of affect as energy passing from body to body and the way a physicist would understand energy come together.

Furthermore, the above demonstrates the way in which affect acts as a binding agent, bringing together humans, devices, digital objects (such as musical records), platforms (a streaming service in the case of the above example), data, digital signals and the infrastructures for such signals to travel (as well as other humans, ascribed to ‘people like you’) into hybrid agglomerations that are interactive, also in the sense that agency is distributed within these affective flows. Hence, as immersion in hybrid agglomerations demonstrates, it is futile to search for a uniquely active agent – a kind of first mover (which, in anthropocentric accounts, would be the human) – as agency and causality are relational. Consequently, in contrast to both hard-line utopian and dystopian accounts of technological change, it must be stressed that ‘[w]e are not made to feel by digital technologies, we feel with them’ under conditions of perpetual unfolding. ⁶⁰ An adequate representation of technological posthumanism would then focus on these affective flows of energy and agency rather than the overly simplistic disempowerment of humans and empowerment of technological actors. But to further conceptualize the mechanistic relationality of posthumanism, one must now fully turn to Spinoza.

Has grumpy cat really ceased to be?

Spinoza defines affect as something that either increases or decreases a body’s power of acting (EIIId3). At face value, affect is quite straightforward: as Della Rocca sums it up, ‘to have an affect is simply to have a certain kind of representation’. ⁶¹ Affect is, nevertheless, not strictly speaking a cause of a transition from one capacity of acting to another but the passage or transition itself. ⁶² The cause as such is prior to affect in the causation chain but that cause had been previously caused by another cause and so on. In that sense, conceiving affect as an energy flow, as Papacharissi does, might be a good way of understanding it.

In Spinoza’s Ethics, the fundamental interrelatedness of all things is expressed in no ambiguous terms: ‘[p]articular things are nothing other than the affections, i.e. the modes, of the attributes of God, by which the attributes of God are expressed in a certain and determinate way’ (EIp25). Whereas the manifestation of Spinoza’s Deus sive Natura in today’s digitally and technologically mediated world would necessitate a separate paper to be adequately explored, as a preliminary working note, the single underlying substance would encompass, under the attributes of extension and thought, all of the elements of hybrid agglomerations – human, digital, technological, infrastructural – as well as nature traditionally conceived (which is also part of such hybrid agglomerations). Of course, one kind of elements immediately sticks out: the digital kind, including signals and data. However, these are arguably best classified under the attribute of thought. For example, as a sensor is affected by a natural object or phenomenon, it conceives an idea of it, which is then transmitted, analysed and stored; likewise, as a device that we are using detects a swiping of a finger or a movement that we perform (courtesy to its inbuilt accelerometer, gyroscope, etc.), it analyses this information and then either immediately reacts to it or stores and/or transmits it as data. In the same way, when encountering stimuli, we first experience them as stimulations of our nerves, then as signals transferred through nerves to the brain, and then cognize them. As a result, then, the hybrid agglomerations, outlined in the previous sections of this article, are to be understood as parts of the monistic substance of Deus sive Natura.

In the same vein, then, Spinoza is able to claim (see EIIp11c) that the human intellect is merely a part of the ultimate intellect of God/Nature (i.e. of its attribute of thought). Likewise, it must be asserted that the human intellect has become part of hybrid agglomerations, within which it partakes in equal measure with data and code. Therefore, the situation seen in the first part of this article, when human perception, interpretation and sense-making become inseparably intermingled with and no longer capable of properly functioning without the structuring role of data and algorithms, should be seen not as an aberration but, instead, part and parcel of the expansion of the underlying monistic substance. Furthermore, in a very similar manner, the human body is only part of the substance under the attribute of extension, constantly being affected by other things and bodies, that is, other manifestations of substance under the attribute of extension. In fact, ‘[t]he human body is capable of perceiving very many things, and the more so, the more its body can be disposed in several ways’ (EIIp14). Directly corresponding to the preceding proposition, the capacity of the human body to be affected and to affect others in return (which, as Deleuze stresses, defines the body’s individuality) ⁶³ is further increased in hybrid agglomerations, particularly in case of touchscreen devices of various sorts where the human body manipulates the devices and their screens and is affected by the transformations on these screens that further prompt the body to act and affect. Similarly, as in the listening example from the previous part, the body can be affected through one set of stimuli (auditory), experience internal reconfigurations and then return affect through a different bodily reaction (tactile). Thirdly, affective and perceptive capacities are enhanced between human bodies as well: in the same listening example, the perception and reaction to streamed music will inform what is streamed for perception to ‘people like you’.

What the preceding manifests is a starting position underpinned by a shared belonging to a larger whole the manifestations of which all particular things are. Under such circumstances, it is far from surprising that affect serves as the binding agent that brings and holds all modes together. After all, as Spinoza stresses in one of the most crucial propositions of the Ethics, ‘[e]ach thing, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persevere in its being’ (EIIIp6). This endeavour to persevere in existence – conatus – ‘is nothing other than the actual essence of the thing’ (EIIIp7). Moreover, as Spinoza proposes a parallelism between the body and the mind (they are, after all, only different attributes of substance), it naturally follows that ‘[w]hatever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders, our body’s power of acting, the idea of that same thing increases or diminishes, helps or hinders, our mind’s power of thinking’ (EIIIp11). Indeed, it is this capacity to affect and be affected in return that characterizes conatus. In this sense, for example, an online platform also has a conatus of its own and manifests in through provision of engagement-maximizing content. Interactive spaces, such as social media, could also serve as graphic manifestations of new, technologically enabled, ways for human individuals to increase their affective capacity (although not only humans, as the legendary genre of cat videos demonstrates). In fact, for the few who are particularly successful in maximizing their affective capacity, the digital – and, through the medium of devices, physical – legacy conatus can survive the physical demise of the original body, leaving them in a limbo.

To give just one example of the above, when one encounters a Grumpy Cat meme via the medium (here conceived not just in the mainstream sense of mediation but also reminiscent of those humans who claim to have supernatural powers of enabling the dead to speak) of their device (e.g. smartphone) and is affected by it, is that a sign of the poor animal’s affective capacity and an indication that, as a result of its conatus not having ceased, the animal has, in a sense at least, not demised after all? Of course, the problem is not new – one might have equally asked in the past whether the conatus of the artist continues in their works (the answer would most likely be affirmative). Nevertheless, under current circumstances, the pertinence of the issue has increased – one only has to consider the ever-growing number of profiles that still linger after their creators have deceased (likewise, same applies to the data footprint of a deceased individual, which is still used to inform recommendations and digital–architectural modifications for people who are ‘like them’ – just still alive). As a result, then, today’s hybrid agglomerations have democratized the opportunity of conatus investment that continues paying dividends even after the source conatus expires. And since conatus is, after all, the essence of each thing, it is clear that, speculations about technological singularity, whole brain emulation and so on notwithstanding, such condition of affective lingering is perhaps the most realistic tool for enhancing perseverance in existence within hybrid agglomerations.

Directly following from the understanding of conatus as existence is Spinoza’s equation of power (to affect) with reality: ‘the more reality belongs to the nature of some thing, the more power of existence it has from itself’ (EIp9s). In other words, to the reality of a thing belongs the power to affect the environment from within itself, which Spinoza understands as action (i.e. a thing is in an active state): ‘we act when something occurs either in us or outside us of which we are the adequate cause’ (EIIId2). On the contrary, being affected from outside leads to a reduction of power and reality, which Spinoza understands as passion (i.e. a thing is in a passive state): ‘we are passive when something occurs in us, or when something follows from our nature, of which we are only a partial cause’ (EIIId2). Because passion refers to being affected from outside without one’s own active involvement, it is, then, not through one’s own power but through the characteristics of the external affecting thing that one’s being has to be defined: the (remaining) existence is determined ‘not by the power by which we endeavour to persevere in existing, but by the power of an external cause compared with our own’ (EIVp5). This distinction between action and passion also leads to Spinoza’s framing of pleasure and pain, the former leading the mind to a greater perfection and the latter to a lesser perfection (EIIIp11s). In effect then, one can extend Spinoza’s equation of existence, power and virtue to also encompass pleasure: pleasure is virtuous because it means action which means greater power which means more reality. On the other hand, though, this equation also sets clear boundaries on what can actually be considered pleasurable: it is only that which contributes to the striving to persevere in existence. The same reasoning applies to what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, the former being ‘every sort of pleasure, and also whatever leads to pleasure’ while the latter refers to ‘every sort of pain’ (EIIIp39s). Again, since conatus is the essence of every thing, humans included, what contributes to it is good and what hinders it is bad. It therefore follows that should one be affected from outside (e.g. giving in to algorithmically generated content recommendations), that would automatically involve a corresponding reduction of the person’s reality. On the contrary, should one acquire a personal power to affect others (e.g. as some social media influencer), their reality would be increased (with the unfortunate conclusion that Kim Kardashian is one of the most real people on the planet). Still, due to the technological mediation of their influence, this reality is limited by the digital architecture that sets the conditions for visibility. ⁶⁴ Hence, there is some barter trade going on: technological mediation allows some to increase their power and reality while simultaneously part of that increase has to be traded back to the technology involved (platforms, infrastructure, devices on either end of the affect chain, etc.).

It also follows from the conatus-as-existence doctrine that ‘[t]he more perfection each thing has, the more it acts, and the less it is acted on; conversely, the more it acts, the more perfect it is’ (EVp40). On the one hand, it might appear that human perfection is thus diminished in today’s agglomerations, since there is a fair amount of datafied algorithmic conditioning of action and thought. Such an outlook would also be compatible with the view of posthumanism as a form of human disempowerment. However, as stressed in the previous section, the process operates in multiple simultaneous ways: it is interactive. The algorithm affects the user, thereby ostensibly reducing their perfection, but at the same time, the reaction of the user, recorded by a device or a sensor, feeds back into and affects the algorithm (from refining the latter’s internal processes to, in case of A/B testing, the matter of adoption or termination, i.e. the algorithm’s equivalent of life and death), thereby increasing the user’s perfection. Hence, the actual condition is one of permanent suspension of each of the modes within perfection–increasing/decreasing interactions. In itself, this condition is also parallel to EIIIp11, on increasing/decreasing the mind’s power of thinking.

To further explore the matter, one could again consider Grumpy Cat, this time alongside an older cultural reference, the famous dead parrot from a sketch by Monty Python, by posing the question whether, in the words of John Cleese, ‘it has ceased to be’. It becomes immediately clear that, once again, Grumpy Cat has not. As the epitome of the meme culture, and the inspiration behind many memes itself, it has served, and continues to serve, as a conveyor of meanings, tribal affiliations and affective reactions proper, ⁶⁵ acting as that thing from EIIIp11 which increases the mind’s power of acting. It might also serve as a direct tool for action, a shareable bit of affective load likely to convey affect more effectively than, for example, a verbal expression would, thereby increasing the sender’s perfection (as per EVp40). To that extent, the affective capacity of Grumpy Cat perseveres (and, with it, the otherwise deceased animal itself) for as long as this function is being performed. The dead parrot, meanwhile, acts merely as a prop and is interchangeable (as it has been in the live shows and the film version). It might serve as an instigator, but the real affective capacity belongs to John Cleese and Michael Palin. Hence, true to the sketch, the parrot has expired, it has ceased to be, and gone to see its maker.

Certainly, as Spinoza famously does not tire of stressing, there is a fair amount of human ignorance involved. Not only humans are born (and many remain – the amelioration of this is one of the driving forces behind Ethics) ‘ignorant of the causes of things’ but they also

think themselves to be free in so far as they are conscious of their volitions and of their appetite, and do not even dream of the causes by which they are led to appetition and to will, since they are ignorant of them. (EIapp)

Ultimately, Spinoza asserts that ‘we do not endeavour, will, seek after, or desire something because we judge it to be good, but on the contrary we judge something to be good because we endeavour, will, seek after, or desire it’ (EIIIp9s). In effect, whatever satisfies (or is expected to satisfy) our desire is good. However, Spinoza does not completely relativize the terms here, since something that is desired, and therefore deemed good, positively answers one’s striving to persevere in existence. Due to their positive or negative contribution to conatus, ideas can be deemed to be either good or bad to us, ‘good’ being ‘that which we know by certainty to be the means by which we may approach more and more closely that exemplar of human nature which we set before ourselves’ (EIVpref) and, therefore, something ‘which we know with certainty to be useful to us’ (EIVd1). By implication, ‘bad’ in an objective sense must be something ‘which we know with certainty to hinder us from possessing something good’ (EIVd2). Hence, form is immaterial: regardless of that which contributes to our perseverance arising from a direct or a mediated affective encounter, it is the contribution that matters: To quote Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza, a body is to be defined ‘not by its form, its organs, and its functions, and not as a subject either; you will define it by the affects of which it is capable’. ⁶⁷ In that sense, even Kim Kardashian can be seen as objectively good for you if affective engagement with her online persona increases your power within a fan or hater community. Similarly, the recent moral panic over post-truth and fake news notwithstanding, sharing bogus content is good for you if it increases your power and standing within the relevant communities, characterized by shared social affects.

Indeed, affective causation must also be social: as Spinoza asserts, ‘if we imagine someone to love or desire or hate something that we ourselves love, desire, or hate, by that very fact we shall love etc. the thing more steadfastly’ while other people’s adverse emotions will cause a reconsideration of the thing’s value (EIIIp31). Creation and maintenance of social bonds demonstrates similar characteristics: we wish others to imitate our emotions or, as Spinoza puts it, ‘[w]hen we love a thing which is like ourselves, we endeavour as far as we can to bring it about that it loves us in return’ (EIIIp33). In a very similar fashion, then, ‘[h]atred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and conversely can be destroyed by love’ (EIIIp43). Imitation of affects thus creates a crucial bond between individuals which is almost automatic, necessitating mere encounter and mutual recognition: as James (2016: 117) puts it, ‘the mere fact that we recognise other human beings as sharing our emotional constitution is enough to make us imitate their affects’. ⁶⁸ Here, once again, opportunities are opened up for technologically mediated influence, as in the Kardashian example. Paradigmatically, affect again serves as both a bond and an influencing factor (or energy, to refer back to Papacharissi’s vocabulary from the previous section) that animates causal chains. Affect from one mode (such as Kim Kardashian) via capturing devices and online platforms (such as Instagram) passes onto the community of users though their devices, causing a reaction in them (i.e. the affect is experienced). The users are thereby driven into affective communities (most fundamentally, of fans and haters) that circulate their own distinct affective reactions within these communities, affirming membership and strengthening internal bonds. Moreover, there is also a feedback loop to the influencer/celebrity as any engagement drives upwards their status in the algorithmic visibility pecking order (they are classified as trending), meaning that more users are exposed to affect transmitted by them. Simultaneously, the content that has proved itself to effectively generate affective response is emulated by the influencer. And the influencer is constrained even further by the very presence of the algorithmic pecking order and the data-based matching of content and users: the digital infrastructure has its own share in the social production of affect, particularly in matching highly charged transmitters of affect (Kardashian, Trump, etc.) with fans and haters and members of the latter categories with one another, establishing and strengthening echo chambers and filter bubbles. Nevertheless, the presence of a shared referent provides for unity even in such otherwise fractured environments: despite their completely divergent reactions, members of such groups still confirm partaking in a single substance, understood in the expansive sense of a fabric of hybrid agglomerations.

Conclusion

To quote Deleuze again, ‘an animal, a thing is never separable from its relations with the world. The interior is only a selected exterior, and the exterior, a projected interior’. ⁶⁹ This idea has, perhaps, never been more pressing than in today’s hybrid agglomerations, in which human, digital, physical and infrastructural components form complex and ever-shifting landscapes. It is only if these agglomerations are understood monistically and as characterized by flows of affect that the full nature of today’s transformations becomes evident. It is through this line of thinking that the inadequacy of anthropocentric world view becomes exposed, revealing humans to be mere nodes within the broader system. And it is also this line of thinking that demonstrates pathways towards increases in power and existence (usage of the term ‘emancipation’ would be clearly inappropriate in this context): it is through immersion in the networks of affective exchange and the capacity to leave an imprint upon the other elements within hybrid agglomerations that sustain existence can be achieved. Likewise, while trying to understand agency and causality, one must focus on interactions and exchanges, rather than a specific group on elements (human, digital, etc.). It is only courtesy to such considerations that one can fully appreciate how and why today’s world is fundamentally interactive.

Spinoza’s ideas on monism, causality and affective interactions as the essence of the reality of every thing have been crucial in conceptualizing the above interactivity. Thinking in terms of Spinoza’s mechanistic universe, it becomes clear that such interactivity has only increased in breadth and complexity with the emergence of hybrid agglomerations of biological, technological and digital components. All of them add their own causal chains and interactive patterns, meaning that the amount of potential combinations and outcomes increases exponentially, although not to infinity. Moreover, a Spinozist discussion of causality and the affective basis on reality reveals a new source permanence and a renewed definition of what it means to be real in such hybrid agglomerations. Hence, Spinoza’s ideas clearly function not only as an analogy but also as a toolkit to enrich our understanding of today’s technologically enriched life.