Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

Whether our behavior is controlled by our own will or by other’s is a basic philosophic issue that defines identity achievement. Today, we are bombarded by massive information, and intentionally or not, we are influenced by what we see on TV and in advertisements to make decisions and take actions. In other words, technologies available in the modern society could influence and even sometimes control how we behave in a stealthy manner. In this case, could we claim that our thoughts and behavior are truly determined by ourselves?

This question has led NTT DOCOMO, a mobile phone operator in Japan, and Osaka University to initiate a project “Saving YourSelf!!!”. The project concretizes the connection between the internal world and the external world to help us gain a better understanding of how difficult it is to make decisions on our own will in the modern society. We are honored to invite Hideyuki Ando, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, to share the details and highlights of the project “Saving YourSelf!!!”.

我们的行为是由自我意愿指导还是他人意愿控制，这是定义自我同一性的基本问题。如今我们被无数信息来源包围，而我们的决定和行动也有意无意地受到信息的影响。例如我们在电视上看到的东西以及引起我们注意的广告。换句话说，当今现代社会中可用的技术可能会在我们没有注意的情况下影响并偶尔控制我们的行为方式。在这种情况下，我们真的可以说我们的思想和行为方式是由我们自我意志决定的吗？

这思考使得日本NTT DOCOMO与大阪大学制定了一项名为“拯救你自己!!!”的计划，通过具象化自我与外部世界之间的关系，帮助我们认识到在现代社会，我们究竟可以依靠自己的意愿走多远。在这里，我们很高兴邀请大阪大学信息科技系副教授安藤英由树介绍“拯救自己!!!”的详细体验及特点。