Chowrangi

“Why spend $2.95 a minute to talk to your psychic adviser when you can be enlightened for free? Why spend hairsplitting weeks waiting for Ann and Abby to read your letter when you can get answers right now? The net is vast fountain overflowing with knowledge. So is Allison’s head. But where on the Net can you ask how to break off an engagement? No where. Until now….There’s no need to face life’s mysteries alone. Allison, our smart and sassy advice columnist, is here to help. In her own words, “Ask me, I know.”

                            - Ask Allison, She Knows NEWS OF THE WIRED.

The nexus between the external world of the senses and the internal world of the mind has been the subject of philosophical speculation and dispute since antiquity. No doubt the wrangling will continue ever hence. Quite recently, within our own generation, this age-old dispute between became far more complicated. When computers and telecommunications emerged after World War II, they brought with them an entirely new world, similar to yet unlike the two worlds of antiquity.

The entities in this world are unlike the tangible things of the world of the senses, but neither are they entirely like the intangible ideas of the mind. They are electronic entities in an electronic world. Made entirely of bits instead of atoms, they are so ephemeral yet so concrete that they blur confusingly into both of the other domains. These entities include computer software in particular and electronic objects in general, the electronic goods of the information age.

The electronic borders are starting to see a new kind of confrontation. It’s kind of social and cultural confrontation, better called as digital confrontation or virtual confrontation. Although this confrontation will most likely avoid at least most of the bloodshed, it will involve confrontations between equally cherished cultural beliefs and the eventual displacement of cultures. This confrontation involves the same set of cherished beliefs that brought the civilizations against other civilizations.

Although the past is never an infallible guide to the future, it is a guide only the foolish would ignore, so beware confrontations in new modes of the same old beliefs are on.

Other posts by Commoner

• A New Package Once Again - August 21st, 2008
• Policies of Yester Go On - August 21st, 2008
• Stop Infighting - August 21st, 2008
• Unwillingness of the Masses - August 20th, 2008
• Change is the Key - August 20th, 2008
• Toadies of Dictator - August 20th, 2008
• Promise of Judiciary - August 20th, 2008
• Pervez Musharraf: A Dictator Departs - August 18th, 2008
• Pervez Musharraf Highlights - August 18th, 2008
• US Chuck Mush - August 18th, 2008