Cyberspace and the New Consciousness (by Scott London)

[Guest guest]

> >

> > , " jagbir singh "

> > <adishakti_org> wrote:

> >

> > Today is indeed a great and joyous day, the first of the many

> > days, weeks, months and years leading to February 21st, 2013.

> > Again i must thank you Chandra for bringing all this into our

> > collective consciousness and attention at a most crucial time.

> > It is indeed all up to us now to arouse and awaken the rest of

> > mankind that slumbers on, unaware, teetering on the brink.

> >

> >

>

, " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> Dear All,

>

> i was just browsing around and checked the WebSearch Webrankings.

> The figures are just great! Perhaps we should not read too much as

> the holiday season may have spiked the results to a certain

> extend, but still that cannot account for Page Views rank of

> 33,277 (at bottom left), i.e., for one day only. It is a level

> extremely difficult to attain even for a single day due to tens of

> millions of websites. That it breached the 100,000 mark itself is

> good news and bodes well for the future.

>

> Traffic Rank for adishakti.org

> Traffic rank:

> Today 1 week Avg. 3 months Avg. 3 months change.

> 88,951...253,048.........201,461 ........80,151

>

> Scope for adishakti.org

> Scope rank:

> Today 1 week Avg. 3 months Avg. 3 months change.

> 88,951....245,885........197,001......... no change

>

> Page View for adishakti.org

> Page Views rank:

> Today 1 week Avg. 3 months Avg. 3 months change.

> 33,277....340,721...........264,495 ......... 41,315

>

>

> But if we can achieve that figure on a 3 months Avg. by 2013 it

> will definitely be misison accomplished. So let's continue working

> collectively to attain global exposure to Shri Mataji and Her

> Divine Message to humanity by that year.

>

>

> Jai Shri Mataji,

>

>

> jagbir

>

 

 

Cyberspace and the New Consciousness

By Scott London

 

As hippie-mystic John Perry Barlow has pointed out, cyberspace has a

lot in common with the 19th century American West. It's vast,

unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, hard to navigate, and up

for grabs. Large institutions already claim to own the place, but

most of the actual natives are solitary and independent, sometimes

to the point of sociopathy. It is, of course, a perfect breeding

ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty.

 

If you can appreciate the beauty and logic of this metaphor, you

would no doubt appreciate what some pioneering thinkers have to say

about cyberspace and new electronic technologies. As I have

discovered from talking with a number of innovative scientists and

philosophers on my radio program, Insight & Outlook, the on-line

world has a great deal to tell us about not only the emerging

society of the 21st century but also the farther reaches of human

consciousness.

 

One of the most compelling metaphors comes from physicist and

philosopher Peter Russell who sees globe-spanning computer networks

as part of an embryonic " global brain. " Extrapolating from recent

theories in the fields of physics and geobiology, he maintains that

the planet itself is a living system and that each person on it is a

cell in a kind of global nervous system. As a species, he says,

we're advancing to the point where it will be possible for our minds

to link together to create a collective human consciousness.

 

In his latest book, The Global Brain Awakens, Russell calls

this " our next evolutionary leap. " Breakthroughs in

telecommunications and computer networks are pointing us in that

direction, he says. " The interlinking of humanity that began with

the emergence of language has now progressed to the point where

information can be transmitted to anyone, anywhere, at the speed of

light. Billions of messages continually shuttle back and forth, in

an ever-growing web of communication, linking the billions of minds

of humanity together into a single system. "

 

The global brain metaphor may strike some as more of a poetic vision

than a realistic possibility. But, as geobiologist and futurist

Elisabet Sahtouris points out, metaphors have an important place in

science. To speak of atoms as little solar systems or as whirlpools

of energy is to invoke metaphors, she says. " Metaphor simply means

that you take something that is familiar to you and use it as a

pictograph or an image of what you are trying to describe that you

don't yet understand well. "

 

Sahtouris believes that Western science in the throes of a sweeping

transition " from mechanics to organics. " In her book Gaia: The Human

Journey from Chaos to Cosmos, she talks about the need for a more

holistic perspective that recognizes nature not as a giant clockwork

mechanism, as the Enlightenment thinkers conceived it, but as a self-

organizing living system.

 

The beauty of the Internet, in her view, is that it exemplifies many

of the characteristics of a dynamic living system. It's based on

equality, reciprocity, diversity, and local autonomy. One example of

this, she says, is " the way each part pays its bills and lets people

from all other parts use its territory. " The Internet " has the

potential for being the largest, most democratic living system

humanity has ever created. "

 

Some thinkers have taken a more metaphysical approach to the subject

of cyberspace. Deepak Chopra, one of today's leading advocates of

mind/body medicine, sees it as a perfect metaphor for what he calls

the " mechanics of creation. " As he has noted in his numerous

bestselling books, the basic conclusion of contemporary quantum

theory is that the raw material of the world is, in effect, non-

material. Many of our new technologies owe their existence to this

fact. The invention of computers, fax machines, radio, and

satellites were all made possible by understanding that the atom --

once thought to be the basic unit of matter -- is not a solid entity

at all, but a " hierarchy of states of information and energy in a

void of all possible states of information and energy. "

 

Put in its simplest terms, this means that so-called " objective "

reality is not objective at all, but " a radically ambiguous and

ceaselessly flowing quantum soup, " according to Chopra. This " field

of all possibilities " is directly affected by impulses of energy and

information. That is to say, thoughts are the raw material of the

universe and therefore fundamentally shape reality.

 

New technologies such as the Internet and virtual reality furnish us

with a perfect metaphor, he says, because they demonstrate " that

reality is `virtual' before it gets precipitated into a space-time

event. "

 

While traditional scientists and other die-hard skeptics wave aside

the idea that thoughts shape reality, there's a growing acceptance

of this view on many fronts. It's part of a profound change of

consciousness occurring in our culture, as bestselling author

Marianne Williamson puts it. " You don't have to be a spiritual

seeker in California, you can be a businessman in Connecticut

dealing with the revolution in computers. In other words, no matter

what area of life and endeavor we're in, we're seeing the signs of a

sea change, " she says. No one is denying that it's a new age in

politics, in business, or in science, so " why should we deny that

it's a new age in terms of all human consciousness? "

 

 

Cyberspace and the New Consciousness

By Scott London

 

(This article appeared in Tri-Mix magazine, January 1996.)