Celestial Space

A summary of:
Wertheim, M. (1999). The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Virago Press: London.
Chapter 3 - Celestial Space

Up till now in Wertheim's historical arc, "natural science was [in the words of Jeffrey Burton Russell] 'an inferior truth pointing to the greater truth, which [was] theological, moral, and even divine" (119). In other words, artists were concerned with discovering natural truths as the key insight into the Creator, as "God's utterance or song" (119). And crucially, the two were separate truths. That is, until another artist, this time Raphael, challenged this separation. In his Disputa, he used perspective to unite (albeit imperfectly) the heavenly realm with the physical realm (126).

This chapter also tells the tale of Cusa, the scientific thinker who concluded that "the universe has neither an outer boundary nor a center, since either would constitute an absolute" (129). This completely disoriented humanity. Without either, in this "unbounded space", how could we understand where we were? How could we establish a hierarchy, if in this conception of the cosmos "all positions were equal" (129)?

Counter to our initial thinking about the implications of this revelation, Wertheim argues, "By shattering the heavenly spheres and breaking the medieval cosmic hierarchy, Cusa elevated the earth from the gutter of the cosmos and ste it in the domain of celestial nobility" (129-30); because, after all, the geocentric system located the earth at the "bottom of the cosmological scheme" (130).

This chapter also shows the way in which technology has functioned to enable the enhancement of our senses (which in turn reinforces their elevated status as receivers of the greatest 'truth'). The telescope gave us super-eyes. "If... perspectival imagery trained Western minds to see with a 'virtual eyes,' the telescope extended our vitual gaze beyond the wildest imaginings of the Renaissance painters," i.e. into a space we "know only through 'virtual eyes'" (142). Wertheimer identifies another parallel with cyberspace: "Both other space and cyberspace are mediated spaces that we see through a technological filter. And just as today we are beginning to get a sense of the potential vastness of cyberspace, so also Europeans of the seventeenth century were just beginning to get a sense of the potential vastness of the new space they were discovering at the other end of their optick tubes" (142).

We have to realize that before this approximate point in history, humans did not have to grapple with the notion of infinite space. How has this idea affected us?

Another interesting point made in this chapter is that while many of the thinkers we associate with cold, rational, scientific thought were in fact motivated by theology; and it is the unintended consequence of the acceptance, appropriation, and further evolution of these ideas that gave birth to the godless conception of the world; to the materialist vision where "man stood not at the center of an angel-filled cosmos with everything connected to God, but on a large lump of rock revolving purposelessly in an infinite Euclidian void" (149). One example is Descartes, who theologized infinite space "and justified this hitherto abominable concept by associating it with God" (144). And surprisingly, Newton did similarly: "More so even than his predecessors, Newton justified his vision of space on theological grounds. Space, as he famously put it, was God's 'sensorium' - the medium through which the deity exercised His all-seeing eye and His all-encompassing power. For Newton, the presence of God within the universe was indeed guaranteed by the presence of space. And because in his view God was everywhere, then space must also be everywhere - and hence infinite" (148).

I am intrigued by this sensorium concept. This is easier to accept for natural creations. But I imagine that many people find it more difficult to see the sensorium in man-made creations such as the Internet. Now being able to create our own infinite space, have we made God redundant as creator? Where does God fit into the modern world if He is no longer needed as the creative force in the universe? Yicks.

The implication of the notion of physical space extending into infinity is that it left no "room" for "any kind of spiritual space" (150). Wertheim quotes Edwin Burtt: "The natural world was [now] portrayed as a vast, self-contained mathematical machine, consisting of motions of matter in space and time, and man with his purposes, feelings, and secondary qualities was shoved apart as an unimportant spectator and semi-real effect of the great mathematical drama outside" (152).

Wertheim emphases the uniquely Western nature of the ensuing psychological crisis this created. "The reason we lost our spiritual space, as it were, is because we had linked it to celestial space. We had 'located' it, metaphorically speaking, up there beyond the stars" (150). She points out that there are other cultures (we might call them 'primative') which locate the spiritual in dreams or "in the mythical past that remains interlinked with the present" (150).

This would suggest another potential springboard for radical technological innovation: we have to reconceive of the location of the soul, because as it is located in the physical, it will remain forever homeless.