Digital Dharma Future Salon: The Path of Consciousness in the Age of the Infosphere January 18, 2008

Aren't we all interested in expanding our consciousness, at least when we are not amusing ourselves to death ;-)

Steven Vedro has written a user's guide into Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere: Digital Dharma.

I am happy that he will present his findings at our next Future Salon on Friday the 18th of January 6pm at SAP Labs in Palo Alto. (more details further down)

Abstract of his talk:

An electronic web surrounds the planet. In the last decade communications networks have advanced from wires to fiber optics, from interconnected radio and television grids to a world of billions of wirelessly communicating sensory devices – each with its own address in cyberspace. Emerging from what French philosopher-priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the shared noosphere of collective human thought, invention and spiritual seeking, the Infosphere – our collective systems for sharing thought, is now a field that engulfs our physical, mental and etheric bodies; it affects our dreaming and our cultural life. Our evolving nervous system has been extended, as media sage Marshal McLuhan predicted in the early 1960’s, into a global embrace.

The electronic media amplify, distort and attenuate our senses, change our awareness, and “mediate” our experiences. But from a mystical perspective, everything we have created in cyberspace holds a lesson for our spiritual unfolding. The Infosphere is the new environment through which humanity must now play out its evolutionary challenges. If the universe itself, as many philosophers tell us, is a field, not just of matter, but also of information, then the Infosphere must hold in its microcosm all levels of human experience: all knowledge, all our dramas of politics and power, and all our dreams. This knowledge is encoded in our ubiquitous systems of telecommunications, and yet because it is so omnipresent, to most of us it is still invisible.

This multimedia talk introduces the hidden esoteric teachings embedded in this electronic environment, and suggests some ways to use the wisdom embodied in the Infosphere to nurture what I have called a new Digital Dharma – an awareness practice that will help us recognize the social and the spiritual lessons reflected to us in the telecommunications networks that form the global Infosphere, exploring the social and spiritual challenges reflected in our cell phone mania, our love/hate relationship with the foolish heart of television, the impossibility of finding the truth over the internet, and the challenge of deep-seeing brought to us by high-definition digital broadcasting and online virtual reality.

Can't wait for the discussions during and after the talk.

A Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross or Cafeteria depending on how many people sign up. SAP is located at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 map As always free and open to the public, spread the news and please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/2chxh5

See you all there.

If you can't join in person we will webcast the event and tape it too. Point your Quicktime viewer to the following address:
rtsp://207.105.30.90/salon.sdp

IRC chat as always:
Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel: #futuresalon

Official Website: http://www.futuresalon.org/2007/12/digital-dharma.html