One of the most significant writes on these transformations of our culture—our “boundary crossings” is George Gilder, the editor of the Forbes ASAP materials and is also called the “electronic prophet” and a technological visionary. For the last decade he has been telling all of us that the world is crossing its own boundaries. He describes this process in such eloquent and elegant phrases that I would like to share some of them with you. I would hate to rewrite them into my own prose- so I am bringing them to you from his writings. They are all taken either from his book “Telecosm” or from various sites that deal with his thinking.
The age of the computer is over; new cathedrals of consciousness are built on light and air alone… We are connecting cathedrals of light in which angelic messengers touch our lives… The crystal cathedrals of light and air are increasingly reachable anywhere on the face of the globe… This world of infinite bandwidth, speed of light networking and cathedrals of glass… He has developed a religion out of technology with his talk of angels and cathedrals of light… He has brought together networks of light linking cathedrals of the mind… We build cathedrals of light with quantum computers, optical switches and intelligent networks… Our new boundary crossing is leading us in the use of glass (remember: silicon-sand), and light (remember: the stars) with fiber optics and wireless technologies. Gilder uses his brilliant magical and mystical words to tell us about: “Wrought of sand, oxygen, and aluminum, the three most common substances in earth’s crust, the microprocessor distills ideas unto a sliver of silicon the size of a thumbnail. This gift of the quantum is a miracle of compression… The gift of the telecosm is a miracle of expansion: grains of sand spun into crystalline fibers and woven into worldwide webs.” Gilder reminds us that the age of the computer is over. I remind myself that I am older than the first computer. All of this has happened in my lifetime. And I know that this is only one stage in the process. I imagine that when you get to read this, some of it will sound so “quaint”, perhaps even amusing. Gilder suggests that we are entering a new epoch of spirit and faith. His signature mix of religion and libertarian capitalism is written with Biblical parallels:” The powers it offers bring us back to the paradigms of paradise, and its perils; prophets and their nemeses; infinite abundance and demonic scarcities”. As I write this in January, 2009- I know that fiber optics and bandwidth are not news anymore. But they are just beginning to effect religious establishments and the spiritual quest of millions of us. As Disney has developed his ideas of “Imagineering”, so too we are creating what can amount to “Prophetic Imagineering”. It can be that this sort of Prophetic Imagineering will be carried all over the globe through this radiant light. It is this awareness and appreciation of the photonic radiance that might indeed be a significant dimension of spirituality as we cross our new boundaries. I would like to close this blog with a final quote from Gilder: The internet is a network of networks of learning curves and melodies seeking their points of harmonic resonance. It triumphs by proliferating the slopes of learning. The songs of searching, the quests of curiosity that are at the heart of wealth creation… The light is both the abundance and scarcity of the new world economy, the creative interplay of limit and infinite, the flesh and the divine.”
