Cyber Soul-Space

A summary of:
Wertheim, M. (1999). The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Virago Press: London.
Chapter seven - Cyber Soul-Space

This chapter explores the ways inwards which cyberspace is uniquely poised for comparing alongside religious - i.e. Christian - eschatology. The parallel lies inwards the perceived possibility of trancendence that this novel infinite offers. After all, Revelation is about: "Transcendence over earthly squalor as well as chaos, as well as higher upward all transcendence over the limitations of the body" (256). As Lanier says (quoted past times Wertheim), "I run across the Internet every bit a syncretic version of Christian ritual, I genuinely do. There's this sensibility as well as transcendence that's applied to computers, regularly. Where did that come upward from? That's a Christian idea" (253).

Wertheim presents numerous examples of people adopting sartorial religiosity (much the way an admitted atheist, Stephen Hawking, does when he speaks of the Mind of God) inwards their speaking well-nigh cyberspace as well as its potential to grant salvation. Wertheim calls this "posited immortal self, this thing that tin privy supposedly alive on inwards the digital domain after our bodies die", the "cyber-soul" (266). "What nosotros remove hold here, alongside these visions of cyber-immortality as well as cyber-resurrection, is an travail to re-envision a soul inwards digital form" (266). The enquiry is why many remove hold come upward to bring this substitution.

The answer, according to Wertheim, has its roots inwards Pythagorean mysticism:

A contemporary of the Buddha inwards India, of Zoroaster inwards Persia, of Confucius as well as Lao-tzu inwards China, Pythagoras was a mystic of a uniquely Western stripe. Half a millenia earlier the nascence of Christ, he formulated a radically dualistic philosophy of nature that continues to echo inwards cybernautic visions today. According to the Samian sage, the nub of reality lay non inwards affair - inwards the iv elements of earth, air, fire, as well as H2O - but inwards the immaterial magic of numbers. For Pythagoras, the numbers where literally gods, as well as he associated them alongside the gods of the Greek pantheon. True reality, according to him, was non the plane of matter, but the transcendent realm of these number-gods.
For Pythagoras, the soul likewise was essentially mathematical. To him it was the soul's mightiness to limited things rationally - literally to inwards price of ratios - that was its primary characteristic. In Pythagorean cosmology, the truthful abode of the sol was the transcendent realm of the number-gods, as well as after decease this is where all souls would return" (267).

As Wertheim explores inwards greater depth inwards her previous book, Pythagoras' Trousers, the irony is that Pythagorean mysticism was a religion, but it is the seedbed of modern physics (which nosotros tend to retrieve of every bit beingness unquestionably secular), i.e. the wishing to honour mathematical relationships underlying phyiscal phenomena. And indeed this thinking has paved the way for the wild imaginings of the cyber enthusiasts. Wertheim comments on the implausible scenario nosotros honour ourselves in: "That this site of religious expectation is beingness realized through the by-products of scientific discipline - the forcefulness that so effectively annihilated the soul-space of the medieval populace moving painting - is certainly 1 of the greater ironies of our times" (255).

To me, it seems that the religiousness of this cybertalk verges on idolatry, rather than resembling what I would telephone phone spirituality. Commenting on the connotations of Gibson's famous cyber novel, Neuromancer, David Thomas says it suggests "that cyberspace must live understood non only inwards narrowly socioeconomic terms, or inwards price of a conventional parallel culture, but also... [as a] potential creative cybernetic godhead" (254). (A similar notion of the godhead tin privy live constitute inwards the Matrix trilogy; the twist inwards these, however, is the recognition of this godhead every bit false, as well as the subsequent affirmation of the human higher upward this imitation godhead when Neo breaks through as well as destroys the Matrix.) The indicate I am making is that nosotros may worship this novel godhead, it is a God that demands null of us but our reverence, as well as it requires none of the demands of spiritual life.

One thing cyberspace seems to assist us exercise is bring the plausibility of an immaterial self - e.g. nosotros tin privy all grasp the me-but-not-me-ness of an avatar - which solves 1 of the greater religious conundrums. For centuries, theologians spoke of an incomprehensible "glorified body", "free from the limits of the mortal flesh", "in every feel incorruptible": "Just what it meant to remove hold a trunk inwards a house that was, strictly speaking, exterior infinite as well as fourth dimension was a enquiry that much vexed medieval scholars, but tha was indeed the seat on which all the bully theologians insisted" (259). We larn it now.

But the error nosotros brand - it's a small, seemingly logical fountain - is to retrieve that avatars are or could be this "glorified body". And this is never to a greater extent than evident inwards the linguistic communication adopted past times the virtual reality community, as well as inwards item the sub-community inside this, the proponents of downloading ourselves into cyberspace to accomplish deathless, cyber-eternity. The fault of this logic lies inwards the fact that at that topographic point has been some other serial of substitutions along the way: the transmutation of the human from an ineffable "self", to a cloth composite of atoms, to (finally) a "pattern of data" (e.g. FMRIs): "Such cybernautic dreams of transcending bodily limitations remove hold been fueled past times an key philosophical shift of recent years: The growing catch that human is defined non past times the atoms of his body, but past times an information code" (260).

Perhaps an ever greater fault of this logic, inwards my opinion, is inwards the misunderstanding of the indicate of religion, which I personally run across every bit a code for how to live a improve person. For reasons that brand perfect sense, nosotros are obsessed alongside the notion of salvation. But I would debate that capitalism (and its psychosis, consumerism) has created a civilization where nosotros bring the abstracted object every bit a satisfactory embodiment of the existent thing; as well as every bit such, nosotros would readily bring the shortcut to sky of downloading ourselves into eternity. Consider how this industrial plant for money: As Marx said, "Along alongside the useful qualities of the products themselves, nosotros issue of sight both the useful grapheme of the diverse kinds of labour embodied inwards them, as well as the concrete forms of that labour; at that topographic point is null left but what is mutual to them all; all are reduced to 1 as well as the same sort out of labour, human labour inwards the abstract." I am suggesting that this same abstraction has happened for salvation: it is reduced to the terminate value, i.e. eternity, but obscures the necessary human labor, i.e. the difficult move of beingness a goodness person. The final result is that nosotros run across it every bit only plausible to bring a shortcut to heaven. After all, inwards a capitalist world, "He who tin privy purchase bravery is brave, though a coward." So long every bit nosotros tin privy larn eternity, it hardly matters that nosotros don't deserve it. (I would honey to explore this thought further... but non here.)

Wertheim says it best: "In cyberspatial fantasies of reincarnation as well as immortality, the soul's eternity entails no ethical demands, no moral responsibilities. One gets the immortality wages of religion, but without whatsoever of the obligations" (269). This is because, crucially, "The cyber-soul... has no moral context" (269). Here nosotros run across a perversion of the Pythagorean origins: "In the master copy Pythagoreanism, to bring away the moral context would remove hold been to spiritually bankrupt the entire scheme - which is effectively what the novel cyber-Pythagoreanism has done" (270).

It makes sense, then, that nosotros are so keen to justify our deservingness of cyber-salvation past times imagining "the divine parts of ourselves, that nosotros invoke inwards that space" (Pesce, 253). Where is the evidence of this divinity? There are examples of it, I'm certain (see Hawken's Blessed Unrest), but at that topographic point are in all likelihood far to a greater extent than examples of troll-like behavior. Nothing well-nigh this space, I would argue, necessitates divine behavior.

One of the problems that Wertheim highlights (although I would emphasize it much to a greater extent than than she does!) alongside regards to this obliteration of the cloth self is that it devalues physical communities. "What is left out hither is the chemical constituent of community as well as one's obligations to the wider social whole" (280).

Orthodox Christian theologians remove hold long stressed that an essential reasons for valuing life inwards the flesh is that on the physical plane nosotros are bound into physical communities to whom nosotros remove hold obligations as well as responsibilities. Someone who does non value life inwards the trunk is less probable to experience obligated to contribute to their physical community: Why bother helping a sick friend if you lot believe he would live improve off dead? Why bother trying to extend life inwards the flesh if you lot retrieve it is an evil to live transcended every bit speedily every bit possible (279)?

Futher: "Commentator Paulin Borsook has noted that the civilization of the Silicon Valley cyber-elite is indeed imbued alongside a deeply self-serving libertarianism that shuns responsibleness toward physical communities. It is a vogue she price 'cyber-selfishness'" (279-80). This is why I retrieve it's of import to reenvision the Internet inwards spiritual terms, maybe foremost from the notion of "selflessness."

As a side note, I remove hold to wonder what happens to this possible divinity - which has obvious moral implications - if nosotros ever exercise accomplish immortality. Do nosotros fifty-fifty demand faith at all 1 time nosotros remove hold conquered death? I genuinely concur alongside Richard Dawkins that human morality does non depend on religion; but I exercise retrieve that if nosotros succeed inwards removing the demand for religion, nosotros volition experience a substantial loss as well as move through a long flow of moral bewilderment.

I wonder if 1 of the interventions nosotros tin privy brand inwards a revisioning of the Internet would live to reintroduce decease into technology. We tend to chuck information into this infinite every bit if preserving it inwards a sub-zero freezer. It volition remain at that topographic point forever, inwards instance nosotros demand it later. But what if information had an expiration appointment on it? It would require to a greater extent than attentive care, as well as an editing middle inwards the foremost place. Would nosotros genuinely pose travail into maintaining negative contributions? Or would this compel us to contribute to a greater extent than positively?

I am getting the impression that if nosotros blueprint technologies from the perspective of this Western business of thinking, or indeed invoke Christian rhetoric, the path inevitably leads to the evolution of increasingly realistic virtual reality simulations. Consider this quote from a virtual reality modeling linguistic communication (VRML) expert, Pesce: "Let us laid out alongside the object of desire. It exists, it has existed for all of time, as well as volition move along eternally. It has held the attending of all mystics as well as witches as well as hackers for all time. It is the Graal. The mythology of the Sangraal - the Holy Grail - is the archetype of the revealed illumination withdrawn. The revelation of the graal is e'er a personal as well as unique experience. ...I know - because I remove hold heard it countless times from many people across the populace - that this minute of revelation is the mutual chemical constituent inwards our experience every bit a community. The graal is our theater foundation" (251). For the virtual reality folk, enlightenment lies inwards realizing the absurdity of our thinking that at that topographic point is pregnant inwards our physical reality, whatsoever to a greater extent than than at that topographic point is if nosotros were living inwards 1 bully estimator program. If it is existent enough, they suggest, nosotros wouldn't fifty-fifty know that nosotros are living inwards a simulation. Everything that seems existent is not. All is illusion.

Now that I write that, it seems an almost perfect application (though clearly a perversion) of Buddhism to the digital realm. But I retrieve the key departure is inwards the implications of this inwards the cybernautic sense, which equates to an imperative for a grab everything, free-for-all (Wertheim describes this inwards the side past times side chapter every bit a digital equivalent of Western imperialism, the colonization of cyberspace (294)). Something quite unlike happens when you lot translate this nothingness every bit a telephone phone to dwell inwards a mental/emotional plane, every bit opposed to living inwards a simulated cloth plane. Nonetheless, this is getting complicated. Particularly because of the enlightenment connotations, which exercise evoke Buddhism to a greater extent than than Christianity. One of the religious associations alongside cyberspace, for example, is the parallel betwixt cyberspace as well as the New Jerusalem: "The New Jerusalem, then, is a house of knowing, a infinite that similar cyberspace Benedikt says is rooted inwards information" (256). And this squall for for knowledge seems to brand feel to me every bit spirituality. "The pattern of seeing novel engineering scientific discipline every bit a agency to spiritual transcendence has been repeated so many times that Erik Davis has coined the term 'techgnosis' every bit a generic description of the phenomena" (278).

Again, I come upward dorsum to the fact that cyberspace does seem, every bit counterintuitively every bit it may remove hold seemed earlier reading this book, to offering unique possibilities for spirituality... but that these possibilities remove hold non been realized because nosotros are focusing on the incorrect thing, getting all twisted around. On a really key level, the set down of faith according to Emile Durkheim is the organization of the populace into "sacred" vs. "profane." And inwards sociological terms, cyberspace makes perfect feel every bit a "sacred space", because it is the antithesis of our "profane", cloth world. According to Stenger, cyberspace creates "'the ideal conditions' for what Eliade price a 'hierophany' - that is, 'an irruption of the sacred" (254). This is a continuation of a lasting subject inwards Western organization as well as agreement of the world: "Western civilization has inside it a deep electrical current of dualism that has always associated immateriality alongside spirituality" (254).

The imperative, inwards low-cal of this, is to laid out to process cyberspace every bit sacred space; as well as to prepare it inwards such a way every bit to encourage spiritual, sacred engagement alongside it. In this way, cyberspace may live a agency of helping us move improve humans.