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

Cyberspace may seem an unlikely gateway for the soul. But as science commentator Margaret Wertheim argues in this "marvelously provocative" ( Kirkus Reviews ) book, cyberspace has in recent years become a repository for immense spiritual yearning. Wertheim explores the 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 dissatisfying. Cyberspace opens up a collective space beyond the laws of physics–a space where mind rather than matter reigns. This strange refuge returns us to an almost medieval dualism between a physical space of body and an immaterial space of mind and psyche. Illustrations