The great work
The great work
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伟大的工作
DOI：
10.1145/129617.129625
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发表时间：
1992
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Barlow
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Barlow
本世纪初，法国哲学家和人类学家蒂尔哈德·德·夏尔丁写道，进化论是一种上升，通向一种被称为“T h e Omega Point”的地方，那时所有的意识都会汇聚成统一，创造出M I n d的集体o r a n i S m m。当我第一次看到网络时，我忘记了我大学时冲向蒂尔哈德的“人的现象”。我花了一段时间才想起来我是在哪里第一次看到这种巨大而聚集的有机体的。不管它是否代表了蒂尔哈德的愿景，似乎很明显，我们正在做一些伟大的工作--集体人类意识的物理连接。对于像我这样的嬉皮士神秘主义者来说，在全双工宽带中将每个人的大脑与其他每个人的大脑连接起来的想法，具有明显的神学意义，尽管具有讽刺意味的事实是，大多数建造者都是BIT斗士和礼仪牧师，这是一大堆自豪的平淡无奇的东西。所有这些集合起来的神经学、硅胶和-~光纤会怎么想？由于蒂尔哈德是一位罗马天主教牧师，从来没有试图建立一种疏忽的联系，所以他对这个问题的回答比我的更有基督教传统。但这真的无关紧要。我们将建造它，然后找出答案。无论我们的Rea-Z o儿子们多么默默无闻，我们似乎确实决心要建造它。自1970年成立以来，作为互联网，它已经成为人类努力历史上规模最大、增长最快的创造之一。互联网现在每月扩张高达25%，一条直线上的曲线可以让每个人在几十年内上网。或者，更有可能的是，不是。事实上，我们目前似乎正在创造的是一种只会团结企业界、军事界和学术界的东西，不包括大多数人类思想进行思考的贫民区、乡下城镇和郊区。我们正在冲向一个将会有知识的世界，在这个世界里，将会有知识，构成了连线思维，而知识不会被认为是什么，除了支持它所必需的劳动和消费。如果发生这种情况，伟大的工作将失败，因为撇开神学问题不谈，它最深远的后果应该是…
Earlier in this century, the French philosopher and anthropologist Teilhard de Chardin wrote that evolution was an ascent toward w h a t he called " T h e Omega Point," when all consciousness would converge into unity, creating the collective o r g a n i s m of M i n d. W h e n I first e n c o u n t e r e d the Net, I had forgotten my college dash through Teilhard's Phenomenon of Man. It took me a while to remember where I had first encoun-t e r e d the i d e a of this immense and gathering organism. Whether or not it represents Teilhard's vision, it seems clear we are about some Great Work h e r e-the physical wiring of collective human consciousness. The idea of connecting every mind to every other mind in full-duplex broadband is one which, for a hippie mystic like me, has clear theological implications , despite the ironic fact that most of the builders are bit wranglers and protocol priests, a proudly prosaic lot. W h a t thoughts will all this assembled neurology, silicon, and-~ optical fiber think? Since Teilhard was a Roman-Catholic priest who never tried to Z forge a SLIP connection, his answers to that question were more conventionally Christian than mine. z But it doesn't really matter. We will w a build it and then find out. And however obscure our rea-Z o sons, we do seem determined to-build it. Since 1970, when the Ar-i-panet was established, it has become , as Internet, one of the largest and fastest-growing creations in the-history of human endeavor. Inter-.a-net is now expanding as much as 25% a month, a curve which plotted on a linear trhjectory would put every single human being on-line in a few decades. Or, more likely, not. Indeed, what we seem to be making at the moment is something which will unite only the corporate, military, and academic worlds, excluding the ghettos, hick towns, and suburbs where most human minds do their thinking. We are rushing toward a world in which there will be Knows, constituting the Wired Mind, and Know Nots, who will count for little but the labor and consumption necessary to support it. If that happens, the Great Work will have failed, since, theological issues aside, its most profound consequence should be the …