How could body-augmenting technology enable human digital twins to facilitate spiritual experiences?
摘要
Initially proposed in manufacturing, digital twins are now emerging across society, including human digital twins trained on human data, such as workplace assistants and personal companions. Although there have been various calls for digital twins to be grounded in human well-being, spirituality is often overlooked. Yet spiritual experiences, typically involving non-ordinary, altered states of consciousness, are an important source of well-being. If the design of human digital twins is to be fully grounded in well-being, then spirituality must not be overlooked. Kimatica draws on art, science and spirituality at the intersection of the human body, immersive arts and ritual performances to help audiences reconnect with themselves—their bodies, emotions and inner worlds—so they can connect with other people and the wider world. Kimatica’s ‘body-augmenting technology’ digitizes the performer’s body in real time, transforming them into a digital representation that can be processed in different ways, including generating visuals that are projected onto the performer in the physical scene or overlaid as an augmented reality (AR) layer on a digital screen. This paper explores how body-augmenting technology could enable human digital twins to facilitate spiritual experiences. First, it presents key concepts and theories from anthropology about rituals and the psychology of group bonding; theatre studies about the transformative potential of ritualistic performances; and cognitive science and depth psychology about embodiment. Second, it presents a case study of Kimatica’s practice-based research, including findings from audience and performer feedback collected through interviews and surveys. Third, it extrapolates from this case study to present three speculations to imagine how human digital twins could help people to access non-ordinary, altered states of consciousness. Body-augmenting technology could help people to interact with human digital twins to access and integrate embodied emotions and psychological states, and visualise emotional, psychological and spiritual transformations. If this interaction allows people to access non-ordinary, altered states of consciousness, then body-augmenting technology could enable human digital twins to facilitate spiritual experiences. By supporting multiple layers of aesthetics and narrative, body-augmenting technology could represent and visualize hidden realities and communicate spiritual experiences that are often ineffable. It creates an enhanced digital layer of the body that could even represent people’s spiritual states—their Digital Spiritual Twin. Embedding body-augmenting technology within ritual design is needed to transition people in and out of altered states of consciousness safely and meaningfully by helping them prepare beforehand and integrate afterwards. Training workshops would be useful to help people set intentions effectively; feel more embodied and confident to use body-augmenting technology; and develop their psychological sensitivities. The wider economic and cultural context is also relevant, especially if it supports spiritual experiences that are fleeting and entertaining rather than sustaining and transformational. New ritualised uses of body-augmenting technology and human digital twins could be an important part of an enduring spiritual culture.