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  • From: "souscayrous" <souscayrous@wanadoo.fr>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Birmingham seed swap, online db stuff
  • Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 01:43:20 +0100


Nick Routledge, what are you on?
I love these posts; freewheeling, broad brushstroke, they would sow the very
canvas of the universe. I recall my past in the rural English, slow green
fuse of 'ere iz ooge', and react bodily to 'shockingly beautiful'. How
open, how large an ambit, what fun!
But what, who is a Sage? Poor Kevin Kelly; that he should first make himself
known to me, perhaps to the majority of this list, mouthing monist maxims.
And then;

'Total heresy, of course, to the average gardener. But to mystics with a
deep, experiential understanding of cyberspace ontology and our relation to
it, a truism.'

Which gardener? Where are the mystics now that the world needs them?
Mystics with a profound knowledge of the being of the net would find the
revelation of the correspondence of God to cyberspace axiomatic?
I literally do not understand.
Your prose are fluid with purpose, fertile with intent; but what meaning?
Poor, benighted Kevin Kelly, that you make him speak such arrant nonsense;

"We should not be surprised that life, having subjugated the bulk of
inert
matter on Earth, would go on to subjugate technology, and bring it also
under its reign of constant evolution."

No 'big brain' of coast or plain, mountain or savannah would make such an
elementary category mistake of attributing human compulsions to 'life'.
Life as agency? No.
'Falling to Nature'...I like this poetry, speak on.

Toby Hemenway tells me Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control: the rise of
neo-biological civilization" ranks as one of the most influential 'permie'
texts of his life

Question: Toby, sober Toby, tell us you repudiate such resounding cant. For
even amongst the joy of inspiring and difficult words there must be meaning.
Nick, there is no insight, no new insight certainly, of all being one within
Nature. It was there in each vivid word of Lucretius, of Plotinus and
Spinoza: and Mark Pesce? From hypertext to hyperspace is hyperbole and
while publishing requires the casual addition of 'divinity', 'the end of
history' or infinity, to convey the patina of wisdom, there is no sense in
nonsense.

No halt or hindrance this, no weary brake to the new, break of new,
connections.
Your words Nick; 'existential', 'ontology', 'techne', words of twentieth
century philosophy, of Heidegger. Fertile territory. Heidegger's 'The
Question Concerning Technology' illuminates another path of this dialogue,
opens a clearing in the forest where technology/science is freshly
conceived, radically.

Mark is one who understands that here is a profound correlation between
techne evolution and the evolution of consciousness.

What we do is what we are, what we become? That is Marx. Hence utopia
after the revolution. Technological advance equals an advance in
consciousness; interesting certainly, and when the new db is created we will
no doubt lead the world out of confusion.

Souscayrous


-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Routledge [mailto:fellowservant@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 10:31 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Birmingham seed swap, online db stuff

snip...
The Botanical Gardens 'ere iz 'ooge and shockingly beautiful.

As per John's note about the opportunity cost of db architecting, namely:
"living a culture that worships non-human, non-living technology and
"dead" data and information, we conceive these extremely roundabout and
difficult and loss-prone ways to try and encode human/living knowledge," I
couldn't agree more.

But I do sense his portrayal of the relationship between living and dead
gnosis is not as broad as it might be. I think there's more to the story.
For example, I often hear gardeners suggesting that computer-mediated
communication is fundamentally a "substitute for the real thing" - or
however the suspicion might be phrased.

It gets complicated, but Sages have roundly debunked the assumption that
computer-mediated interaction somehow lacks value, power or, to put it
bluntly, integrity. Take Kevin Kelly's observation, for example, that:
"The apparent veil between the organic and the manufactured has crumpled
to reveal that the two really are, and have always been, of one being."
Put another way, a Sufi might say, "It's All God" and a contemporary might
insist, "It's All Cyberspace." Total heresy, of course, to the average
gardener. But to mystics with a deep, experiential understanding of
cyberspace ontology and our relation to it, a truism. Now, before you
poo-poo this notion, Toby Hemenway tells me Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control:
the rise of neo-biological civilization" ranks as one of the most
influential 'permie' texts of his life, and I believe the New York Times
has referred to Kevin as "the big brain on the west coast" so we're not
talking slouch city, here, folks.

Another remark by Kevin: "We should not be surprised that life, having
subjugated the bulk of inert matter on Earth, would go on to subjugate
technology, and bring it also under its reign of constant evolution."
Though the language is a trifle machocentric for my liking, I sense his
remark speaks to this thread. Despite all that computer mediated
communication is not, and John's spot on with his assessment there, I
would argue passionately that the web is one humdinger of a _complement_
to the permie movement. It is also a tool that is 'falling to Nature.' The
swing of the pendulum, in a sense. Kevin again: "Biology always wins in
any blending of organic and machine."

Little known fact, but it is precisely this insight that has motivated the
creation of some of the more influential web technes in recent years.
These words, for example:

"The cell is the universe within, and Mother Gaia the universe without.
And who among us can draw the line that separates these two? We breathe,
we grow, and spread our vitality up to the very edges of the stars, both
within our self-created world of ones and nones, and outside, to the
smiling eyes of all the ones who you will touch, and remain part of,
forever...At the End of History, we lose ourselves and gain our self. All
these lines that divide are just so much play, the hide-and-seek of
divinity. Remove the boundaries and see all as it really is: infinite.
Embrace the Earth, for thou art that."

are the words of Mark Pesce, inventor of VRML and one of the most
celebrated web wonks alive. VRML to your average web wonk is a way to
prettify the web. But conceptually, its appearance marked the arrival of a
techne that literally 'sensualized hypertext.' Big stuff. What I'm getting
at here is that its invention was motivated fundamentally by the instinct
expressed in Mark's words. Mark is one who understands that here is a
profound correlation between techne evolution and the evolution of
consciousness.

Phew.

n.

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