Ioannis Anastasiou

Track: Inner Ecology, Collective Psyche and Social Transformation

SUBJECT-BODY-TECHNOLOGY INTERPLAY

Descartes saw the person as associated with the distinction between the world of thought and the material world. The body, consequently, was reduced to a passive ‘thing’ and it was widely considered that only mathematical science could deliver true knowledge of the world. ). It was only in the twentieth century when, through the thoughtful contributions of great theorists, the human body emerged as an important object of anthropological study, out “…of the plague of logical and mechanical rationalizations that has been sweeping the globe for the last three centuries.”

 Our bodies and the ‘’intercorporeality’’ forms the basis of the social life. Important anthropological studies have shown how subjectivity itself is actually intersubjective. Our selves are both internal and external, made up of the world inasmuch as the world is an extension of us. It is also argued an intimate interconnection between society and technology if we conceive intersubjectivity as the extension of subjectivity towards not only the ‘’other’’ humans but also the extra-human world.  By continuously switching from being actors to being acted upon, the phenomenology declares the blurring of the boundaries between subject and object.

According to a law of bidirectional penetration, the consciousness is a complex system engaged in innumerable feedback relations with the environment.  The Man uses technical tools in order to have access to a broader range of experiences against the limits provided by their natural body, which may have to technically alter the nervous system. With technology we can build relations of reciprocity and agency is shifted to and fro between human and tool/machine; the more complex the tool, the greater the chance this will happen.

Fully qualified medical doctor with professional experience of 20 years in hospital posts both in Greece and UK. Professionally qualified  in Respiratory Medicine and in Intensive Care Medicine.
MSc in medical anthropology in Durham University-UK (2014).
Current Post Clinical Research Fellow-Adult Cystic Fibrosis Southampton University Hospital, UK   (2014-)
2010-2013   Various Critical Care Unit post in UK (NHS)   
1982-2010   Various Hospital Posts in Greece
Acupuncture practitioner-Cert.Ac(Nanjing) (1993-1995)                               

Transpersonal psychology attachments:
Early adulthood K. G Yung’s “Man and his symbols”.
I started to palpate Modern Art mainly from the theoretical point of view.
I first met the existential philosophy through the rock poetry that drove me to  A. Rimbaud, to the Romanticists, to W.B. Yeats, D. Thomas and finally to the Beat poets , E.E. Cummings, and H. Miller.
Trips to Sri Lanka, Polynesia, Far East, accompanied by the classical essays of Daoism and Buddhism.
The Dionysian call of Nietzsche and the Dao.
My new ''Terra Incognita'':Humans and Technology, Neuroanthropology. Shamanism and Ethnopharmacology