The Consequences Of Informationalism

A summary of:
Zaleski, J. (1997). The Soul of Cyberspace: How New Technology Is Changing Our Spiritual Lives. HarperEdge: New York.
Reflections business office iii – Other bits together with pieces of interest

I recall that Zaleski asks the incorrect questions a lot of the time; or at to the lowest degree he seems preoccupied amongst dissimilar things than I am. He’s interested inwards the interrogation of where blurrings may tumble out betwixt engineering together with faith (notice the emphasis is on religion, non spirituality), together with specifically how engineering may hold upward blurring our notions of religious ritual. For example, he asks, “Does sacred ritual convey a house inwards cyberspace? Is cyberspace sacred space” (6)? He is also concerned amongst the virtualization of the physical to a greater extent than generically. For example, he asks, “The online basis is a basis of hear alone. How volition the human spirit fare inwards such a realm, sundered from the mystery of the flesh? And what of the artificial intelligences – bodiless minds – that are get-go to populate cyberspace? Do artificial life-forms convey artificial souls” (6)?

These are non issues I desire to impact amongst a 90-foot pole. Not only do they seem boring, but they seem contentious together with confused. But finally, Zaleski hits upon the interrogation that interests me when he asks, “What effect does surfing the Web convey on mind, on consciousness, and, most importantly, on attending – the basic tool of spiritual realization?” (6); together with “Does cyberspace… introduce a exceptional challenge to spiritual work” (6)?

One of the things Zaleski explores is what people larn – spiritually – out of cyberspace. He interviews several religious leaders who utilisation the Internet equally an extension of their congregation/practice. Rabbi Kazen (creator of the Chabad-Lubavitch site) believes the Internet represents tremendous potential for Judaism inwards that it “frees” it (“‘The idea,’ Kazen decleares amongst a moving ridge of his hand, ‘is that Judaism has to hold upward free’” (14)!). The website is non used yesteryear his congregation, but it is a portal onto Judaism for those non already inwards the flock. Kazen also talks nigh ‘The Global Interactive Database of Good Deeds’, where “people volition hold upward able to participate inwards lighting their ain menorah, yesteryear typing inwards an deed of goodness or kindness or a positive affair that they did. And yesteryear having a map of the entire world, equally every mortal types inwards something adept that they did, merely about other business office of the basis volition hold upward lit up” (17).

Is this what I hateful when I speak nigh wanting to a greater extent than spiritual technology? No. To me it is a sort out of simulacrum of ritual; together with it is religious inwards nature, equally opposed to spiritual. Kazen’s comments expose a really objective means of agreement cyberspace – equally an data transference mechanism. And the latter instance reveals a really objective means of agreement spirituality – equally something that y'all tin mensurate yesteryear the doing of it. I’m concerned amongst the soul-nourishing ability of spirituality.

One interviewee, Sheikh Hisham Muhammad Kabbani, seems to recognize a tension betwixt engineering together with this nourishing spirituality: “I pass a fair amount of fourth dimension on the calculator because I write, create, design. There are many times when I interrogation how good spent that fourth dimension is, fifty-fifty though it’s productive fourth dimension that allows me to pattern together with create things I could non pattern together with create whatsoever other way. I appreciate that, but I don’t recall it helps my (74) inner state, together with it appears that my inner acre fifty-fifty suffers through this sort of work” (75). He explains that spell it may seem equally if a sort of mesmeric appointment inwards engineering is akin to meditative or spiritual practice, “…I don’t experience whatsoever amend for it [being absorbed inwards the screen]. I don’t recall working at the calculator returns equally much inwards the realm of character equally working inwards a garden, or painting, or playing music, or sitting downwards together with talking to merely about other human being” (75).

This inwards a higher house quote reveals the occupation amongst contemporary values surrounding ‘productivity.’ Productive fourth dimension is fourth dimension when y'all do materials amongst information, when y'all brand money, when y'all salve time. But productive fourth dimension is never defined equally ‘spiritually nourishing.’ This is because nosotros convey been subjugated yesteryear the values of technology, which are speed, efficiency, together with built on informational foundations. As John Perry Barlow says, “Cyberspace is whatsoever data space, but it’s interactive data infinite that is created yesteryear media that are densely plenty shared together with hence that there’s the feel of other people beingness present. / You could say that cyberspace is also where y'all are when you’re reading a book” (29). And “Wired Style: Principles of English linguistic communication Usage inwards the Digital Age… defines cyberspace [as]: ‘Information space…. The house betwixt phones, betwixt computers, betwixt y'all together with me’” (30). But inwards this view, at that topographic point is only void betwixt data nodes; at that topographic point is no pregnant inwards between. The infinite itself, inwards other words, is non a meaningful – or spiritual – space. To utilisation a phrase from Woody Allen (Life together with Death), it’s “an empty void.” Even Zaleski’s ain definition, which lacks whatsoever informational elements, depicts such an ‘empty void’: “For the purposes of this book, cyberspace is defined equally the virtual infinite created through the activation of a computer” (30). I would advise that making cyberspace to a greater extent than spiritual mightiness hold upward conceived equally making the spaces inwards betwixt ‘nodes’ “a total void.”

The other occupation amongst this informational agreement of cyberspace is that it makes the lack of noesis that much to a greater extent than conspicuous. “Employing Lucky’s pyramidal grid, it seems that what is transmitted through cyberspace is, inwards most cases, data – non knowledge, together with for certain non wisdom” (33)…. “mystical noesis together with wisdom are said to prevarication beyond the accomplish of logic together with of binary computation, which split unity into plurality” (33). The occupation hither is objectivism: data tin hold upward measured, noesis or wisdom cannot. If it cannot hold upward measured, how tin it hold upward bundled together with passed along inwards cyberspace? I should clarify that I don’t recall that noesis or wisdom is never exchanged online; but I do recall that this noesis together with wisdom is bundled equally data for merely about other to extract. Take, for example, The Zen Garden (http://www.nominus.com/%7Ezenyard/zenyard.htm), which packages Buddhist wisdom to hold upward collected yesteryear viewers of the site. This is explained inwards greater exceptional inwards Carr’s Rewiring the World: From Edison to Google. Carr’s notions of ‘bundling’ together with ‘flattening’ are a production of informationalism; the shallowness of experience makes us shallow. This objectivism together with informationalism places the emphasis on quantity over quality; the outcome of which, inwards the words of John Perry Barlow, is that, “My arrive at of possible experiences is multiplied hundreds of times. And the possibility for depth of those experiences is reduced. Considerably” (50).

The occupation is that at that topographic point is nil inherently meaningful nigh information. If anything, it is a distraction from deeper meaning. Sheikh Hisham Muhammad Kabbani says, ”Our humanness is beingness eroded yesteryear our ain cleverness inwards creating always greater distractions for ourselves, together with yesteryear a whole manufacture creating always greater distractions” (78). The bespeak is if data is meaningless nosotros should hardly hold upward edifice our basis on these flimsy foundations, lest nosotros lose all “meaningful meaning.” After all, “…there’s nil to a greater extent than terrible than the loss of meaning” (78). The means to preclude this is to utilisation engineering to do greater things. For example, Kabbani says, “If my sitting at the calculator is inwards merely about means an extension of my yearning, or of compassion, it may hold upward useful” (76).

To merely about extent, I fright we’re holler for the incorrect interrogation if nosotros are holler for how to brand informational engineering to a greater extent than spiritual. Why are nosotros non holler for the question, instead, Why does cyberspace convey to hold upward an informational technology? Can it non do more? Are nosotros non wasting this unique infinite which holds the most tremendous potential for spirituality inwards modern society?