We Live in at Least Two Worlds

"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The first is our bodies, which is a realm imperfect and subject to decay.

The second one is the world of imagination, which is infinite. That to me is a astonishing difference. And then there is is Cooper's Law: "All machines are amplifiers." Machines amplify our bodies, and that is good thing and a bad thing. We can now use one tractor instead of 20 slaves to work our fields. We can also use one bomb to kill 20 people.

The internet, being a machine, also amplifies. It doesn't amplify our bodies; it amplifies our imagination.

I can be anyone I want on the internet. I can live any imaginative fantasy I want. I think that's why computer games are so popular: you can be anyone you want, and do anything you want, in the safety of your imagination.

This amplification of our imaginations through the internet is almost magic.

Your imagination is magical, anyway. Of all people, Norman Vincent Peale once wrote, “Imagination is the true magic carpet."

I consider the internet to be a gigantic brain, and those on the internet are interconnected cells in that gigantic brain.

A gigantic, world-spanning brain! Just imagine that! It's almost as if we're a global brain.

For all practical purposes it is a male brain, since it was created, and is maintained and repaired by men.

Where is this going to lead? I have no idea, except to say it will be both a good place and a bad place. I will add this, though: this world-spanning brain will only be at its best when each person is at his best.

"Imagination has the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each other and on everything around them. The imagination is a discovering faculty, a faculty for seeing relationships, for seeing meanings that are special and even quite new." - Thomas Merton