MS#100. Cyberspace and the Ecotopian Dream, 1998 Talk for General Evolution Research Group (GERG), Cagliari, SARDINIA Subjects: Cultural history Written: November 28, 1998 Abstract: In his recent book The Alphabet vs the Goddess, Leonard Shlain argues that we are presently in the midst of an iconic revolution in which written language is being superceded by a new visual language, and that this represents a return of the Goddess to her prehistoric and rightful place. Despite the certain decline of literacy in our time, we feel that the new medium is actually a partnership of written and iconic languages, namely, hypermedia: the multimedia text, hypertext, and hypergraphic medium of the World Wide Web, and that this presages a return of the partnership aspect of prehistoric societies. While the World Wide Web is indeed collective knowledge, it will not truly be collective intelligence in the sense of Pierre Levy until it combines hypermedia with the computer modeling and simulation of natural and social systems by means of complex dynamical systems techniques. In this talk we will relate this vision of a dynamic cyberspace with the ecotopian dreams of our time. [PDF], 5 pages, 32 KB Last revised by Ralph Abraham