A Space Without A Goal
Part IV
Driven by the force of love
the fragments of the world
seek each other that the world
may come into being.
- Teilhard de Chardin
"The best revenge against psychotechnologies that would turn us into extensions of themselves is to include them within our personal psychology. A new human is in the making." - Derrick de Kerkhove
"In the electric age, we wear all mankind as our skin." - Marshall McLuhan
The Web is chock-a-block with people curating what most interests them. Think of it as one way collective consciousness grows.
With this stuff, we can literally architect analogies. We can architect the coincidence of thoughts. Think of it as one way collective consciousness grows.
"Think of the reader as light source." - Jonathan Moberly
"Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them." A Space Without A Goal quoting World 3 quoting Nicholas Negroponte quoting Marvin Minsky quoting Samuel Goldwyn. Let go.
To exist, you must share.
"As more and more becomes linked it is arguable that what is passed over becomes more strongly linked on that account. Exclusion and inclusion interact, the outside defines the center (in the body sense this is called proprioception: is the whorl where the finger ends or the world begins?). Shamans were no different, nor shanty towns." - A phrase volunteered to A Space Without A Goal by Michael Joyce.
The influence of closed systems, such as books, is being replaced by the influence of patterns of living ideas.
Whatever primary reality is, you can bet your ass it's interconnected. The Web moves us toward a primary reality.
The Web and us? In a nutshell, it's the collective mind-body problem addressed.
Bigger ideas are the better connected ones.
The experience of Oneness is genuine and legitimate.
Strengthening the connections strengthens the quality of attention.
"With cyberspace, we are, in effect, hard-wiring the collective consciousness," - John Perry Barlow
Assume there is hidden wisdom in mistakes.
Your web site is a school of thought, a relative lack of connections to others.
To an ego-bounded self, only the maimed is understandable.
The ego-bounded self ain't cool. Get webbed. Perform your ego's funeral ceremony.
"Consciousness is distinct from the organism it animates...consciousness is essentially free." - Henri Bergson
We are swaddled in continuity.
"We are one, after all, you and I; together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate one another." - Teilhard de Chardin.
Communicating to people has always been about finding a way to connect with people, to "think" at/with people. That's all a T.V. program is, after all. In this stuff, though, you can think at people interconnectedly. The way they think. Trippy stuff.
The reason the Web's a success is because it works the way you think. And you can follow your thoughts anywhere you want to go.
The better spaces are gonna be more thoughtful.
Welcome to the Age of Aesthetics.
Phew.
In order to shout, you gotta be beautiful.
Competition, as art? Yeehah. Hold on tight.
Curiosity is the instinct to connect.
On the Web, you want to go where your thoughts take you. Someone's making those connections. Made thought.
This affects attitude. The perspective broadens.
The Web allows for the complexity and mystery of the universe.
A train of thought in your head when you surf the Web differs not a jot from a train of thought in your head when you're at the beach. The difference is, the connections between the train of thought you follow on the Web are made. Made by countless numbers of people. Made collective thought. Made collective understanding. Made collective consciousness.
"Hurt none; but, as far as possible, benefit all." - Schopenhauer
"In the age of heaven of Indra there is said to be a network of pearls so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way, each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object, and in fact is every object." - Buddhist sutra
"The stuff of the universe is mindstuff." - Arthur Eddington
"God becomes and disbecomes." - Meister Eckhart
Cyberspace is a state of mind.
Cyberspace is the Web.
Everything's connected. Everything's the Web.
"It's *all* virtual reality." John Perry Barlow
Virtual reality is primary reality.
"We are as gods and might as well get good at it." - Stewart Brand
"Every once in a while we have these insights that bring us back to the infinite. Whether it will stick this time or we'll have to go around once more will depend on you. The spirit of the infinite could become part of our culture and not 'a little far out.'" - Karl Pribram
It's a new perspective on reality. A new perspective on reality is a new reality.
October 16th, 1995
Dedicated to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin