Philosophical Assumptions of Cyberspace
In order to fully understand the issues at stake when one wrestles with issues
surrounding any new technology or medium, it is important to consider the philosophical
assumptions made by the technology. Some have argued that the Web is essentially
anarchistic and materialistic while others have labeled it democratic and enabling.
Clearly one's perceptions will be colored by one's perspective and world-view.
The major premises of cyberspace can be illuminated by using the three-fold division of philosophy as outlined by Hunnex (1986); epistemology, metaphysics, and axiology. Where appropriate, the author will consider modern philosophers of technology and media whose approaches best fit the category being described.
Epistemological Issues
A reoccurring theme of early philosophers and technologists is the "global mind" and the role of connection with the purpose of unification. Consider Leibniz's "community of minds" and his desire to bring unity to the political and religious factions of Europe, Kapp's hopes and dreams for the "Ultimate Telegraphic", and McLuhan's "Divine Force", in which electronics and the computer "promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity" (McLuhan, 1964, p. 80). All three visions share a dream of technology assisted community. In the world of computers, data is information, information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. In The Medium is the Massage (1967), the author wrote,
Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. "Time" has ceased, "space" has vanished. We now live in a global village...a simultaneous happening.... Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another. Information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously. As soon as information is acquired, it is very rapidly replaced by still newer information. Our electrically-configured world has forced us to move from the habit of data classification to the mode of pattern recognition. We can no longer build serially, block-by-block, step-by-step, because instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience co-exist in a state of active interplay. (p. 63)
Only one media theorist has managed to raise communication theory rhetoric to such heights (or lows, depending on your point of view). His name was Marshall McLuhan.