ABSTRACT
To move toward solving such Global Challenges as Climate, Hunger and Thirst, Pollution, Energy and Health, the STEM disciplines require help from the humanities. This chapter aspires to contribute by arguing at the concept of species remains essential but needs modification. Three such are offered: species-in-common, species-in-biosymbiosis, and species-in-cybersymbiosis. Species-in-common emphasizes the specificities of the human species, qualities that make us uniquely qualified to assume response-ability for our planetary futures and provides a basis both for human solidarities and for empathic response to the more-than-human lifeworld. Species-in-symbiosis recognizes that species entangle, each constituting environments for the others. Species-in-cybersymbiosis emphasizes the deepening symbiosis between humans and cognitive computational media. Together, these three concepts provide the basis for a general ecology of cognitive assemblages, collectivities through which information, interpretations, and meanings circulate. This robust framework provides an integrative relational ecology in which interactions between humans, nonhumans and computational media are foregrounded, providing a basis for understanding the interdependencies and species-specificities that will enable us to make progress toward meeting the great challenges of our time.
