A Scholarly Discussion and High-Level Examination of the Partial Death Under the Regime of Algorithms in Social Media
Editor and Curator’s Note: This scholarly essay by Liauw Pauw Phing, selected as a review paper for the Journal of Emerging Technologies in Neuroscience (JETN), introduces “Aphanocrisis Theory,” a philosophical framework that examines how algorithms transform human existence on social media. It proposes that identity is increasingly based on visibility rather than reflective consciousness, coining the phrase “Visio ergo sum” (existence through visibility). Influencer culture exemplifies this shift, leading to hybrid identities, existential fragmentation, and reliance on metrics over introspection. The theory argues that the phenomenon of “Aphanocrisis” signifies the erasure of existential dimensions without biological death. It explores how these changes disrupt traditional notions of selfhood, identity, and moral responsibility, suggesting a need for a new ethical framework relevant to the digital age. You can learn about Journal of Emerging Technologies in Neuroscience (JETN), Advancing Neuroscience, Technology, and Holistic Wellbeing from the attached story written by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, on Medium.com: Why I Founded a Scholarly Journal Despite Its Challenges, to Be Mirrored Here
Abstract
This article introduces “Aphanocrisis Theory”, a new philosophical framework analyzing the transformation of human existence under algorithmic regimes. I argue that contemporary digital platforms generate a novel ontological condition in which existence is no longer grounded in reflective consciousness (Descartes’ cogito) but in externally validated visibility, which I term “Visio ergo sum”: existence through visibility. Through a phenomenological analysis of influencer culture, I identify five constitutive features of digital subjectivity: hybrid ontology (algorithmic self), existential fragmentation (persona without a center), temporal disruption (time as a metric), epistemic outsourcing (analytics replacing introspection), and generative alienation (productivity through self-severance). I introduce “Aphanocrisis” as a new category of partial death: the erasure of existential dimensions that are constitutive of subjectivity, without biological cessation. Building on Descartes, Ricoeur, Kant, Marx, Foucault, and Derrida, this theory proposes a paradigmatic reconceptualization of responsibility, identity, and selfhood for the algorithmic age.
Keywords: Aphanocrisis; digital subjectivity; algorithmic existence; existential phenomenology; partial death; Visio ergo sum; existential polycentrism; generative alienation.
I: The Digital Cogito Shift
This era marks a shift in how humans experience their own existence. Descartes argued that thought is proof of existence.[1] Reflective consciousness became the foundation of all certainty. Yet as life becomes ever more integrated with digital platforms, that old formula begins to give way. Now, whether someone “exists” is increasingly decided by how often they are seen, clicked, commented on, and measured by systems operating behind the screen.
Influencers are figures who most clearly display this new condition. They live in strange existential coordinates: their existence depends on numbers. When the graph dips, their confidence wavers. When engagement vanishes, they experience a kind of emptiness and professional disappointment. Declining popularity becomes a threat that they are no longer real.
Existence shifts: the self no longer stands firmly on inner reflection but instead depends on a digital reflection filtered by algorithms. Someone becomes “real” to the extent that they appear in other people’s feeds, their content is shared, and metrics validate their presence. This marks a structural change: they no longer view the world from the inside out but are viewed from outside, then try to adjust their form to remain visible.
I propose that the new formula quietly at work is: “Visio ergo sum”, existence through visibility. Existence is confirmed by an external gaze that is aggregated, measured, and predicted by machines.
II: The Ontology of Hybrid Existence
Typically, dependence still allows for distance. Someone who depends on coffee will be restless, perhaps lethargic, when it is unavailable, but their identity does not disappear. However, the relationship between influencers and social media is different. The algorithm is not just a tool or an external influence. It is a structure that participates in shaping existence itself.
When an algorithm reduces the reach of someone’s content, what is lost is not just numbers. What erodes is the existential layer. For many people, losing an account or experiencing a drop in engagement feels like partial death. The world closes the only window where they felt acknowledged. The biological body still lives, but the self that has been invested in digital space experiences death and burial without ceremony.
This indicates an emerging hybrid existence: no longer humans who merely happen to be online, but subjects whose ontology merges with the logic of content distribution and visibility metrics. The self becomes an algorithmic self, half in the network, half in the body, and the two can no longer be separated without existential amputation.
Death appears as a digital event: accounts are banned, algorithms change, communities dissolve. I call this “Aphanocrisis”: the erasure of an existential dimension that has become constitutive of subjectivity, without touching the physical body.
III: Fragmentation: From Role to Fragments of Self
In traditional life, humans play various roles: as workers, friends, parents, and children. Behind all those roles, there is still an assumption of the same continuous “I”, a unity that can be addressed as one. The fragmentation of roles in life does not automatically mean the fragmentation of identity.
For influencers, the boundary between role and self begins to collapse. Persona is no longer a temporary mask that can be removed after the performance ends. It becomes a fragment that lives independently, with its own audience, language style, aesthetics, even ethics. One person can appear as a humorous figure on one platform, a moral teacher on another platform, a seducer on yet another platform, and a vulnerable psychiatric patient in a different space altogether.
The problem is that there is no longer a “center” that holds full control over all these fragments. What determines which fragment appears most often is precisely the algorithm and audience feedback. The most profitable version of the self will be called on most often, given space, and “fed” by the numbers. Other aspects of self, which may be quieter, more sincere, more fragile, are marginalized because they are not performative.
Existence fragments into a repertoire of styles activated by the needs of the attention market. If we once spoke of persona as a mask over a face, now the masks themselves compete to define the face, even eliminating the possibility of a singular face.
IV: Time Chewed by Engagement
Philosophy has always regarded time as something closely tied to the experience of self. We know ourselves because we can bind the past and the future into a narrative. Identity is a long thread that weaves events into a coherent story. Ricoeur once said that narrative identity is the way humans give meaning to the continuity of their existence.[2]
In the influencer world, time is hacked into performance metrics. There is a posting calendar, the best time to upload, optimal video duration, and trends that must be pursued before they go stale. The feed scrolls endlessly, and the meaningfulness of content is measured in the first hours, even the first minutes: whether a video “rises” or “dies”.
In a regime like this, the future is no longer an existential horizon where someone wonders “who do I want to become,” but rather a metric target that demands “what content should I create so that the graph keeps rising.” The past is no longer a reservoir of lived experience, but an archive reread in terms of what was performed and what was dropped. The self is continuously revised to avoid sinking. Identity no longer moves as a long narrative but as a series of short iterations, measured from post to post. It becomes a life that resembles A/B testing more than an existential pilgrimage.
As a result, the sense of continuity of self weakens. If every version of self must be adaptive to rapidly changing trends and algorithms, what can still be maintained as the “I” that remains the same? In the long run, this gives birth not only to identity confusion but to existential fatigue: the sense that no form of self is allowed to endure long enough to become home.
V: Epistemology: When Analytics Replaces Introspection
In the past, if someone wanted to know, “Who am I, really?” they looked inward. Contemplating, remembering, dialoguing with conscience. Moral philosophy, spirituality, and older psychology were built on the assumption that humans have privileged access to their own inner life.
In the age of metrics, knowledge of the self is outsourced. Influencers learn about themselves from audience demographic statistics, average views, share counts, and comments praising or criticizing. Analytics becomes the new mirror.
A bitter paradox: they are “most visible,” yet their experience of self is dominated by how others see them. If one type of very sincere content does not sell, while content that feels fake explodes, the question arises: is “I” the sincere one, or the one that sells? The truth about the self is challenged by statistics.
Here, the crisis is epistemic: who is the ultimate authority about who I am? If the inner voice says “this is me,” but the graph shows “that failed,” while other content that feels distant produces a spike in numbers, which judgment will ultimately be trusted? Little by little, the inner voice is drowned out, replaced by an aggregated audience voice arranged by algorithms.
Eventually, we arrive at an absurd point: someone feels “more themselves” when appearing in line with audience expectations than when following the nuances of their own desires. They become a version of the self shaped by others’ needs, yet internalized as an authentic identity.
VI: Ethics Without a Coherent Subject
Classical moral philosophy relies on the assumption of a subject capable of bearing responsibility. We hold humans accountable for their words and deeds because we assume there is sufficient continuity between “the I of yesterday” and “the I of today.” Kant built the categorical imperative upon the autonomous rational subject.[3]
But what happens when the “I” turns out to be an aggregate of several personas, each serving the logic of different audiences and algorithms? When one persona promotes something harmful while another persona sincerely voices moral concern, whom can we hold accountable? Is this hypocrisy, or a structure that compels?
Someone could say: “That is just content.” But that is precisely the problem: when everything is reduced to content, action slowly loses its moral weight. Everything can be held at a distance with the excuse “for the sake of engagement.” Responsibility is blurred, passed around, distributed: to the team, to sponsors, to the algorithm, to “the market.”
Ethics here faces a new situation: it tries to speak to a subject that is no longer singular and does not hold full control over the mechanisms that elevate and topple each of its versions. Blaming the individual alone feels too narrow; blaming the system alone feels too vague. Between these two extremes, I need a new vocabulary of responsibility that accounts for fragmentation and algorithmic mediation.
VII: Alienation as a Condition of Productivity
Marx spoke of alienation as the severance of humans from their essence: workers separated from the product of their labor, from their creative process, from their fellows, and finally from themselves.[4] Alienation is a disease to be cured.
In the influencer ecosystem, alienation becomes a competency. It is the ability to cut ties with feelings of saturation, fatigue, and disgust, yet still smile in front of the camera. It is also the ability to regard oneself as a brand, a package, a commodity, no longer merely a side effect but a prerequisite for success.
Fragmentation of self and distance from one’s own inner life produce flexibility: funny today, spiritual tomorrow, sensational the day after, vulnerable next week, according to trends. To do this without immediately collapsing, someone must develop a mechanism of self-severance: “This is just a persona,” “This is just a performance.” But slowly, this protective mechanism transforms into a basic pattern, and self and role can no longer be distinguished.
Alienation here becomes generative: not only destructive, but productive. It permits the continuous production of false identities that, ironically, finance the survival of the body performing them. From the perspective of the attention economy, humans most alienated from their inner life are precisely the most adaptive and profitable.
VIII: Multiplication Without Center
Poststructuralism once announced the death of the subject. Foucault[5]and Derrida[6]showed that the autonomous, coherent, and rational subject is an ideological construction. Yet what I witness today may not be death, but something stranger: a condition I call “existential polycentrism.” Not one subject disappearing, but many sub-subjects living, overlapping, without one core that can be claimed as “the real one.”
On one level, this seems emancipatory: someone may be many things without being confined to a singular identity. But when this multiplication is driven by the logic of consumption and algorithms, it ceases to be freedom and becomes a burden. Humans must be many simultaneously to remain relevant, yet they are not given space to acknowledge the existential fatigue accompanying that necessity.
The metaphysical dilemma: does it still make sense to speak of “authentic identity” when the structure of the world forces every identity to be temporary, adaptive, and ready to be replaced? Or do we need to accept that identity in this era is indeed no longer unity but flux? Not “who am I,” but “which version of me is appearing now.” And if so, how do we care for human dignity when the human itself is arranged as a collection of variations competing for attention?
IX: At the Threshold of a New Language of the Self
I bring us to a critical point: the philosophical language we inherited about subject, identity, time, self-knowledge, and responsibility was built for different humans. For humans who, though fragile, still possessed a kind of inner space relatively protected from the invasion of metrics and real-time expectations.
Influencers, and ultimately anyone living intensely within platforms, are becoming an open experiment: what happens when that inner space is systematically colonized by external voices, continuously measured, graphed, and optimized? What remains of “I” after years of living under the statistical gaze?
I think we may require a new paradigm, one that acknowledges the self as a human-algorithm hybrid entity, accepts fragmentation as fact but still seeks forms of wholeness that are possible, acknowledges that part of “death” in this era occurs digitally before biologically, and dares to say that there is a new form of existential suffering that can no longer be explained merely as “individual mental disorder,” because it is rooted in the structural design of the digital world itself.
I say that if philosophy still wants to be relevant, it is not enough to merely condemn or praise social media. It needs to enter the subtle cracks where humans feel “strange to themselves,” examining there how ontology, time, knowledge, and morality are being forced to speak with a grammar we have not yet formulated.
Between likes rising and falling, between content that goes viral and sinks, there is one quiet question that has begun to appear frequently in my heart: “If all versions of me are performance, does anything remain that is not spectacle?”
At that silent point, I should begin to speak.
References
[1] René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies, trans. Michael Moriarty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), Meditation II.
[2] Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), chap. 6; see also Time and Narrative, vol. 3, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
[3] Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: With On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns, trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993).
[4] Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2007).
[5] Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 4 (1982): 777–95; see also Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).
[6] Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
About the book
With deep gratitude, I wish to thank Dr Mehmet Yildiz for his generous editorial guidance, his discerning eye, and the intellectual care he has given this work.
Here is the editorial review of the book by Dr Yildiz:
The Cartography of Unbecoming
Why I Edited a Philosophical, Metaphysical, and Spiritual Book medium.com
I am equally indebted to Dr Michael Broadly, DHSc, for the generosity with which he wrote the foreword. I linked his foreword too:
Foreword to “The Cartography of Unbecoming” by Liauw Pauw Phing
Why a Retired Scientist Has an Interest in a Philosophical and Metaphysical Bookmedium.com
Their trust, encouragement, and contributions have shaped this book far beyond anything I could have achieved alone.
I am pleased that the book has been published and is available in several book stores. Here is the official page.
This book is now available for preorders and will be released on 30 April 2026. The early access digital and audio formats are available via Google Books and Google Play. Here is the landing page, which will include digital, paperback, hardcover, and audio links.
ILLUMINATION Philosophy and Metaphysics
ILLUMINATION Philosophy and Metaphysics
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ILLUMINATION Philosophy and Metaphysics: An Introduction by the Owner
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