How does our expanding media universe compare with our expanding cosmic universe?
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
- In a podcast called Existential Espresso done by professor Barry Vacker from Temple University he brings up this interesting point that while our physical universe is in a constant state of expansion, so to is our media universe (the internet purportedly doubles in size every 18-24 months.) To conceive of mass media as a "universe" then, is to imagine it as a 360 degree landscape in which information can be retrieved from the furthest reaches of this space at the click of a button. Just as Creationism theorizes the omniscience creator of the cosmos, it would seem that in the media universe we ourselves are somewhat akin to gods in our abilities to bend the environment in which we navigate to our will. Vacker goes on to use Facebook as an example in which "we are placed at the center of our own media universe." Does the internet, specifically sites like Facebook foster in us such godlike qualities as omnipotence and solipsism? While not all would say that the internet fosters godlike qualities, it could be said that the expansion of the universe and processes within the human social organism are inextricably linked. They are the same process. It is not absurd to draw useful parallels between the two. There are benefits to understanding the primacy of consciousness (our individual consciousness is a result of the fragmentation of the big consciousness which is the total universe). Information=difference, difference is constantly being transmitted across the universe (information is traveling around the universe)-- this process appears to be similar to the process occurring within the human brain (the universe is thinking). So, it appears that Barry Vacker is talking about some useful things.
