The "digital death" phase: technological discourse and the contemporary imaginary

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of the phenomenon of death in the first quarter of the 21st century, marked by a shift from the "spectacular" to the "digital" phase. In the latter, biological death ceases to be perceived as an ontological boundary and is reconceptualised as a crisis of the material substrate – one that can be overcome by means of NBIC convergence. The aim of this study is to explicate the technological, social, and existential implications of this shift. Methodologically, the research is based on an interdisciplinary synthesis of the philosophy of technology, cultural anthropology, and narrative analysis of science fiction works that model extreme scenarios of digital afterlife. The results demonstrate that the capitalist framework commodifies memory and personhood, generating a new form of stratification in which the rights to digital continuation of existence become a commodity with differentiated access. At the same time, the fundamental challenge of immortality is ignored: infinity without a transcendent purpose leads to existential entropy (boredom, semantic satiation). In contrast to individualistic models, the collectivist tradition of Russian cosmism is considered, proposing conciliar unity (sobornost’) as a way to overcome metaphysical isolation. The critique highlights the risk of the individual’s dissolution into a faceless megastructure that utilises existential experience as a computational resource. It is concluded that the era of "digital death" requires not merely technological innovations but a new metaphysics capable of substantiating the purpose of infinite existence.