Our proprioceptive appreciation of reality involves the whole body and all the senses. Its point of reference is neither representation nor pure vision. The way I relate to the world of instant and pervasive communications is from my point-of-being, not my point-of-view. There is only one place where I am completely there, and that is within my own skin, even though that skin and its technologically assisted sensory extensions reach far beyond the immediate limits of vision, touch and hearing. My point-of-being is not exclusive but inclusive; it is not a perspective vision that frames reality, but rather, is a place defined by the precision and complexity of my connections with the world.
Only the last shreds of our erstwhile visual bias can still prevent us from recognizing the obvious: interactivity is touch. Industry is developing technological prostheses that act as multi-sensory integrators. Interactive technologies provide the social, psychological and physical bonds for the much larger collective intelligence. The collective mind that we are building now can handle the complexity, breaks and restructurings of individual minds - a world scale integration process is at work.
These new technological criteria allow us to rethink the meaning of technological extensions, not as mere auxiliaries of signal transportation, but as forms, patterns and configurations of relationships. Potentially, all electronic technologies are interactive; they establish continuous intimate exchanges of energy and processing between our many bodies and minds and their global environment.