Being human in the Anthropocene

This essay aims to show how what is most intimately and essentially human – our ideas, personal purposes, feelings, and dreams – finds space for expression within the autonomous, unfeeling, physical dynamics of the technosphere – the defining system of the Anthropocene. The approach adopted is based on systems scienceand aims to avoid metaphysical assumptions about the nature and importance of human values. A non-humanistic analysis of human potential shows why the demands of the physical technosphere on human behavior leave space for nominally non-technospheric activities, such as the pursuit of personal purposes. The dynamical perspective also highlights the central role of humanistic pushback against technospheric encroachment on the human domain.