Philosophy of Digital Man and Digital Society - 2024

Methods of Analyzing the Interaction Between the Digital Individual and Digital Society

The Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of the Interaction between the Digital Individual and Digital Society in the Context of the Synergistic Paradigm

The task at hand is to refine the methodology for analyzing the interaction between the digital individual and digital society. This interaction necessitates a methodological analysis of contemporary digital society, which demands the application of specific methods, approaches, and principles. The principal methods for examining the interaction between the digital individual and digital society as factors in the creative development of personality—as complex phenomena of being, consciousness, and culture—are represented by the following: systemic, structural, comparative, structural-functional, dialectical, and the complexity method (Agile).

The key approaches to researching the interaction between the digital individual and digital society, which facilitate a new perspective on humanity as a holistic entity, society, and nature, include socio-cultural, synergistic, situational, cybernetic, and communicative approaches.

General philosophical methods for evaluating the implementation of the concept of interaction between the digital individual and digital society encompass methods of analysis and synthesis, generalization and scientific abstraction, historical and logical reasoning, and modeling.

The methodology incorporates the most contemporary methods and approaches that allow for the analysis of the essence and significance of the interaction between the digital individual and digital society as factors in the creative development of personality, paving the way for the further evolution of this type of society. The phenomenon of their interaction and influence constitutes the main thesis of the problem and necessitates the construction of a research model, the results of which are essential for society, organizations, and individuals as foundational elements for the development of human and social capital, digital education, and science.

Our objective is to ascertain the extent to which the influence of digital education and culture fosters the deepening of creative personality development within the framework of digital society, as well as its maximal practicality and effectiveness. The impact of education and culture can be elucidated through the explication of the aforementioned concepts, which are supported by information and communication technologies, the development of the Internet, social networks, algorithmic thinking and culture, and various audiovisual cultural factors that enhance diverse cultural forms. The interaction between the digital individual and digital society influences the deepening of the information-communication process, advancing communication, information dissemination, and informatization while promoting the enrichment of this interconnection to achieve a strategy for sustainable digital development.

The methodology produces a doctrine concerning the structure, forms, and methods of scientific cognitive activity in the interaction between the digital individual and digital society, encompassing a system of principles, methods, techniques, and means of comprehending the truth about the object and subject of research to optimize their activities. This methodology aligns with praxeology (the study of the structure of any activity, practice, or individuality), cultivating critical thinking skills for working with information. For this purpose, individuals must be free from prejudices and open to differing opinions, continually scrutinizing the soundness of their attitudes toward the analyzed problem.

In contemporary cognition, the methodology encompasses two components of activity:

1. Organizational-functional, understood as a collection of techniques for conducting cognitive activity;
2. Regulatory-directive, reflecting the necessity of analyzing the overarching issues of forming, selecting, and adapting scientific methods in their unity.

As a result of applying methods to analyze the interaction between the digital individual and digital society and their influence on the development of the creative potential of individuals within digital society, this is interpreted as a reflection of activity aimed at achieving the expected outcomes from maximizing the effect of regulating scientific research and employing various methods and principles for the creation of new knowledge.

The methodology has undergone several stages, each addressing specific tasks pertinent to certain historical types of society. Such methodological forms include:

1. Aristotelian formal logic;
2. Scientific or cognitive methodology;
3. Constructivist methodology, employing an integrated approach to their coherence and interconnection.

Aristotelian formal logic relies on the laws of logical thinking that crystallized into rationality, which dominated the methodology of science until the mid-17th century, as illuminated in Aristotle's work "Organon."

Scientific or cognitive methodology regulates the cognitive process of understanding the interaction between education, culture, and science as factors in the creative development of personality from the perspective of the effectiveness of the methods employed. Each historically determined form represents a reflexive system of the corresponding level, detailing the traits, components, features, paradigms, and standards perceived.

Constructivist methodology initially reached its most developed forms in project-design activities and subsequently in non-classical and post-classical sciences, aiming not only to explain nature but also to construct a new object that would meet human needs for developing creative and innovative factors of social capital aimed at advancing intelligent machines.

Constructivist methodology, as its object of investigation and subsequent regulation, encompasses not merely cognitive activity but all other forms of culture as means for humanity to engage with the world. It is critically important to understand the specificity of constructivist methodology. The goal of constructivist methodology is to regulate the process of cultural production to yield innovations as a means of engaging with the world and satisfying human needs by devising strategies for the development of information and innovative activities within enterprises amid digitalization.

The representation of scientific, cognitive, or constructivist methodologies concerning the interaction between the digital individual and digital society, and their impact on the development of the creative potential of individuals within digital society, manifests as the identification of the cognitive essence of the studied issue to attain objective truth in conjunction with logic, metaphysics, anthropology, ontology, and cultural studies.

The theoretical and methodological foundations of analysis reproduce the interaction between the digital individual and digital society as factors in the creative development of personality, based on the ontos, social context, and nature, which are fundamental for uncovering the trends of their influence on the formation of a new type of society and the primary concepts of an activity-based approach in examining the essence of humanity and its interaction with the world.

The methodology of interaction between education, culture, and science presents two aspects of analyzing the problematic field: 1) the existent (what is present in the induced reality); 2) the normative (what ought to arise). Thus, it seems relevant for this study to employ an instrumental model of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society as factors of creative development of the personality, enabling a breakthrough into the market with innovative and transformative ideas.

As Tom Kelly and David Kelly note, it is essential to cultivate "confident creativity," which is capable of practical realization. To implement the idea of "confident creativity," a constructive methodology is employed, allowing for the synthesis of theory and practice, wherein cultural creativity is represented as a process of shaping the individual within education, culture, and tourism through creativity.

The constructive methodology of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society, as an object of analysis and subsequent regulation, encompasses not merely cognitive activity but all other forms of creative societal design. The understanding of methodology is most significantly applied from the perspective of cognitive recognition and the design of the informational and cultural space of digital society for the digital transformation of business processes.

This constructive methodology of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society as factors of the creative development of the personality within a digital society is a methodology of creatively productive activity, based on two models:

1. conceptual;

The first model comprises a description of a system of concepts that elucidate the problems and tasks of designing cultural artifacts and innovations, while the second is a system of normative knowledge that regulates the practice of addressing cultural creativity.

The scope of the constructive methodology of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society as factors of creative personal development involves utilizing methods and approaches of cultural creativity for the further construction of cultural artifacts, the primary method of which is modeling the creative and innovative process. The model of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society is viewed as a cognitive project or representation of humanity’s engagement with the world and with itself.

This constructive methodology of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society differs from traditional, even classical methodologies, since creativity is the ability to combine known elements in an unusual manner. It is founded on knowledge and the capacity to think systematically and critically while selecting information, choosing, and testing ideas. The constructive methodology of analysis enables the regulation of the transformation of reality and the formation of our perceptions, mental models, and values, which constitute a part of the world. As a result of cultural creativity, artifacts of both material and spiritual culture are created, leading to transformations across all spheres of human activity, from engineering and design processes to the pursuit of extraordinary creative solutions in the context of shaping the civilizational paradigm of education. In the search for extraordinary creative solutions, causal relationships do not always operate effectively, as non-linearity can harbor randomness driven by hidden causes. The methodology converges on the notion that, in analyzing interconnections and their consequences, it is crucial to distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions while carefully considering the correlations between them. This is particularly important when discussing the complex interaction between the digital individual and the digital society, necessitating the selection of arguments that clarify the meanings of terms and provide accurate, comprehensive, and understandable responses regarding the development of project-oriented business in the context of digital transformation towards a smart society.

The deepening of digital transformations in Ukraine necessitates an intensified interaction between the digital individual and the digital society for the adequate restructuring and digital provisioning across all spheres of social life, expounding on the creative personality within the continuum-spatial extrapolation of digital transformations. An unresolved aspect of the broader issue of the theoretical and methodological foundations of the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society is the conceptualization of terms that create the creative foundation of society, the consequence of which manifests as methodological pluralism, underpinned by the utilization of various methods.

The comparative method of analyzing the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society is also beneficial for this study. It is employed to examine technological breakthroughs, investigate the experiences of leading developed nations, and generalize the emergence and evolution of digital society with the aim of substantiating indices of competitiveness and the best practices that stimulate the information and communication process in education and culture, thus applying advanced knowledge for the benefit of the development of the digital individual.

The comparative method is directed towards comparing cultural and educational systems of interaction between education and culture, as well as the structural elements of these systems in the context of their transformation. It explores culture in a global dimension and its aspects, including the life preferences of individuals within the digital society. The comparative analysis of the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society, serving as a theoretical foundation for the development of digital society, boils down to explaining the comparison of educational and cultural phenomena and their processes in the context of economic, political, moral, and religious-spiritual factors. The analysis indicates that the development of digital society enhances the effectiveness of its organizational, economic, educational, and spiritual-cultural values, which should become standards (benchmarks) for further application.

Existing problems and contradictions within the space of digital society necessitate the use of the structural-functional method for analyzing the creative potential of the individual, which includes studying positions related to the multi-level, complex structure of education and culture as systems. This method allows for the identification of stable connections in the relationships between subjects and objects following the algorithms of structural-functional transformations: competencies of education (digitalization) - principle (management) - product (technology) - artifacts (culture, tourism).

The axiological method represents a doctrine about the nature of values and their place within the structure of the value space of education, culture, and science, along with the connection of various values to social and cultural factors, and the structure of personality, which in general serves as a potent methodological tool for the advancement of philosophical understanding. Through the axiological method, universal human values are identified, which are formed by the institutions of education, culture, and science, with freedom, choice, self-realization, and communication at their core. The development and enrichment of the system of value orientations of the individual through digital activity and culture has been explored. Culture is one of the states of the inner spirituality of the individual and a form of activity in which a person transcends their traditional functions and utilitarian use, culminating in education.

In the process of analyzing the problems of interaction between the digital individual and the digital society, we employ a dialectical method that deepens the theoretical dimensions of the development of digital society as a unity of the historical and the logical, revealing its categorical analysis, the internal contradictions of phenomena, and their self-development. The scientific methods and principles utilized in this context include objectivity, logicality, actualism, the synthesis of socio-philosophical, economic, and managerial ideas and systems, as well as the transformation of the universal into the particular and the particular into the universal.

The polyphony of global transformations in the interaction between the digital individual and digital society necessitates the application of the following approaches to the analysis of this interaction: sociocultural, synergistic, cybernetic, situational, and communicative.

The sociocultural approach examines these concepts within a broad civilizational context, wherein digital culture acts as a factor in nurturing personality and preparing specialists for an innovative society. This approach views the interaction between the digital individual and digital society as a theoretical foundation for the "essential matter," at the center of which lies human culture. The development and application of information and communication technologies (ICT) as the basis for the evolution of the information-innovative process of interaction between humans and education, culture, and science foster cultural growth, opening new opportunities for individuals and new approaches to creative activities. The implementation of ICT creates new meanings and orientations that expand the sociocultural process. The sociocultural approach to the interaction of education, culture, and tourism as factors of the creative development of personality is predicated on the dependence of innovative processes on the state of the cultural system of society and the individual as a whole.

The specificity of addressing the scientific problem of the interaction between the digital individual and digital society requires the application of a cybernetic approach that studies complex controlled systems with goals, interacting with their environment through feedback mechanisms. The task of cybernetics is to investigate the processes occurring in controlled systems, consisting of multiple layers of interactions that effect changes in the environment, aimed at obtaining information about the state of the environment, leading to a new action based on this information. For cyberneticians, this cyclical process is fundamental. Therefore, for the development of the creative-innovative potential of society as a complex and contradictory process, the most crucial factors are information, knowledge, communication, and conditions for the growth of the creative class, where many well-paid jobs exist and a robust labor market prevails.

The cybernetic approach to analyzing the interaction of education, culture, and science employs structural components as input parameters, which include the governing body, the object and subject of management, output data, and feedback. Optimal governance is achieved through the homeostatic equilibrium of the societal system by realizing an innovative strategy as a factor of sustainable digital development. Digital society is regarded as an integral, essential structural component of the functioning of education, culture, tourism systems, as well as the informational prerequisites of the technosphere of modern civilization, the global economy, or the Internet economy. Information, as a factor of the cybernetic approach, is seen as an organic element of personal culture, determined by economic, social, and socio-spiritual dimensions.

To elucidate the peculiarities of the interaction between the digital individual and digital society, a situational approach is employed to analyze specific situations and identify the factors that create these particular situations, as well as to ascertain the shortcomings and advantages, limitations and consequences of situations that influence the unfolding of events, promoting the modification and transformation of these systems and their qualitative conversion based on innovation and creativity.

In analyzing the creativity of the individual within the digital society as a complex and contradictory phenomenon, the communicative approach should be utilized as a factor in the creative development of the individual, allowing for the revelation of the properties of the sociocultural existence of individuals through the study of communication methods shaped by digitalization within the cultural-informational space, thereby enhancing cognitive processes. The application of the communicative approach facilitates the analysis of communication, activity, and processes, affirming the thesis of the objective necessity for improving the management of the communication process in the contemporary information society.

The current state of scientific exploration of this issue necessitates the application of general philosophical methods—analysis and synthesis, generalization and scientific abstraction, historical and logical methods, and modeling. To analyze the characteristics of the interaction of education, culture, and science, methods of analysis and synthesis are employed to assess the mechanism of interaction that ensures the collection, processing, preservation, dissemination, and reflection of information as a valuable strategic resource, while also maintaining its reliability and responsiveness. The method of generalization and scientific abstraction concerning the interaction of education, culture, and science as factors in the creative development of the individual is utilized to define the information-communicative process as the theoretical foundation for the development of this type (model) of society, which aids in determining the essence of the communication process and employs a comprehensive set of methods, production processes, and software-hardware tools, unified in a singular chain of the innovative-technological development of society.

Significantly for this study is the historical and logical method, which encompasses the analysis of the activities of educational, cultural, and scientific institutions in a historical perspective, that is, how they emerged and evolved and what state they have achieved today in light of the centuries-long stages of evolution within the context of the genesis of philosophical thought. The logically reconstructed history of the emergence of these phenomena represents a generalized history, stripped of all insignificant, incidental details, retaining only what is essential, law-like, and necessary, particularly from the standpoint of cognitive analysis of the innovative strategy of development as the principal driver for enhancing the life cycle of the digital society.

The method of modeling the interaction between the digital individual and digital society is employed to formulate theoretical constructs for the development of an innovative-information society that significantly influences electronic information processing systems (the ICT market), the formation of the market for information products and services, and the necessity of collecting, analyzing, and utilizing data—termed data science.

Divergent thinking represents an expansive, freely directed activity that propels us away from the initial object in all directions. Creative activity compels our brains to fully engage with considering any possibilities and ideas. This form of thinking is also referred to as "soft" and is associated with elements such as metaphor, creativity, visualization, ambiguity, intuition, and analogy.

The creative context of this problem can be drawn from convergent thinking—a mental activity that leads us toward making correct and substantiated decisions. This mode of thinking allows us to assess how well different concepts fit and sharply focuses our thoughts on a singular objective. Convergent thinking is characterized by reason, logic, precision, consistency, criticality, rationality, deliberation, realism, awareness, continuity, linearity, and specificity.

If divergent thinking is generative, then convergent thinking is selective and analytical. Both types of thinking play a crucial role in the creative process, yet they manifest differently at various stages. While divergent thinking allows thoughts to diverge or move in different directions, convergent thinking compels thoughts to converge, gathering them together to transition into a selective or active phase, where it becomes possible to realize innovative and creative tasks that have been developed.

A hallmark of a mature digital society, in economic terms, is innovation, which stands as a key characteristic of production and management activities within the information society, where information attains the status of capital and circulates in the information market. One of the most significant quantitative indicators of the maturity of the information society is the ICT Development Index.

The theory of dynamic systems, which emerged from applied mathematics in the 1960s, serves as a model consisting of a multitude of states within a system, examining the properties of complex systems—some of which are stable while others are unstable. If the individual components of a system remain unchanged over time or, when subjected to various disturbances, consistently return to their initial state, this indicates that such stable states function as attractors. The theories of dynamic systems reveal that the development of an individual's creative and innovative potential necessitates stability, which is formed through components such as knowledge, information, innovation, the presence of qualified personnel, culture, and corporate indicators of an organization's digital transformation.

Thus, the combination of methods, approaches, and principles for analyzing the interplay between education, culture, and science has allowed for the formation of a generalized picture of methodological knowledge regarding the research subject, enriching it with the appropriate semantic content.

In this light, the methodology for analyzing the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society has confirmed that this thinking operates within the framework of complex systems, which must adapt to changes in the information environment. The methodology for analyzing the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society has deepened our understanding of:

1. Systemicity, which is founded on autopoiesis (self-creation, the ways and principles by which systems construct themselves);
2. Homeostasis (the capacity of education, culture, and science as social, economic, and cultural institutions to sustain themselves and their activities);
3. Openness (the understanding of education and culture as systems that interact with their environment), thus requiring a re-evaluation of perspectives on contemporary society.

New concepts have emerged to replace the outdated notions of industrial and post-industrial societies, aligning with the innovative, informational, and digital society, where innovation and innovative strategies serve as factors for the sustainable digital development of the economy.

From our research perspective, at the heart of the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society lies the development of innovative trends, the impact of digitalization on shifts in personal value orientations, and the implementation of the concept of sustainable development within contemporary Ukrainian society, which affects its viability. Its further development is grounded in information, culture, communication, and the informatization of the interaction between the digital individual and the digital society.

The interaction between the digital individual and the digital society is envisioned as a process of creating material, cultural, and spiritual values through the mediation of intellectual, technological, and socio-organizational resources, upon which a national innovation system is formed, taking into account the development of education, culture, and science.