Evidence in support of a "distributed self" experience is very hard to find. Only immersive Tele-robotic experiences of augmented perception have really approached this for me. Otherwise, a phone conference call should produce some sense of this state, and it doesn't. The self is the self it thinks it is, or as G. Bateson pointed out the map is the territory – what we think/imagine to be is reality. I think the power of the Internet (for now) to evoke a sense of a distributed self is more one of metaphor, and to the extent that people who use the internet hold on to or visualize this metaphor as real, the more they will have any sense of distibution.

And that's okay, too, we need powerful images to lead us; and stories to inspire us.

Where is the image, the sound, the story, the art that can be the touchstone.

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– Kevin Teixeira