Quantified Self: The algorithm of life

Will the search for self-knowledge through numbers bring greater self-awareness or drive us to ultimate distraction?

by Josh Cohen / February 5, 2014 / Leave a comment

With January over, the spirit of self-improvement in which you began the year can start to evaporate. Except now your feeble excuses are under assault from a glut of “self-tracking” devices and apps. Your weakness for saturated fats and alcohol, your troubled sleep and mood swings, your tendencies to procrastination, indecision and disorganisation—all your quirks and flaws can now be monitored and remedied with the help of mobile technology.

Technology offer solutions not only to familiar problems of diet, exercise and sleep, but to anxieties you weren’t even aware of. If you can’t resolve a moral dilemma, there’s an app that will solicit your friends’ advice. If you’re concerned about your toddler’s language development, there’s a small device that will measure the number and range of words she’s using against those of her young peers.

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Comments

Jim Jozwiak
February 6, 2014 at 03:34
OK, since you brought up saturated fat which has been pretty conclusively proven to not be harmful, consider this scenario instead. You do not "track" saturated fat; instead you plan to eat certain amounts of it, such as very little or really a lot, and pay close attention to what happens to you. Are your moods different? Do you gain or lose weight? Does your skin look the same? At the end of this exercise you actually know whether it is best for you to avoid it or not. Obviously this is only possible for someone who is truly interested in his personal nutrition, but this would be a rather sane interest as nutrition is so fundamental.
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Terence Hale
February 6, 2014 at 03:35
Hi, The word algorism comes from the name Al-Khw?rizm? (c. 780–850), a Persian mathematician and probably meant an algorithm, the step-by-step procedure for calculations as we know today. Quantified Self: The algorithm of life aligns people unintentionally to the set theory in mathematics. Existing in a similar form in In India, the caste system is a system of social stratification and which is now also used as a basis for an affirmative action. People are classed as a collection of objects to which an affirmative action can be applied and binaryallize people become robots of society with whom ”colour become pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless.”
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Chris bot
February 6, 2014 at 04:55
good job on another premature and hyperbolic screed, showing to all the consequences of a B.A. in English and a commitment to making a fragile, egotistical living through cultural commentary. Premature, in that we have literally millions of writers constantly lookin for the next thing to write about, to panic the public with, adding to our manic fears and sense of never being able to get it right, never able to be ahead of or even keep up with the curve.
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Bloggsworth
February 6, 2014 at 09:06
Far from self-knowledge it sounds more like a recipe for paranoia, anorexia, depression and narcissism and all the anxieties the modern social app user is heir to. Thinking about oneself too much leads to disconnection...
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Jonathan R
February 6, 2014 at 14:49
Self-tracking assumes that the self being studied remains the same, a hard view to reconcile with the perceived effects of aging.
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Jim Lilly
February 6, 2014 at 15:18
David Foster Wallace explored this in some of his fiction (meta-awareness) and the problems it presents to humans. If "Infinite Jest" is too much to bite off, try his short fiction (stories in "Oblivion" or "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men."
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Allan
February 6, 2014 at 16:12
Unfortunately, there's no real insight here as the first commenter observed. Gayle Greene's book "Insomniac" provides an excellent counterpoint on the malignity of the spared at the hapless (yet indispensible) self-obsessions wound around the afflications of others.
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Al_de_Baran
February 7, 2014 at 15:37
Poor Chris bot: He wants to argue against the article, but the best he can summon is an insult to English majors! Pace the bot, the article is very thought-provoking, at least, for those who are capable of being provoked in that way. What struck me is how relevant Cohen's observations are to the negative side of certain Eastern practices of self-observation, or their Western equivalents (Gurdjieff/Ouspensky). Note re. Allan, who blathers, "[...] provides an excellent counterpoint on the malignity of the spared at the hapless (yet indispensible) self-obsessions wound around the afflications of others." Even if the article were lacking in insight, that still beats lack of even rudimentary coherence.
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Peter Davis
February 11, 2014 at 18:02
All this technological quick-fix panacea is additional and unnecessary distraction. The techniques for cultivating self-knowledge are ancient and have rightly survived the test of time, particularly in the various forms of meditation, but we are talking about a deeper, less defined self - not the egocentric personality that seems to be commonly confused with self in our modern narcissistic revival. Freud didn't help, as wise as he was on many matters. It is 'self-knowledge' in the first-person sense of learning our deeper 'human nature', not self-knowledge in the shallow sense of: 'I'm John Smith, and I've finally learning that I like the colour blue, jazz music, reading books and I'm prone to blushing when asked questions and I need to lose weight off my waist.' - although this might become more evident in the shallows of increasing awareness. But this is just our personality talking and 'it' is the very hurdle to deeper self-knowledge. The whole point of 'mindfulness' is to be absent of this false self by simply being present in non-opinionated awareness, which requires the cultivated cessation of thought by regular practice and is a form of letting go, of self-forgetting - not constant reminders of quantities of data to be analysed by our self about our self. Regular practice of meditation, without expectation of results, can help subtly reveal the permanence of a still background of silence in which our sense of self rests. Our anxieties arise when we become disconnected from this deeper awareness by becoming unanchored and too self-conscious or prone to egotism, which leads to all sorts of problems. It's so simple and could be easily taught. But a widespread educational foundation of meditation being introduced in schools from this point on, though having the genuine potential once having been invested to radically improve society's well-being and reduce the future costs of healthcare, welfare and mental health to suggest only a few, would also undermine a very profitable (and not always scrupulous) industry that relies on the perpetuation of anxieties, maladies and their profitable remedies and might unnerve corporations that rely on our constant distractibility to draw our attention in the direction of their products. And this is the real war for hearts and minds - forget terrorism's claim. It's all about 'attention', and where we 'spend' it. All advertisers know this. The worth of our whole life is really only what we pay attention to and the energy this exacts. We've only so much energy, so best spend it attending to the worthwhile... Forget numbers, it's just more counting, which is more thinking - and that's the problem. We need only cultivate and include in our day regular moments of gently letting go of our thoughts and following the rhythm of our breath, for example, and just being present and then getting up and on with life, to cultivate self-knowledge. You will naturally come to know yourself and what you should do for the best and to respond appropriately to the worst. And save a fortune - and possibly a wasted life.
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Iain Murdoch
February 12, 2014 at 10:48
I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Charles Wang. Self tracking is another form of hypochondria, and takes a person further from self awareness towards neuroticism. However, his device to detect slouching is an excellent idea, as we only slouch or otherwise move out of alignment because we lose awareness of our bodies and become focussed on the outside world, be it computer screen or demanding parents, boss, nagging wife, etc. Awareness of posture brings you back into your body, which is the most healthy place to live your life. Of course you don't need to purchase his product. Just take up the practice of meditation. It just takes three or four seconds of self-awareness out of each minute to completely change your life.
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KatM
February 13, 2014 at 05:03
More apps and products being marketed to those keeping up with the Joneses (or the Wangs). This article provides an interesting counterpoint to the first one I read in this issue of Prospect about Hunter S.Thompson. An honest friend and a mirror (unless you're blind and require technical assistance in visual feedback - narcissists are usually 'blind' in some respects) is all one needs for a good start in self-appraisal. . Talk to your health-practitioner and your confessor (or therapist as fashionable secular society dictates) for assessing physical, mental and spiritual health. Ask Siri if you have an Apple product and you're too shy to ask a friend or a professional for their opinion. I'm sold on fighting gravity in trying to displace a saggy bottom a few inches higher by emulating this hot Brazilian Butt Lift workout I saw on TV last night. Fight inflammation and free-radical damage in our brains to avoid neurodegenerative disease that's associated with old age. If we can track molecules in our bodies that cause cellular damage associated with old-age then maybe we're winning the war and ultimately saving money on health-care. Mens sana in corpore sano!
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Joseph Ting
March 9, 2014 at 11:27
Rational assessment of metadata will benefit community health in enabling the detection of early patterns of epidemic outbreaks. Satellites provide surveillance data that delineate the global impact of human activity the natural environment and public health. The geophysical correlation of malaria surges with climate warming and local flooding allow targeted interventions to be delivered to communities before predicted outbreaks. However, mining Big Data has also been turned into a fractious political football. Real world data and informed prediction models that warn of the triumvirate threats of anthropogenic warming, thinning polar ice and rising sea levels continue to ignite acrinomious denial and heated debate. The consequences of real-time collection and review of personal, emotional and physiological data remain uncertain. Life-logging capability to monitor a person’s minute-to-minute physiological and psychological status is fraught with adverse health risk. Although favourable feedback hold potential to enhance positive mood and reinforce health seeking and promoting behaviors, adverse data that becomes permanently imprinted could be harmful. A high once-off blood pressure reading could lead to needless worry in the highly strung. As for life events, who wants to be reminded of broken marriages and health crises on a weekly or monthly basis? Once a year is sufficient for most and a calendar serves that purpose well Lifelogging only benefits persons capable of responding constructively to, and learning from, the permanent imprinting of adverse events in one’s life record. On the other hand, vigilant surveillance risks aggravating those inclined to anxiety or hypochondria. There is something oddly robotic about being a mobile docking station that constantly transmits and receives information. It could also be argued that obsessive measurement distracts from living a mysteriously rich non-quantified or non-quantifiable life.
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