Cognitive Sustainability in the Age of Digital Culture

The objective of the present paper is to contextualize the impact of the expansion of digital culture in the on-going discussions about the relations between sustainability and information technology. In order to relate the development of a global digital communication web, its effects on cultural processes and the issues of ecosystem and human sustainability that humanity is facing, I will relate and elaborate on three aspects: 1) A Batesonean perspective on sustainability 2) The recent evolution of the technosphere, and 3) Yuri Lotman's notion of Semiosphere and his semiotic theory of culture. This path will lead me to delineate some of the eco-ethical dimensions implied in the development of pervasive digital-interactive-immersive-representational technologies.