The Pearly Gates Of Cyberspace

A summary of:
Wertheim, M. (1999). The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: H5N1 History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Virago Press: London.
Introduction - The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace

From the outset, it appears that Wertheim is really much disceptation the contrary of me: that the Internet offers novel spiritual potential. Or at to the lowest degree she suggests that people sense a novel infinite for their souls inward cyberspace. For example, she quotes Kevin Kelly who says, "I own got experienced soul-data through silicon;" as well as Michael Heim who writes, "Our fascination amongst computers is... to a greater extent than deeply spiritual than utilitarian;" "In our dear affair [with these machines] nosotros are searching for a habitation for the hear as well as heart."

On or hence level, this seems specially deplorable to me. We are similar the orphaned creature cuddling upwards to a stuffed creature surrogate. Cute - but heartbreakingly sad.

But then, Wertheim is non disceptation this clinging to the Internet every bit a "disembodied paradise for souls" is healthy. Instead, she writes, "I reckon this tendency every bit inherently problematic." On the other hand, her chore inward the writing of the mass is to explicate why people own got been brought to this solid soil where they must seek novel infinite for their souls. She does hence yesteryear tracing non only the technology, but the civilization that gave nativity to its science. This includes next the story of the changing Western mindset, the fine art as well as history as well as scientific discipline that progressed through the ages to eventually give nativity to our novel globe inward which the Internet makes a variety of sense every bit a surrogate habitation for the someone (or inward her words, "creates such a hospitiable climate for quasi-religious dreaming well-nigh cyberspace").

A brief agency to characterise our novel climate is to compare it, every bit Umbert Eco did, to the concluding days of the Roman Empire: corrupt, fragmented, "marked yesteryear inequity." According to Wertheim,

Ours also seems to live a lodge yesteryear its peak, 1 no longer sustained yesteryear a theater belief inward itslef as well as no longer certain of its purpose. As business office of the answer to this disintegration, Americans everywhere are looking to organized religious belief for novel grounding inward their lives.... USA lodge today vibrates amongst 'spiritual' yearnings. Like the belatedly Romans nosotros also are searching for a renewed sense of important (21).

The irony of finding a spiritual habitation inward the Internet is that it is decidedly secular: "The religious appeal of cyberspace lies as well as then inward a paradox: hither nosotros own got a repackaging of the quondam thought of Heaven but inward a secular, as well as technologically sanctioned format. The perfect realm awaits us, nosotros are told, non behind the pearly gates, but beyond the network gateways, behind electronic doors labeled '.com', '.net', as well as '.edu'" (22).

But every bit I own got mentioned previously inward this blog, echoed hither yesteryear Wertheim, "People volition only adopt a engineering if it resonates amongst a latent desire" (27). Are in that location non other ways of coming together these needs than yesteryear retreating into the infinite behind our calculator screens? Wertheim writes,

The failure of modern scientific discipline to contain this immaterial 'I' - this 'self,' this 'mind,' this 'spirit,' this 'soul' - into its globe motion painting is 1 of the premier pathologies of modern Western culture, as well as sadly, 1 argue many people are turning away from science. Sensing that something crucial has been occluded from the physicalist picture, they are looking elsewhere inward the promise of locating this missing component (38).

Another agency of describing this home-seeking demeanour is that it is escapism, pure as well as simple. People tin live whoever they wish to live on the Internet, shedding their flaws that they are ashamed of, without having to truly gear upwards them. And Wertheim writes, "Some champions of cyberspace dream of escaping only from what 1 commentator has called 'the ballast of materiality'" (23).

Mostly, Wertheim describes the province of affairs every bit a work of overcrowding: "In the modern scientific globe motion painting it is a thing of cosmological fact that the whole of reality is taken upwards yesteryear physical space, as well as in that location is literally no place inside this system for anything similar a spirit of someone or psyche to be. In the vision painted yesteryear modern science, the physical globe is the totality of reality because inside this vision physical infinite extends infinitely inward all directions, taking upwards all available, as well as fifty-fifty conceivable, territory" (31). As Wertheim goes on to explicate inward subsequently chapters, our really conception of the infinite nosotros inhabit has profoundly altered our worldviews, evidenced yesteryear as well as reinforced yesteryear art, literature, as well as science... as well as eventually manifested inward our technological innovations. These changes, every bit she maps out hence convincingly, involve the steady climb of physicality inward our thinking well-nigh our world, such that it supercedes all other forms of 'reality' as well as inward the procedure uproots them, making them (things similar the soul, emotions, dreams) homeless, ungrounded.

She warns against the lazy characterization of modern scientific thinking every bit dualistic. "This globe motion painting is only monistic, admitting the reality of the physical globe alone" (34). "How," she asks, "did nosotros become from seeing ourselves at the middle of an angel-filled infinite suffused amongst divine presence as well as utilisation to the modern scientific motion painting of a pointless void" (35)? "How did nosotros become from seeing ourselves embedded inward spaces of both trunk as well as soul, to seeing ourselves embedded inward physical infinite alone" (36)?

And the most of import enquiry of all: "how has this shift inward our vision of infinite affected our agreement of who as well as what nosotros are every bit human beings" (36)?