The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: a history of space from Dante to the Internet
Margaret Wertheim, Doubleday, 1999
Review by Alan Gijsbers
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 63
Autumn 1999

IN WHAT WAY IS cyberspace a new space for the soul? Have we not had other bolt-holes for our imagination over the years? Did we not avoid the real world by getting lost in novels, television, cinema-or if we were highbrow the ballet or opera? What makes cyberspace different?

Proponents suggest that cyberspace offers us immortality, transcendence and omniscience. It is an opportunity to explore a new world of our minds without the bloody mess of organic matter. The physically self-conscious, especially gangling pimply teenagers, are able to assume new and fantastic persona as they surf the cyber-waves and interact with other idealised characters. Who cares that the blonde on the screen is actually a schizoid middle aged male? In the fantasy of cyberspace, enthusiasts are looking forward to downloading minds onto the net so that when the body decays the mind will live on. Not just our minds, but the minds of all the greats of past ages, all downloaded and interacting in the new virtual reality. After all, if humans are just computers made of meat, why not transmorph into cleaner bits and bytes?

These questions are not evaluated till later in the book. Wertheim in the meantime takes us on a fascinating intellectual journey on the West's changing view of space. Wertheim starts with Dante's The Divine Comedy as the most sophisticated model of mediaeval soul-space. Such a space is possible because the cosmos was finite and heaven existed beyond the heavens and hell in the depths of the earth. Slowly, our cosmic views changed. Initially through renaissance art and later through science, the perspective became dominated by a unitary view of the world and space became three dimensional, infinite and empty except for occasional lumps of spinning matter. There was no space left for heaven or the soul. Physicalism had taken over.

From a deeply dualistic position, Wertheim argues that humans are not content with such a materialistic view of reality. Hence the fascination of cyberspace. But we jump ahead of ourselves. While most of us would understand the phrase, 'It's all relative,' most of us still live in the Newtonian universe. The fourth dimension and curved space requires a mathematical sophistication and imagination denied most of us (I was interested by a comment from one theological friend that theology has not really grappled with the implications of the special theory of relativity let alone the general theory). Wertheim, however, takes us on that journey through relativistic space making the usual sci-fi assumptions that the black holes may be the gateway of travel through space faster than light either into other universes or other times. Other worlds (spiritual worlds?) thus become possible.

Other dimensions are also possible she argues, and follows Edwin Abbott's tale of "Flatland" to introduce the concept of multi-dimensionality fundamental to speculations about a "theory of everything" so beloved of some physicists. In one week I have been asked to move from a simple three dimensional view of the world (okay, four if you count time), through an integrated curved four dimensional space-time to a ten or 11 dimensional view of the universe. Even my physics colleagues are awaiting the data on that one, but Wertheim's main criticism of the theory of everything is that it denies and destroys other dimensions of human existence and in particular denies space for the human soul.

Suddenly, comes the revolution of the big bang of cyberspace. Suddenly, there is a whole new space into which the human mind can enter and live. Wertheim claims that materialist America was intellectually and psychically ripe for the explosion of cyberspace.

Like any new fad, its enthusiasts make astonishing claims which are well criticised by Wertheim. However much cyber-souls would like to lose (or find?) themselves in cyberspace, they have to eat, sleep, type keyboards and look at computer screens. I might add that cyberspace requires a steady power supply and a whole telephonic infrastructure to survive. Who pushes the keyboard to continue cyber-immortality? Who will reboot the back-up copies should the system have crashed? More fundamentally, if our minds are downloaded into cyberspace, will our self-consciousness disappear or will we still be able to reflect, perceive and understand ourselves? Will we be able to observe ourselves thinking and feeling or is that precious quality central to the mind of meat rather than the mind of bytes? How will we demonstrate our self-consciousness to ourselves?

Wertheim has a number of other questions for protagonists of cyber-souls. She asks what would cyber-immortals do if they lived for ever? Can the human mind with all its complexity and levels of subconsciousness really be downloaded? Since so much of consciousness is a sense of the passage of time, can that dynamic sense be programmed into me on the internet? Can we capture the essence of a person so that that person can be reconstituted in a new cyber-form? Maybe not, but Wertheim argues the question has opened up the possibility anew that there is such a thing as the essence of a person and that the cyberspace has allowed us to more clearly see that there is a space for the soul. The irony is that this has emerged out of the most physical of technology, a world not just of bits and bytes but also a world of meaning.

Wertheim's final and telling criticism of cyber-souls is the thought that immortality is offered to the technologically privileged without thought to morality. Cyber-selfishness ignored social responsibility in the real world.

Cyberspace is also a tool for social interaction. However, does this lead to utopia? Wertheim quoting Brian Connery sees an analogy between the world of the internet and 18th century coffee houses. Initially these were "democratic" places where anyone could come and contribute to the debate, but gradually they became dominated by one or two and the élite hived off to do their own exclusive thing. Today, 'newbies' are hounded and some cyber-contributors have even been sexually harassed. Hardly utopia, but what else can be expected of humans? The internet is a tool which can be used for good or ill. The fascists, neo-Nazis, left wing radicals, the military and the multi-nationals also can use the same tools for good or ill.

What then the value of cyberspace? Wertheim cites two. First, it is a network of relationships which can be a powerful metaphor for building better communities. It is a shared space which can bring people closer, while maintaining distance. More fundamentally it is a reminder in this age of scientific reductionism that the physical world of bits and bytes encodes messages of meaning. Physical space is not the only space. The mind and the imagination live in other spaces. The soul marches on!

Alan Gijsbers is (among other things) Senior Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at the Department of Psychological Medicine at Monash University, and a regular Zadok contributor.