Hybrids are those people, situated in the most various professional, cultural, and scientific pathways, who are able to connect traditionally separated fields of knowledge and action.

A deep trans-disciplinary attitude, the development of a plurality of competences, the capability to move themselves between diverse forms of intelligence expresses their need and their will to face the current challenges of complexity.

This manifesto is a space for encounters and interactions of identities where it’s possible for many people to recognise themselves. It’s also an indication of the direction for a travel of deep transformations, which we undertook both as individuals and as collectivity.

The destination is unknown.
The sailing is by sight.
We create our course by ourselves.
Uncertainty means opportunity.

Complexity

The knowledge society multiplies the challenges of complexity. Information networks and globalization are transforming our individual and collective everyday lives within uncertain, chaotic, and extremely unstable conditions. Interdependence has become an essential feature of human world.

This profound novelty, which is increasingly shared by all of us in our respective experiences, requires us to explore in depth the emergent patterns, ways of acting, forms of knowledge and heuristics which have generated a complex way of thinking – a “complex thinking”– just in these last decades.

The spin-off of this “complex thinking” is precious for our lives, cultures, professional pathways. In these times, re-focusing our questions is an even more crucial need than finding answers.

Acceleration

Techno-scientific acceleration is modifying the environment, our everyday and professional lives, as well as our cognitive schemes, and is questioning even our human – individual and collective – identity.

The boundaries between the natural and artificial dimensions are becoming more and more fluid. The possibility of new, unpredictable courses of human evolution is emerging, with all the issues of governance and responsibility implied by this perspective.

These powerful dynamics of technological innovation are intimately connected with the processes of globalization and the ecosystems’ limits, which nowadays are fast and forceful too.
Ancient cultural and spiritual quests about meaning and destiny of human experience in the world are re-surfacing: both individuals and our species are deeply concerned about that.

Interaction

Increasingly, cognitive artefacts and information networks are becoming direct extensions of our mental and social dynamics. From the same origins of our species Homo Sapiens, one of the main features of humankind is the capability of creating material artefacts. They triggered very quickly the production of cognitive artefacts as well: from tools made of rocks to cave painting, from written language to technologies of communication.

Today we are experiencing a new revolution, in which quantitative and qualitative changes in the diffusion and potentialities of cognitive artefacts entail a mutation of the co-evolutionary dynamics between technology and the human species.

This transformation is so deep and powerful that it will be able to change us not only cognitively and socially, but also anthropologically in ways we never experienced in our past.

Mind

We are increasingly subject to the pressure exerced by global processes, information networks, and techno-scientific acceleration. As a consequence we have to question our components, even the deepest ones. The change that results isn’t limited to the level of theoretical knowledge, nor to that of individual awareness. It involves the whole of the individual psyche, in a historic transition where the fall of old certitudes and foundations has a strong perturbational power for everyone.

To face the current and future challenges we must develop a strong inclination for introspection, in such a way that reaches even the deepest layers of our Self.

Facing to the challenges of complexity does not require changes to our knowledge alone, but entails also – and maybe above all – emotional, relational and existential transformations.
These transformations mean developing new ways of integration of the Self, as well as constructing a new relationship between self and the world.

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History

It took years to make, but finally in 2012 the Manifesto Ibridi / Hybrid Manifesto has seen the light of day. Under the intuition and guidance of Gianandrea Giacoma the team including Gianluca Bocchi, Luisa Damiano and me – but really including a lot of other people within our network – completed the manifesto.

It is an expression of the zeitgeist. It is our expression. It’s the expression of a wider view that embraces the human being as part of a complex, interconnected and changing word. It is the expression of a rich river of thoughts flowing and connecting Heraclitus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Varela, Norman, and many others. It’s not just for the polymaths, but for all the people out there that think in a different and wider way. It is the expression of all the people that knew to be part of something without having a name to express it before now.

For a few years it had its own website, where people were able to sign up. Over 100 people signed up to say “I’m a hybrid too”.

I always appreciated the Hacker’s Manifesto written by The Mentor and even if it’s outdated I always appreciated its poetic undertones. Today I want to borrow some word from it.

I am an hybrid, and this is my manifesto.