One World

Our Evolving Conception of our Place in the Cosmos

Where are we? Why are we “here”?

• Our sense of our place in the Cosmos has existential implications for our inherent importance and the meaning of life. It also has psychological and social consequences for our relation to each other and feelings of separateness and community.

Transcendance

• As information technology has developed we have put a new, or growing, emphasis on access and connectivity.

• This also has implications for our sense of community, especially large communities that transcend geography and borders. And with real time translation, language barriers.

Old World

• Mediterranean means Middle Earth

• derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning "inland" or "in the middle of the land" (from medius, "middle" and terra, "land")

Visions of New World

• Australis (Latin for southern or of the south)• Ultima Thule• Kingdom of Prester John• Patagonia

Terra AustralisLegends of Terra Australis Incognita—an "unknown land of the South"—date back to Roman times and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of the continent. Following European discovery, names for the Australian landmass were often references to the famed Terra Australis.

Θούλη

• The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world".

Prester JohnThe legends of Prester John (also Presbyter Johannes) were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient.

Patagonia• First mention of these

people came from the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, who claimed to have seen them while exploring the coastline of South America en route to their circumnavigation of the world in the 1520s.

• "Patagonia" was interpreted to mean "Land of the Bigfeet"

New Jerusalem

• Christianity interprets the city as a physical reconstruction, spiritual restoration, or divine recreation of the city of Jerusalem.

Discovery

• Columbus goofed:• Under calculated the

circumference of the Earth from Ptolemy.

• Over estimated the size of China from accounts of Marco Polo.

Experiment

• US Democracy• Greece• Roman Republic• Capitalism• Yearning of oppressed

against the entrenched monarchies of Europe for freedom and social mobility

• The Enlightenment

Earth Image

• Apollo 11• NASA• Joseph Campbell• Stewart Brand

Stewart Brand and DIY• The title Whole Earth

Catalog came from a previous project of Stewart Brand. In 1966, he initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the then-rumored satellite photo of the sphere of Earth as seen from space, the first image of the "Whole Earth." He thought the image might be a powerful symbol, evoking a sense of shared destiny and adaptive strategies from people.

Joseph Campbell“Our world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which God’s love is reserved for members of the in group: That is the world that is passing away,” said Campbell. “Apocalypse is not about a fiery Armageddon and salvation of a chosen few, but about the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end.”

Pale Blue DotThe Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a tiny dot against the vastness of space (halfway down the brown band). The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

IT as a unifier

• Transcend:– Geography– Language– Time (asynchronous)

• Promote understanding• Rapid diffusion of information– Viral

Divisions and Risks

• As with all tools, IT can be used in ways that exacerbate problems and divisions.

• Propaganda• Misinformation• Anonymity allows for irresponsibility

Great Wall from Space

Boundaries from Space

Wall Artifact

• Berlin• Different light bulbs still

used in East and West• Oestolgia

Earth from Mars