An observation on the centrality of electricity to the existence of, by implication, man-made cyberspace we call internet. There is, of course, natural cyberspace, what we ordinarily call the universe, which also is based on electricity. But this natural cyberspace is more persistent than the internet — and we should note that man is as persistent as universe — even though it is based on the same reality of fire or electricity.
The main point I would make is that technology is evidence of a cause, not a cause. Rejoinder could be that even evidence of a cause becomes a cause on account of its being active in the environment, and this is true. However, I am trying at this point to delve into the depth of the phenomenology and see which is primal cause — what in theology we call the prius — and which is secondary or derivative cause.
This matters not only for theory and analysis but also for practice and application.
Technology is always secondary or derivative cause. This is not to belittle its importance. It is to accurately estimate its importance, which is also to accurately gauge its usefulness and limitation. This has importance for both theory and practice.
Internet is an effect, not a cause in the sense of a prius. Therefore, whatever spirituality comes up associated with the internet is causing the internet not being caused by it. I think this is important. If we think our technology is driving us we are simpletons. We drive our technology. We make it, we drive it. The engineer controls their product. At least as its prius. We have a saying in bus-driving world that the fire hydrant does not jump out and strike the bus. We drive the bus into it. Thus always with technology.
There are four main aspects of primary causality and when these are seen and used to template understanding of phenomenology — of universe’s activity — good sense and good decisions come about.
The four main aspects of primary causality relate to the four essential activities of culture: teaching, guarding, producing and laboring. These should be seen as an array of diminishing subtlety. The most powerful causes are the most subtle ones, the ones that most approximate the classical “rock that enters the pool without causing a ripple.” The least powerful causes are the least subtle ones, the ones that make big splashes.
The most powerful people in a society are the teachers. Next in power are the protectors. Then the producers and then the musclemen, the laborers. Teachers include doctors and clergy. Protectors include soldiers, police, judiciary and politicians (those who genuinely have the calling). Producers include business people and farmers. Laborers are all those who provide the muscle necessary to heft the organism forward on its course.
Many of us act in each of these capacities at one time or another, sometimes at the same time. These are roles, necessary activities, not just certain individuals. Many of us move between the roles and some of us do not.
Teachers and protectors do the most moving between roles. They are society’s leaders. In the old days it was the ideal to have one’s elder son become a priest and one’s second son to become a soldier. The wisdom in this folk wisdom is that the teacher and the ruler are the leaders of the society and it is therefore the ideal family which serves society by providing personalities to fulfill each of these leadership needs.
Business people often, as today, try to make society believe that they are the core and leaders. Actually, they are third in line and have very little power overall. Bill Gates was horrified that some functionaries could compel him to reveal himself as they wanted him to. He had never dreamed that someone was more powerful than a businessman. It was a terrifying experience for him because it showed him that he could be compelled. “We can do what we want.” turned out to be not the case. Before Bill had this experience, Tom Watson and Cornelius Vanderbilt had it and it was just as enlightening for them as it was for him.
Software turned out not to drive the world. Politics had an upper hand on it. If electricity goes out 1/1/00, we will see just how true this is, because the Army, the personification of Politics in the sense of the people’s sovereign power, will be employed to keep the people’s peace, and rightly so. Bill wanted to control the world with his software, but he could not even control some functionaries at the DOJ, much less the world. It is a lesson all businessmen should be taught in business school in hopes the world is saved the cost of their pretension. Some understand it intuitively and these are the truly successful ones — success defined as having the good opinion and warm thanks of the people.
Now, what is the reality behind the power of teachers and rulers? Identify this and we have grasped something important. It is will understood as operating in the environment of which it is understood that the truth is the whole. In other words, the prius is will occurring integrally with the universe. The internet is precisely an effect of this prius, an effect of will operating in the whole. It is a footprint of man’s will to unity, of humanity’s will for oneness.
Look at its origin. It is initially for military use — for rulers. Entirely proper and necessary — redundant communications for command and control in any conceivable crisis. This is by nature an entirely non-commercial activity. Can you imagine a private business making national defense policy? Of course many try, but on principle it is unthinkable because then national policy would be for private benefit and there would be no nation and the people would bloodily revolt, as they did in 1776 and again in 1968. The people want the nation — rightly — and they want the Army/Politics to rule and protect it — rightly.
So internet gets started from this need and necessity of government to govern. Then it is quickly taken up by teachers to facilitate their work. And finally, years later, after its successor is under way of deployment, it is turned over to business people for their use and suddenly we have this phenomenon The Internet. Well, it has been there as an effect of the prius of will by and for the whole for decades and is finally turned over to private use but only with guarantees at numerous levels that it remains a public benefit. Bill cannot and therefore will not co-opt it. In fact, the internet, because of its prius in government and teaching, is the tool that the people used to bring the pretentious businessman to heel and, if he fails to learn his lesson, it will be used to destroy his agenda. It is in the nature of its prius that it can be used to do this and will be so used if necessary. The real cause is will operating in the understanding that the truth is the whole. All is integral, or as Pythagoras put it, All is Number.
Spirituality continues no matter what the technology. Technology makes life more or less delightful and pleasant. It is a tool and never more than that. It has a period of life and is then replaced by a fresher or a different tool. Meanwhile, we have every right to enjoy technology and make it work for humanity’s primal will to unity.
Of the five elemental principles — ether, air, fire, water, earth — fire is the most easily graspable as universalizing everything: everything can be burned. Electricity is fire. So it is entirely appropriate that the internet is giving us the evidence of world unity and as a derivative cause helping to compel that unity — and not as a unity of contraction but as a unity of expansion. All the signs are auspicious.
On the macro analysis, internet came about because humanity compacted so much that more heat was generated on the planet’s surface than could be controlled with existing mechanisms so a decentralized mechanism was needed — decentralization is the ultimate control method — and consequently invented, the result of will applied as truth in the whole.
Internet came about from humanity’s need to govern itself. Totally expectable and appropriate that it arose in military environment and almost immediately passed up to teaching environment and then later, when successfully engineered, down to producing environment. Its aetiology is exactly what it should be. Which is why we are so happy with it! 🙂
AMDG
