The Corporate Mind

Interpreting Marshall McLuhan’s 1965 Prediction of a Collective Digital Consciousness

The School of Athens — Raphael

In 1965, Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher, made the following statement in the New York Times, explaining how technology would extend consciousness into the environment.

“A kind of computerized ESP, consciousness as the corporate content of the environment — and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experiences through the corporate experience the way dreams do now.”

I will translate this statement and connect it to our present times.

In our networked environment, we process thoughts through social media, making our ideas and thoughts a “corporate” experience, meaning a shared public experience. Today’s AI systems use massive data to train themselves. All of the data collected is part of the corporate experience. You input data, your private experience, and it becomes part of the whole. Our thoughts are being interpreted and mixed with everyone else’s.

We can say that ESP is connected to A.I. This applies to ESP models such as recommendation systems, predictive text, and generative A.I. As for dreams, think of them as a remix of your personal experiences, with a little fiction added. Just as A.I. uses prompts and collective data patterns to come up with not only answers but even something novel, by blending personal and collective data into something different.

McLuhan is not speaking about computerized ESP that can predict lottery numbers; he is speaking about network connectivity, not intelligence. In this instance, he is connecting to concepts such as instant communication, shared awareness, and social networks. It is more like we can know instantly what everyone is thinking, but when checking the computer, it is not the computer thinking for you.

When he speaks of a computerized consciousness, it means something much bigger than A.I. We live in a shared computer environment, receiving entertainment and news that shape our collective perception. Social media, 24/7 information, and cultural narratives also influence our consciousness.

Small portable computers were a direct precursor to the technology we have today, including smartphones, wearables, and earbuds. This prediction was straightforward and direct. And our devices are processing our private experiences just as he predicted. Our thoughts are no longer our thoughts; they are instead fed into a collective pool that generates trending topics, viral ideas, and shared narratives.

Society processes private experience through corporate experience. We experience life in relation to other lives. We watch something, and we immediately check for reactions online. We think and compare our thoughts with those of other people. We live through shared narratives and stories. Just as dreams take our experiences and mix them with shared symbols, culture, and language. Technology will do the same thing to us while we are awake. This is where we already are, blending the personal with the collective into one experience.

Computers have enabled humans to be connected more than at any other time in history. And as we move into the future, the connection will be made mentally in a collective awareness. The hardware we carry with us will record our thoughts, words, and health, and connect it to a shared system. Our thoughts and feelings will be shaped by the collective, just as dreams connect the conscious and the subconscious.

McLuhan’s words do not give warning; they give possibilities. We should know there is danger when our identities are networked, or when our perception of the world is filtered, and be concerned about the collective shaping of our experiences.

I wonder who would control the “corporate” experience. Whose reality will be the default? What happens when your private experiences become opposition to the collective? Bottom line: McLuhan was predicting that technology would eventually (on its path to merge with us) dissolve the boundaries between mind and society.