This essay completes two heavy cycles - one on Metabolic Sovereignty and one on Philosophical Engineering. I will try to go easy for the next few weeks.
On Protocols
The Rise of the Technosphere: A New Geological Medium
Just as the object and subject of philosophy must be reconfigured, so too must its means. For most ‘worldly philosophers’ apprehension is mediated by the analysis of the great institutions of recent times: the nation-state, the market, the political party. These are the organizational forms that shaped consciousness and action. Today, the material medium in which and through which we apprehend our world has fundamentally changed. We now live within the technosphere. Coined by engineers and geologists, the term refers to the vast, interlinked, planetary-scale system of technologies, infrastructures, and communication networks that metabolize energy and resources to sustain modern human civilization.
As argued by geologist Peter Haff, the technosphere can be understood as an emergent geological phenomenon, a new stratum of the Earth system on par with the biosphere or atmosphere. With an estimated mass of 30 trillion tons—five orders of magnitude greater than the total biomass of humanity—it is the “defining system of the Anthropocene”. It comprises our cities, factories, transportation grids, energy systems, and digital networks. Haff and others raise profound philosophical questions about its nature, suggesting it operates as a “quasi-autonomous system” with its own dynamics, which has “entrained humans as essential components” rather than being fully under our control. Whether we see it as a tool, a habitat, or an autonomous agent, the technosphere constitutes the material infrastructure of contemporary life. It is the medium through which planetary processes are both enacted (e.g., through global supply chains and fossil fuel combustion) and apprehended (satellites, data centers etc).
Computation as Planetary Sensorium
At the heart of the technosphere, functioning as its central nervous system, is computation. Digital networks, satellite systems, vast sensor arrays, and planetary-scale climate models have become the primary means by which we are able to apprehend hyperobjects like global warming. These computational systems form a planetary sensorium, a distributed cognitive apparatus that allows us to perceive and make sense of phenomena that are too vast, too slow, or too complex for unassisted human cognition. They are the instruments that translate the nonlocal and phased nature of hyperobjects into data, simulations, and visualizations that we can comprehend. Without the computational power to model the Earth’s climate system or the satellite networks to monitor ice sheets and ocean temperatures, the Anthropocene as a coherent concept would be literally unthinkable. Computation is the very medium that makes the planetary scale apprehensible.
In other words, computation is a condition of possibility of Planetarity
This medium, however, is profoundly ambivalent. The same computational infrastructures that model climate change are used to optimize fossil fuel extraction. The same networks that connect global communities are used for mass surveillance and the commodification of attention. The means of apprehension can thus become a means of enclosure, reinforcing the very systems of extraction and control that philosophical apprehension must critique and overcome.
Philosophical Engineering in Practice: The Power of Protocol
This challenge brings us to the practical necessity of philosophical engineering. The inventor of the World Wide Web - no, not Al Gore , but Tim Berners-Lee - was acutely aware that the act of creating a protocol like HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is not a neutral technical task. It is an act of world-building. He explains: “when you create a protocol you get the right to ‘play God’ and define what words mean. You can define a philosophy, to define a new world”. That’s why he called his work Philosophical Engineering. As he says:
The phrase came about when we were originally discussing the idea of Web Science, and I was tickled by the fact that when you study and take exams in physics at Oxford, formally the subject is actually not physics but experimental philosophy. I thought that was quite an interesting way of thinking about physics, a kind of philosophy that one does by “dropping things and seeing if they continue to drop” – in other words, “thinking about the stuff you do by dropping things.” Then it came up again when trying to explain to people that when we design Web protocols, we actually get a chance to define and create the way a new world works. It struck me what we ended up calling “Web Science” could have been called “philosophical engineering,” because effectively when you create a protocol you get the right to “play God” and define what words mean.
To design a protocol is to establish the fundamental rules of interaction for a given system. It defines what counts as a valid entity (e.g., a URL), what actions are possible (e.g., a GET request), and how different agents relate to one another. When people use a system, Berners-Lee notes, “they have to leave their previous philosophy at the door and they have to join in and agree they will work with your system”. Protocols are, in essence, encoded philosophies. They are abstract rule-sets that structure the space of possibility for all who operate within them.
Protocols are executable conditions of possibility
This is precisely the point of intervention for a philosophy that seeks not just to interpret the world but to change it. If the technosphere runs on protocols, and these protocols currently encode values of extraction, centralization, and control, then the task of a planetary philosophy is to design and advocate for new protocols that embed different values: reciprocity, decentralization, multispecies justice, and ecological care. This is the concrete site where apprehension becomes engineering, where critique becomes code.
Yesterday’s institutions - the state, the market, the party - aren’t going away. These were the social “protocols” of their time. Today, the protocols that structure our reality are increasingly computational and networked, forming the invisible architecture of the technosphere. The very nature of this computational medium—its global reach, its capacity for simulation, its algorithmic governance—is what makes the planetary scale of the Anthropocene apprehensible in the first place. This leads to a powerful conclusion: the medium that allows us to apprehend the problem is also one of the primary sites where we must act on the problem. The means of apprehension has become the object of engineering. Philosophy can no longer afford to remain at the level of textual critique or abstract speculation. It must become technically and institutionally literate, ready to intervene at the level of protocol design, because that is where the foundations of our planetary future are being laid.
Conclusion: The Mandate for Philosophical Engineering
The Hegelian dictum that philosophy is its age apprehended in thought remains our starting point, but the emergence of the Anthropocene is forcing a radical expansion of practical philosophy’s most fundamental components. Its object has shifted from the enclosed sphere of human society to the planetary condition itself, a complex of hyperobjects and agentic systems. Its subject has widened from the solitary, classical philosopher to a multitude whose wisdom is essential for our survival. Its means have evolved from the primacy of text and debate to the critical engagement with computation and the design of protocols.
I want to end with a quote from an article I will be talking about at length on other occasions:
This simultaneity forces an uncomfortable question: Is political legitimacy purely about procedural democracy? Or must it also encompass performance, delivery, competence, and resilience? Can the virtues of technocratic governance—its efficiency, its ability to plan and build and manufacture at scale—be adopted without succumbing to authoritarian temptation?
I can’t imagine answering the questions at the end of that quote without the use of protocols for the engineering of Planetarity.