The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet [Hardcover]

Margaret Wertheim (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 039304694X | ISBN-13: 978-0393046946 | Publication Date: March 1999 | Edition: 1st

In this day and age, cyberspace may seem an unlikely gateway for the soul. But, as science commentator Margaret Wertheim argues in this volume, cyberspace has become more and more a repository for immense spiritual yearning. Wertheim explores the underpinnings of this mapping of spiritual desire onto digitized space and suggests that the modem today has become a metaphysical escape-hatch from a materialism that many people find increasingly unsatisfying. In a journey through the history of space, Wertheim traces the combined story of physical space and spiritual space from the Middle Ages to the present, and shows how reality has come to be defined as the exclusive domain of the physical world. It is against this profoundly materialistic world that Wertheim persuades us of the appeal and ultimate failure of cyberspace to satisfy spiritual needs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Pythagoras' Trousers, science writer and feminist Margaret Wertheim took an astute look at the social and cultural history of physics. She explored how the development of physics became intertwined with the rising power of institutionalized religion, and how both of these predominantly masculine pursuits have influenced women's ability to join the physics community. Now she has turned her attention to virtual reality, looking at similarities between how we view it today and how art and religion was viewed in medieval times. Her assertion is that rather than carrying us forward into new and fabulous other worlds, virtual reality is actually carrying us backwards--to essentially medieval dreams. Beginning with the medieval view, with its definition of the world as spiritual space, Wertheim traces the emergence of modern physics' emphasis on physical space. She then presents her thesis: that cyberspace, which is an outgrowth of modern science, posits the existence of a genuine yet immaterial world in which people are invited to commune in a nonbodily fashion, just as medieval theology brought intangible souls together in heaven. The perfect realm awaits, we are told, not behind the pearly gates but the electronic gateways labeled .com and .net. How did we get from seeing ourselves in soul space (the world of Dante and the late medievals) to seeing ourselves as purely in body space (the world of Newton and Einstein)? This crucial transition and the new shift propelled by the Internet are convincingly described in this challenging book.

From Publishers Weekly

In this serious and intriguing, if far-fetched, study, Wertheim (Pythagoras' Trousers) argues that cyberspace gives us "a technological substitute for the Christian space of Heaven." She explains that early Christians hoped to trade "the troubled material world" for the next one, where bodies would be perfected or disappear and "injustice and squalor" would vanish. Internet partisans make similar claims: in cyberspace everyone's equal and nobody's ugly. Christian theology, as espoused by medieval art and literature, imagined a place for bodies (this world) and a place for minds and souls (the next world). But modern science and modern thought (the Renaissance invention of perspective; Copernicus, Newton, Einstein) have explained and demystified physical space, leaving "no place more special than any other," nowhere for us to imagine that souls can be. Wertheim discusses hopeful fictions of "hyperspace," from H.G. Wells to Cubism to Star Wars, before turning (in chapter 6) to the Net, whose denizens?especially users of MUDS (multiple-user dungeons)?have, she contends, found a space for the soul online. This is, she adds, cause for both celebration and worry, since the "cyber-utopians" haven't found a clear way to make cyberspace stand (as Heaven did) for an ethics. Wertheim is intent on explaining the Net's meanings, not its workings. If her book belongs to one particular field, it's the minuscule?but mushrooming?one in which literary and cultural critics consider Net phenomena. As such, it's both provocative and worthwhile.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039304694X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393046946
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pearly Gates Redux, June 14, 2006

By 

MargaretWertheim - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (Paperback)

I am the author of this book and I would like to agree with the gist of many of the reviews here. The first half of the book - which traces the cultural history of Western concepts of space - is the real meat of the text and is by far the strongest part. The final part of the book, which deals with cyberspace, is weak by comparison. Actually when I wrote the book, I only wanted to write the first part, with a final short and tentative reflection on the then emerging realm of cyberspace. But the publisher - who thought cyberspace was a hip topic - pressed me to make cyberspace a bigger part of the exercise. I too feel that these final chapters have to a large degree been superceded by the development of the Net since 2000. But the real story of the book is the first 5 chapters which trace a critical transition in Western culture's conception of what it means to be a human embedded in a wider spatial scheme. It is this part of the book - which the European reviewers especially praised - that stands as the real achievement and that I would still urge apon readers.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating but breathless look at our conception of space,, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (Hardcover)

The ground that this book is trying to cover is certainly expansive, and it's no wonder that some of the topic areas get short shrift. The initial chapters on our conceptions of space are fantastic: I was aware of how our conceptions have changed from absolute space to relativistic and beyond, but Wertheim did an excellent job of demonstrating how much of this change was conceptual rather than purely a change of scientific theory. More importantly, she shows how these changes affect our world-view and spiritual beliefs, and how these affect science and art in turn. For example, she argues that the flat & "unreal" nature of early religious paintings is a reflection of the idea of heaven being outside of normal space. Thus the adoption of three-dimension perspective drawing techniques signaled a shift towards the dominance of physical space. For anyone seeking good examples of changes in scientific paradigms, this book is an excellent place to start.

After recording a history of space to date, Wertheim tries to describe cyberspace as being the next significant shift in our conception of space. To most steeped in our current physicalist tradition, the concept of cyberspace as being an actual space is pretty way-out, but it does make sense in light of the previous world-views described by Wertheim. However, Wertheim characterises cyberspace as a place we enter, but in many ways it is the opposite- the projection of another space into our own. Viewed this way, the radical conclusions Wertheim makes seem rather far-fetched.

Where I was most disappointed was in Wertheim's treatment of "cyber-soul-space". The idea of uploading our selves into a virtual world is an enticing one, but too many of the complicated issues of self and consciousness are given a skimpy treatment, skipped over almost breathlessly as Wertheim races towards her conclusion. Many of these issues have been dealt with extensively in other books, but I was keen to see Wertheim's particular slant, as there are many interesting parallels between these issues and some of the medieval theologies discussed earlier. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but was disappointed that the initial rigour and detail of the first half was not followed through, but this is an inherent danger of writing a book with such a wide scope.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mind-expanding exploration of the spaces that surround us., May 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (Hardcover)

I have always wanted to read a cultural history of space, something that would help me understand how humans have conceived and poeticized the nature of the dimensions that surround them. Wertheim's book gave me all I wanted, and more. Wertheim shows us that space is part of a story that we humans are always telling ourselves about where and who we are. Unlike most science writers, Wertheim navigates the dire straits between science and the cultural imagination with intelligence and grace....._The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace_ isnt just longago history. In the closing chapters, Wertheim uses her fascinating tale to help us understand the psychological and even spiritual motivations that draw so many people to the Internet and electronic communications. Wertheim's basic argument -- that modern science banished the phantasms of the "soul" from our surroundings, and that those powerful images and yearnings are now returning inside the synthetic "space" of electronic information -- both acknoweldges the metaphysical yearnings expressed by cyberspace and refuses to give in to naive cyberhype. She ends her tale with some strong moral arguments rooted in both the eternal realities of the human imagination and the pressing historical demands of our time.