For the vast majority of human history, one fortress has remained relatively inviolate: the self. Encased within the skull, the human mind was an isolated kingdom, its inner workings, our thoughts, emotions, and core identity, accessible only to ourselves or, in a metaphysical sense, to the divine. This isolation was the foundational premise of our personhood; our mental activity was fundamentally private. However, we are now living through a profound redefinition of the human experience. This redefinition is not occurring through a single, overt act, but through the convergence of two powerful movements: the metaphysical project to reduce consciousness to informational processes, and the sociopolitical project to quantify human life for economic valuation.
