Different kinds of body images

In the experience of human beings the different realities merge. Data images of one’s body influence also how the body feels. Hazra discusses the example of a database of sleep patterns. This generates two different kinds of body images.

There is the corporal, haptic and sensorial image of the self, resting and sleeping and a certain sense that you have when you wake up from sleep. And there is the other image that is extracted from how for example an Ipod was extracting your sleep data. One never knows at what point you are slipping from the one image to the other. There is no sharp line anymore. There is a certain practical aspect to it, because as a bat you can flap your wings and use radar to fly and as a human you cannot. However, Hazra argues, our notion of humanness and indivisibility of our own body are conditioned by commonsensical everyday body experiences and these experiences are the result of a multidimensional reality in which social, biological and algorithmic reality all partake.

CN