“The way to metaverse: Digital Health Between Dataism and Human Dignity”

The Kircher Network, network of Universities and Faculties of the Society of Jesus in Europe and the Middle East, of which the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Braga Regional Center, of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa is a member, is organizing a webinar entitled “The way to metaverse: Digital Health Between Dataism and Human Dignity”, which takes place on May 5, at 5pm, online.

The aim of this event is to outline some of the challenges of digital health, with particular attention on the concerns raised by scholars Harari (2016), Zuboff (2019) and Van Beers (2022).

Developments in online health services are a result of the digital age. The accelerated growth rate of this branch is a consequence of the emergence of global health crises. Although these services provide varied benefits, the challenges thrown at the administrative, institutional, technological and human areas with regard to saving lives should be recognised.

For this reason, the change in relations between health professionals and patients and between biopolitics and law, by the "dataization" and the "instrumentalization of the human being", will be addressed. The connection between the notions of "human", "dignity" and "dataism" will also be analysed, due to the instability generated between the current international legal frameworks, based on the recognition of human dignity simultaneously with the conditioning propelled by the entry into the metaverse digital world.

Professor Anna Bugajska, Chair of the Department of Language and Culture Studies at the Institute of Modern Languages of the Ignatianum Jesuit University in Krakow (Poland), will be the moderator of this initiative.

Those interested can attend through this link