How could personal identity be consistent without the support of the body? Many a philosopher has claimed that the body is in fact necessary for the distinction between identity and exact similarity. Moreover, bodily continuity is needed to trace psychological continuity. Thus, Thomas Penelhum, in his Survival and Disembodied Existence, argues that one major objection to the notion of disembodied existence is that without the body we have no idea what it could mean to say that two experiences were experienced together by the same subject. It is obvious that cyber-existence implies a certain detachment from the body, taking into account the fact that the activities in cyberspace are not accompanied by any kinestezic perceptions. The problem is then that the absence of a body undermines the personal identity to a larger extent than the peregrinations through various communities and hypostases.

It is true that one cannot develop a sense of identity without a body image, that is a picture or mental representation one has of his own body at rest or in motion at any moment. Moreover, the body image is derived from internal sensations, postural changes, contact with outside objects and people, emotional experiences and fantasies. Among these, only the last two remain valid in cyberspace too, a fact which could imply a certain loosening of identity. Moreover, according to the principle "one body - one consciousness," the absence of the body reference could also account for the phenomenon of multiple consciousness in the case of the cybernaut. (Faust, however, had such an experience before going cyber, since he claimed that two souls inhabited his chest, according to Zwei Seelen wohnen in meinem Brust).

The latter would vainly pinch himself in order to check the unity behind his cyber-experiences. This would only act as the "back" button of a search engine, bringing him to another site, conventionally labeled "the real world." The cybernaut is acting freely upon his body in a way which would be quite impossible for the soul. He disposes of the body and uses his counterfeit body-image in order to manipulate it at will.

Geoffrey Madell, in his short and bright booklet titled "The Identity and the Self," claims that the notion of disembodied existence seems to suggest that experiences can exist in time only, without a spatial dimension. However, one cannot "exist" in cyberspace, even detached from the body, without being multi-medially related to a specific site, without being "somewhere." Consequently, the disembodied cyber-existence could be better envisioned as a random passage through site-related identities than as the continuous experience of a duration. Moreover, if we admit that the body is not a necessary condition for identity and thus reverse the relationship body/self, we may regain some trust in the reliability of the cyber-identity. According to Madell: "I know this body to be mine in virtue of the fact that it is the center of my experiences and under the control of my will, not I know my experiences to be mine in virtue of the fact that they are tied to this body." That is to say, I can modify the body image according to my fantasy and I can act upon my body subserviently; this would not however infringe upon the unanalyzable feeling of my own (cyber)-identity.

The cyber-culture practices deepened the gap between body and soul beyond the boldest expectations of many a dualist. The long line of stern, ascetic mortifications has been less effective to break the unity between body and soul than the hedonistic use of the Internet. The cyber-person, its psychic unity intact, would look upon her body in a detached manner, liberated from its structural constraints and its wired behavior. One's option for cyber-values is not only an estrangement form one's natural environment but also from one's natural body. One can eventually use it according to one's random whims and unlimited fantasy, driving it into total submission. This would signify the culmination of a long process made up of successive divorces: between sex and gender, sex and conception, age and procreation, sensation and imagination. A striking example is provided by Spike Jonze's movie, Being John Malkovich, where the movie star's body was used just as a property by two women in order to make love to one another (via John Malcovich).

The subordination of the body in the framework of cyber-culture is a challenge to Christian values. (This is only one of the reasons against the identification of cyberspace to the Christian Heaven.) Pope John Paul II, in his influential encyclic Veritatis Splendor, recalled the body-soul unity and the claim that the rational soul is per se et essentialiter: "the form of the body." Exercising one's freedom against the body's "natural" drives would turn precisely against this freedom, because it would make the human being a prisoner of a particular culture, with its specific values. The bodily wired instincts transcend any intellectual framework; thus, instead of being constraints, they are a guarantee of freedom. Cyber-identity, like any other cultural identity, is dangerous only insofar it tends to be the ultimate one. The body-soul dialectics may prove useful in preventing it from happening.

Copyright © 2000 Adrian Mihalache All Rights Reserved

Adrian N. Mihalache is a professor at the "Politehnica" University of Bucharest, Romania. Presently, he is a Fulbright Scholar at Western Michigan University, Department of Anthropology where, together with Professor Arthur Helweg, he is working on the book "Ethnology of Cyberspace".