The Void

A summary of:
Wertheim, M. (1999). The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Virago Press: London.
Chapter 2 - Physical Space (part 2)

The chapter continues by explaining that while it might be a bit grand to suggest that art is solely responsible for the modern scientific conception of space, "'scientific advances' alone do not account for the huge psychological shift that had to take place before Western minds could accept this conception" (115). She continues, "To explain that shift I believe Edgerton is right when he says that without the revolution in seeing space wrought by the painters of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, we would not have had the revolution in thinking about space wrought by the physicists of the seventeenth" (115).

The particular change in thinking she goes on to describe is the defeat of Aristotelian vision by Galileo's conception of the void. This in turn had its own profound implications. "For him [Galileo], 'the real world [was] a world of bodies moving in space and time.' Everything else - all the rich sensual qualities such as colors, smells, tastes, and sounds - were now to be regarded as just secondary, by-products of the 'true' reality which was matter in motion in empty space" (116). Furthermore, where does God fit in this vision of reality?

If the underlying substrate of reality is just an empty physical void, what place is there for the Christian soul? How indeed could humans, with our emotions and feelings and our longings for love, be accommodated in such an inherently sterile space (117)?

We should recognize this as another fork in the road, though I admit I see no way of going back and taking a different path. The path back has overgrown; there is no returning to a world without the understanding of the importance of the void.

I am reminded of a book a read last year called Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. In this book, Auge describes the abundance of places that we physically encounter with increasing regularity which are characterised by the way in which they eschew all creative social life, all meaningful organization. Auge argues that no organic social life is possible in these spaces, precisely because they lack place-ness. It might be necessary to eventually unpackage the terms "space" and "place" before being able to make a meaningful comparison between Auge's anthropology and Wertheim's scientific history; but I am struck by the idea that the void has extended into our physical reality such that we are now actively designing voids.