ABSTRACT
The culminated self-formation as sublimation view in the context of appropriating technologies is named “Technological Sublimation Theory” (TST). In this chapter, TST is applied to three different types or fields of technology: smart technological environments, brain imaging technologies and smart drugs. Technological environments are becoming evermore “smart” and “nudge” us in certain directions; they influence our behaviors from the outside but are evermore strongly penetrating and transforming us from the inside. Brain imaging technologies increasingly play a role in influencing and explaining psychological functions; they are situated, one could say, between the inside self and the outside world, but are evermore commonly blurring that distinction. Nootropics or so-called smart drugs increasingly influence and aim to strengthen our cognitive capacities; they affect the self from the inside but increasingly shape its outside behavior. It is demonstrated how TST can help to reassess our relation to these technologies and provide guidelines for how we could appropriate them in order to impose a good or suitable form to ourselves. Applying TST to these technologies also enables further clarifying its structure and logic as well as assessing its practical value.
