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digest 1996-08-13 #001
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 23:25:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Society for Literature & Science"
Subject: Daily SLS Email Digest
To: "Gopher Site"
,
"Dr. Munawar A. Anees" ,
"Marianne deLaet"
Mime-Version: 1.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 13:17:03 -0700
From: caroline nachman
Subject: Re: technology and time
dear greg,
thank you very much for the book recc. the title sounds
promising
and i can't wait to actually read it. if only i could find the
time...(j.k.:)
take care,
Caroline
|| FREE SquareNote3.5 organizes notes, contacts, keeps daily journal.
|| Browse "http://sqn.com or email "sqn35net@sqn.com".
Enjoy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 13:59:57 -0700
From: porusd@rpi.edu (David Porush)
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, C. Jason Smith wrote:
>A quick addition to the "cyberspace" Q&A. The
Internet was already being
>formed when Gibson wrote Neuromancer, so the ide of
"space" in the
>Internet was already in place. What Gibson did was to combine the
concept
>of the Internet (and interconnected memory/storage space) with
>another concept: virtual reality. Cyberspace in Gibson's terms,
then, is
>Internet plus virtual reality. The question, then, becomes whether
or not
>there was a concept such as this Internet+ before Gibson. From the
>literary side Gibson credits Burroughs (and he does call his
cyberspace a
>"concensual halucination").
>
>Jason.
I think Gibson was ignorant of the Internet. I believe he was extending
imaginatively the idea of the interface - especially the click and
shoot
iconic interface which was, in 1984, an innovation - to its
hypertrophic
conclusion involving all the senses and the body. And by the way,
although I'm not one to correct anyone else's spelling, it's
' consensual ' hallucination.
Other precursors to cyberspace?
E.M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS (1911?)
Just about any sacred space of an integrated (what used to be called
primitive) culture, where inscriptions or tokens or icons or
architextual
arrangements are deployed to inscribe a transcendent space.
The Talmud (as a hypertextual open symposium across time and space
quite analogous to the Internet)
David Porush
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 14:00:37 -0700
From: porusd@rpi.edu (David Porush)
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, C. Jason Smith wrote:
>A quick addition to the "cyberspace" Q&A. The
Internet was already being
>formed when Gibson wrote Neuromancer, so the ide of
"space" in the
>Internet was already in place. What Gibson did was to combine the
concept
>of the Internet (and interconnected memory/storage space) with
>another concept: virtual reality. Cyberspace in Gibson's terms,
then, is
>Internet plus virtual reality. The question, then, becomes whether
or not
>there was a concept such as this Internet+ before Gibson. From the
>literary side Gibson credits Burroughs (and he does call his
cyberspace a
>"concensual halucination").
>
>Jason.
I think Gibson was ignorant of the Internet. I believe he was extending
imaginatively the idea of the interface - especially the click and
shoot
iconic interface which was, in 1984, an innovation - to its
hypertrophic
conclusion involving all the senses and the body. And by the way,
although I'm not one to correct anyone else's spelling, it's
' consensual ' hallucination.
Other precursors to cyberspace?
E.M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS (1911?)
Just about any sacred space of an integrated (what used to be called
primitive) culture, where inscriptions or tokens or icons or
architextual
arrangements are deployed to inscribe a transcendent space.
The Talmud (as a hypertextual open symposium across time and space
quite analogous to the Internet)
David Porush
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 16:25:47 -0700
From: porusd@rpi.edu (David Porush)
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, C. Jason Smith wrote:
>A quick addition to the "cyberspace" Q&A. The
Internet was already being
>formed when Gibson wrote Neuromancer, so the ide of
"space" in the
>Internet was already in place. What Gibson did was to combine the
concept
>of the Internet (and interconnected memory/storage space) with
>another concept: virtual reality. Cyberspace in Gibson's terms,
then, is
>Internet plus virtual reality. The question, then, becomes whether
or not
>there was a concept such as this Internet+ before Gibson. From the
>literary side Gibson credits Burroughs (and he does call his
cyberspace a
>"concensual halucination").
>
>Jason.
I think Gibson was ignorant of the Internet. I believe he was extending
imaginatively the idea of the interface - especially the click and
shoot
iconic interface which was, in 1984, an innovation - to its
hypertrophic
conclusion involving all the senses and the body. And by the way,
although I'm not one to correct anyone else's spelling, it's
' consensual ' hallucination.
Other precursors to cyberspace?
E.M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS (1911?)
Just about any sacred space of an integrated (what used to be called
primitive) culture, where inscriptions or tokens or icons or
architextual
arrangements are deployed to inscribe a transcendent space.
The Talmud (as a hypertextual open symposium across time and space
quite analogous to the Internet)
David Porush
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 16:26:21 -0700
From: porusd@rpi.edu (David Porush)
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, C. Jason Smith wrote:
>A quick addition to the "cyberspace" Q&A. The
Internet was already being
>formed when Gibson wrote Neuromancer, so the ide of
"space" in the
>Internet was already in place. What Gibson did was to combine the
concept
>of the Internet (and interconnected memory/storage space) with
>another concept: virtual reality. Cyberspace in Gibson's terms,
then, is
>Internet plus virtual reality. The question, then, becomes whether
or not
>there was a concept such as this Internet+ before Gibson. From the
>literary side Gibson credits Burroughs (and he does call his
cyberspace a
>"concensual halucination").
>
>Jason.
I think Gibson was ignorant of the Internet. I believe he was extending
imaginatively the idea of the interface - especially the click and
shoot
iconic interface which was, in 1984, an innovation - to its
hypertrophic
conclusion involving all the senses and the body. And by the way,
although I'm not one to correct anyone else's spelling, it's
' consensual ' hallucination.
Other precursors to cyberspace?
E.M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS (1911?)
Just about any sacred space of an integrated (what used to be called
primitive) culture, where inscriptions or tokens or icons or
architextual
arrangements are deployed to inscribe a transcendent space.
The Talmud (as a hypertextual open symposium across time and space
quite analogous to the Internet)
David Porush
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Aug 1996 20:34:21 -0700
From: Sidney Perkowitz
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
i like david's allusion to e.m. forster and cyberspace, as expressed in
forster's very early (1909) story "The Machine
Stops." i just published a piece on exactly that issue,
"Connecting with E. M. Forster," in "American
Prospect" magazine.
it's available on the web and i'm attaching the URL for those who want
to read it.
here's the address in plain text for those who can't access a URL from
e-mail: http://epn.org/prospect/26/26perk.html
i think i can also send the piece in plain text for those who prefer.
forster was incredibly prescient in seeing how social and human
interactions would change over the Web-like network that
he postulated in his story. parts of "Machine" could be lifted
right out of a current magazine article about the perils and
pleasures of Web addiction. but i see no trace in the story that he
visualized a "space," conceptual or intellectual or
imaginative or visual, that might be considered a precursor to the
current notion of cyberspace. given forster's
well-documented fear of technological change, it is not surprising that
he would not tend to make an imaginative leap into
cyberspace as something potentially fruitful. there is an irony of sorts
that i explore in my piece: as a person who long
struggled with the expression of his homosexuality, forster himself
might have found a freedom in cyberspace that he found
only with difficulty in real life.
any comments? sidney
- --
Sidney Perkowitz
Physics Department, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-2430
Voice:(404)727-4321. FAX: (404)727-0873.
David Porush wrote:
>
> At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, C. Jason Smith wrote:
> >A quick addition to the "cyberspace" Q&A. The
Internet was already being
> >formed when Gibson wrote Neuromancer, so the ide of
"space" in the
> >Internet was already in place. What Gibson did was to combine
the concept
> >of the Internet (and interconnected memory/storage space) with
> >another concept: virtual reality. Cyberspace in Gibson's
terms, then, is
> >Internet plus virtual reality. The question, then, becomes
whether or not
> >there was a concept such as this Internet+ before Gibson. From
the
> >literary side Gibson credits Burroughs (and he does call his
cyberspace a
> >"concensual halucination").
> >
> >Jason.
>
> I think Gibson was ignorant of the Internet. I believe he was
extending
> imaginatively the idea of the interface - especially the click and
shoot
> iconic interface which was, in 1984, an innovation - to its
hypertrophic
> conclusion involving all the senses and the body. And by the way,
> although I'm not one to correct anyone else's spelling, it's
> ' consensual ' hallucination.
>
> Other precursors to cyberspace?
>
> E.M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS (1911?)
>
> Just about any sacred space of an integrated (what used to be
called
> primitive) culture, where inscriptions or tokens or icons or
architextual
> arrangements are deployed to inscribe a transcendent space.
>
> The Talmud (as a hypertextual open symposium across time and space
> quite analogous to the Internet)
>
> David Porush
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Copyright 1996 by New Prospect,
Inc. Preferred Citation: Sidney Perkowitz, "Connecting with E.M.
Forster," The American Prospect no. 26 (May-June 1996): 86-89
(
http://epn.org/prospect/26/26perk.html).
The Bedside
Reader
CONNECTING WITH E.M. FORSTER
Sidney Perkowitz
As my jetliner rears back, I look up from E.M.
Forster's Howards End to gaze at the concrete sprawl of airport
momentarily filling my window. The rows of parked airplanes and
automobiles make
a fitting backdrop: In the period when Forster wrote Howards End, 1908
to 1910, he was already decrying the filthy, cluttered underside of life
in the
motorized age. Although he was not alone in despising the stink of
gasoline and
the frantic pace of vehicles, Forster had an unusual grasp of how
technological
advance promised to change social interaction—often for the worse.
Forster also had an uncanny ability to predict exactly how technology
would
develop. At the century's beginning the telephone was new and the
computer not
even invented, yet Forster anticipated their modern evolution, perhaps
most
explicitly with his short story "The Machine Stops." Today
the
Internet and its related technologies are as ubiquitous as the
automobile,
within easy reach even as I fly five miles up. They raise all sorts of
questions
about relationships, community, and sexuality—the very same
questions that
Forster was contemplating in these two works.
For those who have never read Howards End (or missed Emma Thompson
in the 1992 film version), it is a book about human connection.
Margaret
Schlegel—the older of the two cultivated, well-to-do sisters
central to the
story—becomes impassioned over the phrase "Only
connect!" which
carries two meanings. One is a call to unite the opposing elements
within each
person—what Margaret calls the beast and the monk, the prose and
the
passion—while the other is a call to put the greatest energy into
personal
relations. "Only connect!" is the book's epigraph, and
whenever
Forster speaks as narrator he emphasizes the value of personal
relationships.
But Forster also realizes that the quality of personal connection
depends on
the .quantity—often inversely. "The more people one knows the
easier
it becomes to replace them," Margaret sighs. "It's one of the
curses
of London." Too many connections, in other words, devalues each one
in a
kind of emotional inflation. For the Schlegel sisters, this is the
constant
danger of frenetic city life; for the characters of "The Machine
Stops,"
it is the inevitable by-product of remote communication technology.
Written in 1909 partly as a rejoinder to H.G. Wells's glorification of
science, "The Machine Stops" is set in the far future, when
mankind
has come to depend on a worldwide Machine for food and housing,
communications
and medical care. In return, humanity has abandoned the earth's surface
for a
life of isolation and immobility. Each person occupies a subterranean
hexagonal
cell where all bodily needs are met and where faith in the Machine is
the chief
spiritual prop. People rarely leave their rooms or meet face-to-face;
instead
they interact through a global web that is part of the Machine. Each
cell
contains a glowing blue "optic plate" and telephone apparatus,
which
carry image and sound among individuals and groups.
The story centers around Vashti, who believes in the Machine, and her
grown
son Kuno, who has serious doubts. Vashti, writes Forster, "knew
several
