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Review:The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God..."
--- The Book of Revelation
For faithful Christians, death isn't the end but the beginning of a journey whose final destination is the Heavenly City of New Jerusalem, wherein the elect will dwell forever in the light of the Lord. In this weightless city of "radiance," adorned with sapphire, emerald, topaz, God himself "will wipe away every tear.."
It's one of religion's loveliest images, and the promise of this radiant space has sparked countless quests, over centuries, for this new Jerusalem or its equivalent.
More and more spiritualists believe that this promised and long awaited land is cyberspace, a notion explored in Margaret Wertheim's new book "The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace" (Norton, US$24).
Cyberspace is a new kind of radiant space -- infinite, mysterious, dazzling, yet filled with countless ethereal connections between people.
This new view of the invisible world of the Internet was perhaps inevitable. From the first, the Net has, in its typically idiosyncratic and unpredictable way, attracted mystics and seekers along with techies, nerds, and engineers hammering away at the software and hardware, the infrastructure, that make the Net and the Web work.
This may be the only space in which geeks and gurus seem attracted in roughly equal numbers, doing radically different things side by side for utterly divergent reasons.
The nerd culture and the spiritual one have little to do with one another, unless you consider the Mp3 player a miracle, as I do. Their paths rarely cross, and if they are conscious of one another, it's rarely remarked on.
They probably wouldn't get along anyway. The geeks are louder, and lots more quarrelsome; they also have a lot more control and understanding of the technology of the Net and the Web. Yet the two tribes are connected; both dwell and wander in the same realm.
The culture of the geeks is increasingly well documented in articles, discussions. The seekers are more remote, as Erik Davis details so well in his book "Techgnosis; myth, magic + mysticicism in the age of information (Harmony Books, US$25)". In "Techgnosis," Davis describes how the technology of the Net and the Web has unveiled a new kind of techno-mysticism, replete with utopian dreams, apocalyptic visions, digital phantasms, and alien obsessions.
The contrast between the two worlds is sometimes staggering. The mystics are nearly incomprehensible, the programmers obsessively literal.
Although pornographers, hackers and virus-makers have always attracted most of the attention, the pilgrims have, from the first, been walking beside them. Next to sex and e-trading, nothing keeps a search engine humming longer than typing in "spirituality," or "religion."
"I have experienced soul-data through silicon," Kevin Kelly, the former executive editor of Wired, declared in a l995 forum in Harper's magazine. "You'll be surprised at the amount of soul-data we'll have in this new space." He was right. It is surprising.
Cyberspace philosopher Michael Heim agrees with Kelly. "Our fascination with computers is...more deeply spiritual than utilitarian," he wrote in an essay. In our "love affair" with computing machines, "we are searching for a home for the mind and heart."
Wertheim's thinking is provocative, imaginative. E-mailing, messaging, connecting to distant people in sometimes powerful ways across great distances has always had a spiritual feel. The ability to share a personal, sometimes intimate experience with a presence about whom one knows absolutely nothing material - looks, age, ethnicity - is sometimes astounding.
Cyberspace, writes Wertheim, has in recent years become the focal point of immense spiritual yearning, one whose roots go all the way back to the Middle Ages.
But Wertheim, a commentator and science writer, takes a densely academic approach to this potentially riveting subject. Her writing is stiff, formal. There is, she argues, an important parallel between cyberspace and "the spatial dualism of the Middle Ages." Spiritualists or philosophers might know what this means, but hardly anybody else will.
Such prose is distancing. It repeatedly stops this book in its tracks. "In the parlance of complexity theory," she writes, "cyberspace is an emergent phenomena, something that is more than the sum of its parts."
What's frustrating is that Wertheim is clearly onto something. This is a new kind of space, it often does have profoundly spiritual overtones, and we spend precious little time exploring them. Unfortunately, her highly intellectualized approach obscures the very idea she's trying to advance.
Yes, we are in a similar position to the Europeans of the sixteenth century who were just becoming aware of the physical space of the stars, a territory completely beyond their prior conception of reality. But we are also radically different from them. We already believe in science and technology, many of us are more or less free of religious dogma and monarchical tyranny, and we have already witnessed technological advances beyond anybody's wildest dreams in just a few short years. The Europeans were just heading into the world's first Enlightenment, and we - those of us privileged to be working and spending time online -- are knee-keep in the second.
The idea of the Net as a new kind of space, a New Jerusalem is tempting and haunting. At times, I confess I've thought of the Web in almost that way, as a wondrous, connecting, providing -- yes, almost spiritual - place.
We do sometimes seem so busy and harried keeping up with our own culture that we forget to stop and wonder at it, or consider its inherently spiritual dimensions.
But long-winded, sometimes turgid essays on spatial schemes this kind of pleasing fantasizing less, not more likely. The spiritual nature of cyberspace is intensely personal and diverse, seen and found in the human beings who use it: the old people on SeniorNet who say goodbye to their friends before they die, the terminally ill children who exchange hopeful messages in chat rooms, the geeks who give one another online gifts of websites ("check out my site," are four of the neatest words heard online), software and upgrades, the scholars who rush to help a colleague in need of information in a distant part of the world.
Wertheim's book is much too cold for a subject like this. For we do live in a radiant city, where we sometimes glimpse a new heaven and a new earth.
If you'd like to pick this book up, head over to Amazon.
The 'net is a still a wonderful place, though. It's the entire developed world in one easy to access location. Where else can you ask how to do [highly esoteric task] and get replies from France, Japan, South Africa, etc? It's also amazing how the scope of the 'net escapes the eyes of legislators in the US wh seem to think their laws on porn, spam, intellectual property, encryption, internet gambling, should somehow apply to everyone. Silly isn't it?
The Internet. Is this the Promised Land?
Maybe, but it may not be us that populate it...
See
The Age of Intelligent Machines
by Raymond Kurzweil, Ray Kurzweil
and
The Age of Spiritual Machines : When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
by Ray Kurzweil, Ray Karzweil, Alan Sklar (Narrator)
What a load of hooey.
this is so much garbage - cyberspace is the opposite of the spiritual. cyberspace is a vast consensual delusion manufactured out of bits of silicon and electrical signals. what does that have to do with the proccesses of the universe that make a flower grow, a sun burn, or a baby to be born? cyberspace is a mass deception of the spiritual, not the realisation of it. as long as you find it a useful tool to communicated and experience - fine, but don't go calling it what its not. you have no idea what it took to get you birthed into this world and consider yourself an individual consciousness with a life history. to equate cyberspace with the realm of the spiritual is sheer stupidity.
Porn is good. What's your point?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Sometimes I crack myself up!
Perhaps attachment of religious meaning/content to technology is many people's way of dealing with the complexity/confusion of technology today.
Throughtout history cultures have created myths, explainations for things which are hard to comprehend. I have seen MANY people become hopelessly confused by computers. The average Joe has no idea how a computer works, let alone network protocols, e-mail servers, and packet switching. IMHO, it seems like this would be prime feeding ground for creation of supernatural or religious explanations for why computers work the way they do. It also doesn't help when many people who understand computers bacome arrogant with their knowledge, and refuse to try and understand how technology can be confusing. The religious view of technology provides a much more comforting view of the internet and related technologies than does a computer hacker/cracker/phreaker/whatever who is absorbed in their own provincial agenda -- anti-MS/pro-Linux/pro [insert window manager here], etc. to the average person, this seems a very silly argument.
If "legitimate" means "true"...
:)
:)
How can one "accept the paths that others follow as being legitimate" if some of those paths claim that that path is not legitimate? If the belief that I hold mandates that I agree that my belief is untrue, then I believe my beliefs to be incorrect. This is nonsense.
If "legitimate" means "has a right to exist"...
What determines whether or not a set of beliefs has a right to exist? There are three possibilities: either all sets of beliefs have a right to exist, only the correct set of beliefs has a right to exist, or some beliefs have a right to exist and some do not.
I reject the argument that all sets of beliefs have a right to exist because some beliefs clearly and directly hurt people. For instance, the belief that any person should be able to kill any other person at any time is wrong and should be combatted at every opportunity. That belief does not have the right to exist.
I don't have a problem with the idea that only one set of beliefs has the right to exist, as long as that set is my own. Are you convinced?
I think we can agree that at least one set of beliefs has the right to exist, leaving us only to determine how many beliefs actually do so. How can we possibly do this? We can use our own beliefs to set the boundaries about what beliefs are correct, but those boundaries can only be counted on to be accurate if our own beliefs are true, which is not something that we can count on philosophically. (It's something I can count on, of course, but I don't know about the rest of you.)
So all we really know is that at least one set of beliefs has the right to exist. This is a far cry from "accepting all paths that others follow" as having the right to exist.
Then again, this assumes that my belief that logic is justified and desirable is true. If it's not, then all bets are off.
Know I see why everyone here is so fond of his writing.
I see Heaven.
I see Heaven everytime I look into the glassy optical sensors of my sex-bot.
I see Heaven in the downloaded pics of woman/horse sexual antics.
I see Heaven in the multitude of warez I receive (it must be divine).
I see Heaven in the MP3's I play (on my unlicensed player).
I see Heaven in IRC (PiMpD4DdY has blessed you).
I see Heaven in the multitude of like minded souls I share these experiences with (me too. 40L #4ck3rz 0wN U, bitch).
I see Heaven in the DoS attacks from the script kiddies.
I finally understand. I'm sorry for all the bad things I've said about Jon and how I've denigrated his writing and research. He truly DOES understand cyberspace.
I am humbled.
You are right, being spiritual is not the same as being religious. Being spiritual is not in the mere claim to be a Christian, it is much deeper than that. Being "religious" is mere formality.
I agree with you that you have no soul that lives on after your death. You may be interested to know however that the Bible doesn't teach this either. A soul is simply a living person, something you become when you are born. Once you die the soul is no more. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:7. The spirit the you talked about is really this breath of life that God granted at the first. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Does this mean that there is no hope beyond this life? Not at all. The Bible teaches that Jesus will come a second time to this earth. " Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen" Revelation 1:7.What does this mean? His is coming to reward those who have chosen to accept the pardon that he afers freely to all.
What is our purpose in life? Who are we and why are we really here? I believe that we were each created by a wonderful God for a unique and inestimably important purpose. Here is perhaps a hint of what life is about. "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is te wole duty of man." Ecclesiastes 12:13b.
If you want to enjoy life, then the best way to do that is to first of all understand that God wants the very best of each of us. He loves us so much that we can never fully understand his great love. Even sex is a gift from God. He established marriage at the beginning of the world to enable to people to become one--to know each other in a very intimate way physically, mentally, and spiritually. Sex by itself falls far sort of the pleasure to be had throught such a union. It is in the context of a lifelong commitment to your partner that the joy which God intended can be realized.
Each of of us is of infinite worth before heaven. We are created in the very image of God. It is because of this that mistreating others is such a heinous crime. Everyone is to be treated with dignity and respect.
If this seems to ramble a bit it is because I have some much to say, and don't wish to take up pages saying it. May you be successful in your search for happiness.
Reality is not so neat and tidy as the rationalists would have us believe.
This was the biblical plan when the Israelites took the promised land: kill the natives, otherwise they might teach you something We don't want you to know.
Who are the natives in cyberspace? Those who know, those who think for themselves, those who do not follow like sheep, those who could configure a simple SMTP connection.
And who is entering the internet? The RIAA, Al and Tipper Gore, Microsoft, those who would destroy the values of the internet and the people who hold those values close to their heart. This group tells humans that it's okay to be stupid, that anyone who isn't is some weird "culturally challenged" geek whose depravity will doom civilization. "Censor all, and do not leave alive anything that breathes" they say, "lest they teach to value something other than our religion, our money, our authority."
Hail Eris!
So is Al Gore the father, the son, or the holy ghost?
"In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned".
Anonymous Coward
If the majority of us can't accept others (I agree with this), then we should not accept any at all, in this way, following the government reasoning of "leave your religion at the front door".
The bible is made by humans not God, and thus is corrupted by humans. I feel that if there is a God, no other being on this planet can tell us anything about em, it will be something we see in our selves. I dislike mass programming of people via biblical/religious/nationalist/racists/etc viruses.
Oh, great the Eris Virus.... :)
Why don't you try reading the book or talking with the author before classifying her work as 'hooey' and other things? I heard a talk by her less than a week ago and while I may not agree with everything she says, she has some very interesting and well thought-out ideas. A lot of her ideas make sense, if you'd bother to find out what they are.
It depends what you mean by "accept". I am a Christian, and will share the planet with people of other faiths without killing them. I do believe that they are wrong and on the path to destruction, however: and I aim to save as many as possible without causing ill-feeling or hassling people. "He who has ears, let him hear".
If my God exists, then making sure that the Bible says what he wants it to shouldn't be too hard.
"I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything to hard for me?" (NIV, Jer 37:23 (IIRC))
Some people believe that because they cause controversy, or becuase they hold the minority view, it makes their ideas more "correct".
/.ers
Like
Sad. Isn't it?
Yes.
> More and more spiritualists believe that this promised and long awaited land is cyberspace
So you're suggesting that if we're good little Christians, when we die, we'll go to the Internet?
> The geeks are louder, and lots more quarrelsome
Umm... have you watched the news lately? Or ever? The word "Palestine" ring any bells? How about "Northern Ireland"? "Serbian Muslims"? Us geeks may be vocal, but I've never heard of anyone getting shot or bombed over a platform "war" (paintball doesn't count).
> Next to sex and e-trading, nothing keeps a search engine humming longer than typing in "spirituality," or "religion."
That's because sex, money, and religion are the humanity's primary driving forces. It has nothing to with a deep-rooted spirituality of the network and more than e-trading means that there's a deep-rooted mercantilism to the network, or porn sites mean that there's a deep-rooted sexuality to the network.
Oh, sorry, you think that there _is_ a deep-rooted sexuality to the network. I'd forgotten about the sex bots. Well, a.b.p.erotica.* is over there... have fun.
> unless you consider the Mp3 player a miracle, as I do.
It's not a miracle, it's engineering. This whole thing boils down to Clarke's Law, doesn't it? ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")
You don't understand the 'net, so you think it must be some magical gift from the heavens, if not heaven itself. You can't get your mind around hardware pushing electrical impulses, so you talk about ethereal connections between souls. You don't understand the tech, so you buy a magic wand (slightly dented in shipping), and tell everyone you're a magician now.
The 'net's nothing special and nothing new, and certainly nothing mystical. The first time a caveman yelled and waved to another caveman in the distance, that was the beginning of the 'net. Since then, it's just been a matter of tech. Through smoke signals, written messages, telegraph, telephone, fiber... Increased speed, increased range, increased bandwidth. Just tech. The communication stays the same. People stay the same, whether you talk to them in person, over the phone, or over IRC. They don't instantly become mystics because you make an ethereal connection with their soul in a chat room.
Actually, I don't see what's wrong with believing you're entitled to kill anyone any time you want. Acting on that belief is another story... it would tend to remove other people's ability to hold their own legitimate set of beliefs, but the mere holding of the belief harms no one (except possibly the holder... and that's their problem).
Nah, screw it. You're right, there's only one legitimate path. If you don't follow the word of Eris Discordia, you're going to go to Thud and be bored far beyond the limits of mortal flesh for all eternity. I have spoken. If you don't agree with me, your beliefs don't have the right to exist, and must be combatted at every opportunity.
But many, like myself are not.
I've been Pagan since about 1980...and loving it!
Ultimately, we all find our paths, those who go seeking for them, that is. It is only when we can all accept the paths that others follow as being legitimate can we get closer to solving some of the *real* problems on this planet.
ttyl
Farrell J. McGovern
Chronicler, Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Yes, but the real question is...Does the Goddess prefer Linux or Windows? Linux, I am sure...Blessed Be the Goddess Eris, Matron of Chaos and Computer!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Speaking of transhumanism and other wacky stuff, check out the book Great Mambo Chicken and The Transhuman Condition.
DCMonkey
I read in the book "The Microsoft File" that Ray Noorda always refers to Bill Gates as "Pearly Gates". (and Ballmer as the Embalmer)...
So the title "Pearly Gates of Cyberspace" made me shiver...
This is Katz at his best.
heaven? i thought it was a place to get gameboy roms and download the latest kernel patches...guess i was wrong and its a promised land...at least to losers w/ no life (yes i DO get out and do stuff)
"Yes! Blessed be the Lord! I got my PPP working finally," spake Jon.
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
I didn't know New Jerusalem had this much porn!
(Those whacky techno Christians, what are we going to do with them?)
Fnord.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If it really is the Promised Land, then why isn't God smiting spammers left and right? Wouldn't their business be roughly equivalent to putting those little ad insert cards that make up half the weight of most magazines into Bibles? I would think that he'd be kinda ticked about that.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"religion is a vast consensual(ish) delusion manufactured out of bits of carbon and electrochemical signals"
~ ^~~^~
Unless of course it isn't. Do you really know or do you just say that on faith? Yes of course you do. I wouldn't worry about it except that faith seems synonomous with delusion with you. (I'm not arguing one way or the other, just pointing out the flaw in that logic.)
But aside from this nonesence, there is two different articles here, the book (which I haven't and I don't think any of the posters have read) and Katz's review. Any differences in oppinion with Kats probably means you need to read the book too.
I for one find the article interesting but will hold my opinion until I know more. But one thing I can say for sure is that however spiritual/not spiritual the internet is, it isn't the New Jerusalem.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~
Speaking of saying things "on faith" - you seem pretty certain of how and what I think - I assume you've got a direct line to my subconscious...
This sounds a lot like that Dialogue in Gross Anatomy between the professor and the punk-arrogant student...
______________________________
"Were you guessing?"
"Am I right?"
"Yes."
"Then I wasn't guessing."
______________________________
In any case, "I could be wrong, or I could be right" means you don't know for sure. And if you don't know for sure but believe you are right anyway (becuase you have in your possestion reasonable evidence), isn't that faith? It is to me.
I'm not flaming, I just think that faith is a misunderstood word. Thats all.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
Can YOU prove differently?
That would be boring, wouldn't you rather me prove my Dad can beat up your Dad?
:)
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
Thanks for putting it so well.~
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
Any statement made has the possibility to be wrong.
~ ^~
Unless of course it is right.
Then it can't possibly be wrong. So does that mean we give up, sitting around on our thumbs becuase people think it is impossible to find real truth?
Just becuase society hasn't agreed on truth does that mean its impossible to find/have?
No faith isn't imagionation, but it isn't educated guessing either. It is the evidence of things not seen, and the assurance of things hoped for. Evidence and assurance being key words here.
But faith is built on one undeniable foundation, that being the existance of absolute truth. That is where I say, "Any statement has the possibility of being wrong, unless of course it is right."
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~
The idea that the Internet is some sort of spiritual realm would be laughable, were it not so frightening that someone would come up with it.
In the ancient world, people resorted to spiritualistic explanations because they honestly did not know what caused the thunder, or the phases of the moon, or the seasons. They believed that there was no way that we could learn what "really" caused these phenomena, and so they ascribed the phenomena to the gods or spirits. As our knowledge of the world progressed, we learned that we can know what really causes all these things. We can formulate physical, material explanations of them all.
Thunder is not the wrath of Zeus or Jehovah; it is the explosion of the air caused by lightning, which is an electrostatic discharge. The phases of the moon are not caused by it being devoured and regurgitated by dragons, nor are they the menstrual cycle of a goddess; they are caused by the angle formed by the sun, moon, and earth. The seasons result from the tilt of the earth altering the exposure of the two hemispheres to the sun's rays.
The way we find out these explanations is called the scientific method: the method of observation, hypothesis, and experiment. The knowledge that results from the scientific method is properly called natural history or natural philosophy, though in this century we've slipped to simply calling it science or scientific knowledge. The uses to which we put this knowledge are called technology, and the method by which we create technology is called engineering.
Technology works because the scientific method works. The scientific method works because materialism -- the belief that the workings of the universe are physical and knowable, not mystical and unknowable -- is true.
To spiritualize technology is to invent an absurdity. However, worse than that, it is to demonstrate the very truth which distinguishes technology from mysticism: the fruits of technology are available even to those who do not understand the principles of science upon which engineering rests. The boons which science makes possible are useful even to people who do not believe in the scientific method.
(Contrast this with spiritualism, mysticism, and religion. Religionists are always after us to have Faith. If we do not have Faith, we cannot, they say, receive the blessings that religion has to offer. Televangelists reject the scientific method even as they use its fruits, the technology of radio broadcasting, to reach their gullible audiences. The ingratitude is astounding.)
The fact that people spiritualize and mystify the Internet is evidence that scientific education is failing. We cannot maintain our present level of technical advancement if our society slips into ignorance of science -- if we are deluded by spiritism. Already fundamentalists oppose the teaching of evolution in schools because it conflicts with their mystical, spiritual belief about the origins of life. If the idea that the Internet is a spiritual entity got into the general population, the next thing we know, the religionists would want to prohibit the masses from learning that it's really just a bunch of computers and wires. Electronic engineering would become the province of priests.
Now, class, go read "If This Goes On..." by Robert A. Heinlein.
information is free.
the only question is:
Scott Draves
"this is so much garbage"
:)
I'm inclined to agree. However:
"cyberspace is the opposite of the
spiritual.cyberspace is a vast consensual
delusion manufactured out of bits of silicon
and electrical signals."
"religion is a vast consensual(ish) delusion
manufactured out of bits of carbon and
electrochemical signals"
That part doesn't seem to hold up so well
I think it's just part of the age old pattern:
Random things [that people don't understand very well] happen, people can't cope with the idea that life is arbitrary and chaotic, people try to find order/meaning where there isn't any, people cook up the most bizarre ideas, and then cling to them desperately. .
-- fsck -f -b 8193
"Do you really know or do you just say that
on faith? Yes of course you do"...
There's a difference between "just saying that on faith" and observing people's behaviour and drawing your own conclusions. I could be wrong, or I could be right - I happen to think my point of view is more self consistent than any religion that's ever been pitched to me: Speaking of saying things "on faith" - you seem pretty certain of how and what I think - I assume you've got a direct line to my subconscious...
[Just in case you do... where did I leave my keys? I can't remember...]
-- fsck -f -b 8193
Yes there is such a thing as cyberspace. It's a word. It's an idea. You may agree with what you think some people believe it means or you may not, but there it is, in your head. You make it exist, along with all the people who have certain interpretations of it in their heads.
Words and ideas have power. I think few people can argue with that. Open Source is words and ideas and they have very real power to threaten some very powerful corporations.
You may say that it's not words and ideas, that it is coding and long hours of debugging. This is also correct. But the words and ideas had the power to get thousands of programmers to spend the time coding and debugging.
Most of the mystic's terminology for describing this kind of power makes mosts of us reject what they are saying without actually listening to it. A lot of it is admittedly pure BS, but some of it actually provides some insight into how this power works.
If you take the idea that "cyberspace is the New Jerusalem" literally to mean that "cyberspace is an actual location in some other plane of existence accessible through my modem and in that plane there is a city called New Jerusalem with all the jewels and stuff" it is indeed ridiculous. But if you take into account the fact that many people have a somewhat shared image in their mind of something which is beyond their day to day existence, whether it is inspired by Judeo-Christian sources or not and that the experience of being online makes them somehow relate to that idea - this is powerful stuff. It doesn't need to be "true" or "false", it's just there. I suspect the majority of people who share this idea also don't believe it to be literally true, but it's still there. You can't ignore something which many people have in their heads. For example, many people have in their heads the strange notion that green pieces of paper are worth something. They are only worth something as long as enough people have that idea in their heads.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
The New Jerusalem is a 1,960,000 square mile city built from gold with jasper walls 200 feet thick (or high) (Rev 21:16-17) exclusive to people who do nothing shameful or deceitful as judged by God (:27). (Judging by the gospel message I think it would be fair to add the words "any more" to that, otherwise the place would be empty.)
Not exactly difficult to spot with modern technology.
I can't see how the internet could possibly be the New Jerusalem, except of course in the sense of the word "NOT".
Free Nudies For Everyone!!!
Honestly, thats about the most intelligent response you can muster to such rubbish.
"The [insert nice attribute here] Gates (note the caps) of Cyberspace" has been brought to you by Microsoft. ;)
The nerd culture and the spiritual one have little to do with one another, unless you consider the Mp3 player a miracle, as I do.
I guess that if by spiritual culture you mean the bible-thumping, proselytizing, tent-revival crowd, then you're probably right. Or even if you're just talking about the church-going crowd. But I disagree that geeks and the spiritual don't go together.
My disagreement is based more on your use of the term spiritual. What you describe I would call religious or more specifically, Christian, and I don't see either of those as synonymous with spiritual.
Although there may be much of the spiritual in religion, and in Christianity, I like to see a broader definition used. This is not without precedent: don't we sometimes speak of a "spirited" horse, or a "spirited" wine? Have you ever heard a critic say that the orchestra played "with spirit"? There are probably a thousand other examples.
So why does a "spiritual" person have be one that's religious, or one that believes in the literal existence of God? Why, in fact, does a "spiritual" person have to be some that believes in the literal existence of the spirit, or soul?
I'm an atheist. I don't believe that I have a soul -- something that will live on beyond my body and still be me. But I like to think of myself as a spiritual person, because I like to contemplate matters that are traditionally associated with the "spirit": who am I, really? Does life have any purpose, or do I have to define my own? What is the nature of mind, and why does my "self" feel so real, so permanent?
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...
My point is that the spiritual and the religious are not the same, and that if you use a broader definition of "spiritual" then geeks and the spiritual are not so distant. The Spiritual is as much a state of mind as anything -- a transcendent moment when the sense of self expands to encompass, embrace, to grok someone or something else. When that other becomes a part of self, and you take away something of the other even after the Spiritual moment passes.
I have found the Spiritual in contemplating the universe and my place in it. I have found the Spiritual in really good sex. I have even found the Spiritual in a meditative moment with a glass of fine Scotch.
I am a geek and I am Spiritual. But please don't confuse me with the religous. Thank you.
--JT
Thou Art God
I have found happiness, thank you, in my wife, my beautiful children, my friends, my job, and in being a "spiritual" person. Oh, and I know my purpose in life, just as I know that each person must find their own.
--JT
It is giant structure made of sand.
It is the bazaar where every sensual desire can be gratified.
It is a place where your personality becomes the traded currency.
It is a tool for verbal and visual communication, nothing more. It is a neutral force. Real believers in the New Jerusalem have much higher expectations than the internet. I also recall a scripture in Revelation that describes the population in the End Times thinking like One Mind. One must be careful armchair scriptural interpretation. One's interpretations can slice both ways. Be careful if what you interpret as dawning the age of Jesus could also dawn the same for Satan.
It is a tool for greed and good. It is no promised land. Jon Katz does not have clear thinking.
I'll tell you why the internet is not "the new jerusalem".
The new jerusalem is heaven. If you sit down and think really hard about what heaven would be like, you come to the inevitable conclusion that it would be REALLY REALLY REALLY BORING. If you take a close look at christianity, pretty much everything that is enjoyable is sinful in one way or the other. The internet is WAY too much fun to be heaven.
-Laxative
I can't believe anyone would publish this book.
This author needs to be educated.
Romans 10:9-10
I'm into mysticism as much as the next guy, but I don't think cybersapce is a new place for mystical experiences. Quite the opposite.
/. and the rest of it may be a mystical experience to you, but for me it's just a more efficient means of communication. Not heaven, hell, or purgatory. Cyberspace is just packets, and, translated, there's still a high SNR.
Point one: there's no such thing as cyberspace. Get over it. The web is just HTML and USENET is something less than that. If I ping your IP address have we made a cosmic connection? If you email me are we brothers in the mystic order of Sendmail? If you answered yes to either of these questions, please stop reading now.
Point two: cyberspace will be ubiquitous soon and no one will know or care what you are talking about. The web is all exciting and new, but very soon this Love Boat of dropped packets and bad dial-up connections will dock. Evreyone will have web access, just like everyone has cars, and TVs, and no one will think of this as a mystic place.
Counterpoint: the argument could be made that not EVERYONE will have access to the internet. Impoverished people around the world and even in America (Say it ain't so!) don't have cars, TVs, or even telephones today. This is correct. My statement that the internet will become ubiquitous merely implies that it will become so common and mundane that people will no longer take notice of its newness.
Jon,
From Katz: "This may be the only space in which geeks and gurus seem attracted in roughly equal numbers, doing radically different things side by side for utterly divergent reasons. "
Or you could just look at an Interstate highway, or cable TV, or intercept the varying phone calls which traverse our POTS. If you pigeon hole people enough, if you apply enough diverse labels and stereotypes, then the internet becomes an exciting melting pot. I am a geek. The guy three web sites over and to the left is a mystic. His neighbor is a pornographer. Rejoice in our diversity!
The internet is an incredibly diverse place "filled with countless ethereal connections between people."
The world is an incredibly diverse place "filled with countless ethereal connections between people."
If I invite enough people to my house then, my back yard is an incredibly diverse place "filled with countless ethereal connections between people."
The subtitle of this book is "A History of Space from Dante to the Internet." In Medieval times, people thought of themselves in terms of two different kinds of space: located in physical space, and located in "spiritual" space. People felt that they needed to have some kind of a "place" where their soul existed. The medieval conception of the universe was that the universe ended somewhere past the solar system, at the sphere of the fixed stars.
That description was probably a bit cryptic, but the gist of it is that when modern science came around, people suddenly started believing that the universe extends infinitely in every direction. This removed the possibility of "spiritual" space existing outside of the physical universe; if the physical universe never ends, where is the outside?
Margaret Wertheim's thesis is that some people are starting to believe that "cyberspace" is a real space, that some people are viewing in spiritual terms. After all, you can sit down in front of a computer, and visit someone's web site. In some sense, you really are in a different place. You're still physically sitting in your chair, but some aspect of you has "surfed" over to a faraway place. Maybe it's not your soul that has traversed this great distance, but some aspect of your consciousness has.
At any rate, at the end of her presentation, she said that she did not believe that cyberspace could end up being spiritual fulfilling. Some people may be thinking of cyberspace in terms that are highly suggestive of the Christian view of heaven (some part of you will be immortal, etc.) but as Wertheim said, being stuck in a world of "frat boys' pages discussing God and Nietzsche sounds more like hell than heaven." I'd have to say I agree with that.
However, I do also think she has a point. When we think of going to the Internet, we do think of "going" somewhere; in most people's mind, the Internet is a place. We can analyze it down to its nodes and network wires, but the Internet is more than that. There's something we've built up inside our minds that has some level of reality to it. Now I think I'm done "visiting" slashdot. I think I'll go back to the real world...
Hell, if this is heaven i've been skrewed =)
MY ideal place to live would involve me, some high end sgi's, some cool programs that need to be written with some cool people, beer, sausage rolls (mmmm!), linux, OpenBSD.
Oh, and some of the latest games ported over to wahtever i happened to be workon at the moment.
perfect! (not that Microsoft isnt in here.)
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
Actually the universe IS as tidy as CSICOP claims.
But my real point is that your right, windows is reliable. I mean, i know windows crashes, but it has never SUPRISED me by crashing, i just go "Oh, how typical. windows crashed." heh.
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
...to know that if the net ever goes down totally, we can just all leap on our roofs and start grunt and waving wildly and we can do all our old stuff almsot exactly as we used to =)
ehehahh ok, i realize what you mean its just a funny picture =)
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
OK, Cliff Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil was a big,
rambling book, but the point should be well taken.
The internet is cool, technology is cool, they're
both a barrel of fun, useful, and many other
positive things. But they are _not_ a panacea or
the solution to all problems. Go outside once in
a while. You do better general thinking, and
sometimes you even hack better.
Tweet, tweet.
Certainly, computer and networking technology have created, and will create, great social and economic changes. (Good or bad changes, that is a different question.) But I am baffled as to how this changes the fundamental human spiritual condition:
And the Internet changes all this ... how?
I take it on faith that the 'net works as fiber-optic cables, silicon, etc... though I ahve no absolute proof. It might not be. The 'net might be completely non-physical/spiritual, that happens to appear as though it is not. Can YOU prove differently?
It's the fine, but distinct, line between educated guessing, and pseudo-random guessing with an almost unshakeable belief that your guess is correct and must not be second guessed for fear of losing everything....run on and on and on and on.
Is this some kind of weird joke?
I mean really the duality of the soul is explained on page 30! Along with othe models of spirituality though the ages. If you can't get as far as page 30...
For you to critisize Wertheim's writing style is too much. Personaly I find you wordy and full of fluf. Still each to there own.
Sounds like the promised land to me! :)
.. wouldn't be too surprised if this gets moderated down ...
hehe
Sounds like a poor mans excuse to write a book and make money to me.
...that we already live in heaven. More information than I could possibly assimilate in 100 lifetimes, sound good me like login.
"No phyiscal bodies or countenence, to be judged solely on ones thoughts and the ability to share and define them, a single, simple intelligence floating on a digital stream of nothings and somethings."
from "Crap I just Made Up"-Wah
+&x
*sigh*
And I thought the geek community was more accepting of this...
You worship a Web Server - and a crappy one at that!
:-)
I'm having trouble with my account, but I posted the previous comment. nemo.
If anyone has some extra time and is willing to watch John Dvorak, the author was on Silicon Spin Wednesday. Real Video for 28.8 and 56k.
(Spoiler: Transhumanism and 'uploading').
The word describes nothing. It does not mean
anything in particular. The WWW is NOT ``cyberspace'' in the William Gibson sense. Not even close.
Silly metaphorical word association games aside, the technology involved in the WWW has absolutely no direct bearing on religion and the myriad mounds of new-age nonsense. Unless of course the WWW (or its future variants) are used as ICONS for said social phenomenon, but then again, almost anything can be a religious/spiritual focal point.
If quacks and hippies really do gather via IRC/chatrooms/etc... and generate terabytes of nonsense, nothing has changed except that the S/N ratio is dropping just that much faster.
Apparently Not.
Looks like Jonkatz actually believes the stuff he writes.
Some people believe that because they cause controversy, or becuase they hold the minority view, it makes their ideas more "correct".
Sad. Isn't it?
I suppose wherever people choose to seek their own personal spirituality is really their business. If someone reaches some state of enlightenment while web surfing, well, hooray for them.
It seems to me that people always grab onto the latest technical innovention with an almost surprising avarice. It surprises me how people, by and large resistant to change in their fear of the new and unknown, grab hold of an idea or a product and herald it as having some kind of earth shattering impact on humanity. The TV didn't turn out to be that cool. Really. In the internet, we have something that is mysterious to the average person. They don't know how it works, why it works, but it does work. It's unlike anything they've ever seen, and fear of it and fascination with it combine in a compelling need for people to 'get connected'. (Hey man, everybody's doing it.)
I'm always so terribly disappointed when people capitalize on the spiritual seeking of the masses. Most people are so confused anyway that they're perfectly willing to throw away $25 in hopes of finding some new, easier, faster way to the spiritual fulfillment they're seeking. What better way to promise instant gratification than by pushing spirituality in a medium where pointing and clicking gives you results?
Really, it's a sad commentary on our society that inward-seeking, or searching for God, or whatever has become such a big seller.
Just one last question... If I'm wrong and they're right, do you suppose God prefers Linux or Windows?
Any statement made has the possibility to be wrong.. I could say that there is, right now, air in my kitchen and be wrong..
it's entirely possible that by some cosmic fluke of entropy all the air in my kitchen found my livingroom to be a lower-pressure environment and vacated the kitchen (at least for a fraction or two of a second). So if faith is saying something is correct when you can't be sure, then apparently everything anybody has ever said has been entirely based on faith.. or maybe we just need a new defenition.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
One thing the net is good at doing is connecting people across physical borders -- Linux users, Christians, whatever. I spend most of my 'fun' computer time participating in a mailing list for Anglicans/ Episcopalians. There are about three hundred of us and we can be as bitchy and as encouraging as the best of /. There are quite a few geeks on this list, including a real UNIX heavyweight; ie people who know better than to fall for the where-do-you-want-to-go-today rhetoric. We don't seek 'enlightenment' from email, it's mostly a space for reflecting on our religious activities out in the 'real world'.
And by the way -- the Deity likes Linux for sure!
This is basic Jungian psychology. Programmers *must* be literal during their working hours, and this pulls out the "chaotic" aspects of their shadow. Some of us embrace it; others are spooked by it and yet others deny it then turn around and embedded flight simulators into spreadsheets and wonder why people get upset.
Likewise, the "mystics" embrace the "chaotic" aspects of life and their shadow pulls up the structured aspects. Some of them become control freaks (e.g., self-castrating Heaven Gaters, or much of the "religious right") and some of them are attracted to computer systems but they can't quite explain why.
The reason is simple: computers (even Windows) are remarkably reliable and consistent... at least compared to what they deal with on a daily basis. (Linux, of course, is Nirvana.) The mystic's claims of how computers work leave us rolling in the aisle, but the important thing is that it provides balancing structure to their life. Before you laugh at them too hard, what do you do to achieve such balance? Or do you really think the universe is as tidy as CSICOP claims?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Of course *we* see Windows as notoriously flaky. And it is; the same hardware that runs Linux flawlessly for months will lock up after a few days with Windows.
:-( (That's why pseudoscience is so rampant in the field, and James Randi is a patron saint of us skeptical mystics.) To them, even the flakiest system we have ever seen is highly reliable.
But think about it from the perspective of most people. Compare Windows crashing vs... traffic patterns. How "reliable" are traffic signals? (I know I always check cross traffic before entering an intersection after a red light turns green.)
How "reliable" are physics experiments? In my undergraduate program, we always laughed at the Intro to Physics students who could get g=9.81m/s^2 using a meter stick, rubber ball and stop watch. Us physics upperclassmen were happy to get g=10+/-2 m/s^2 with the same gear. I don't think I *ever* got the same answers twice to any lab exercise except for a few involving microwaves.
Yet that's physics, one of the hardest of sciences. Many (not all) of the mystics are dealing with real phenomena under virtually no control... and few of them realize it.
(BTW, CSICOP has a far better grasp of reality than most FOX shows, but it's still a fairly limited worldview. Every so often the experts do learn something new which explains a former bit of "nonsense," but after reading SI for many years I don't expect to learn it from them.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken