Epilogue

     These are my current speculations (as of July 2000). What degree of probability do I assign to all of them becoming actualized? To be truthful, it changes from time to time. Most days I am extremely optimistic about my personal world view and would give the awakening of the noosphere a 100% probability of occurring within my lifetime. Then there are my more modest days when I admit that these speculations are at best only mid-points in a wide range of possibilities. Yet I don't let days like that dim my desire to speculate about such things, because I know that the rate of technical advancement is itself increasing at near exponential rates. Something has got to give. The wave of omnipresent, immersive computing is growing in size, and Inhabited Virtual Worlds are already a part of the everyday reality of some of the best minds on the planet. How can one help but feel positive with such consciousness-expanding events like these taking place?

     The only things that shade my positive outlook from time to time are the dark shadows of censorship, invasion of privacy, and loss of free speech that occasionally pass over the Internet. If the awakening of the noosphere is a true singularity, arising on the edge of chaos, let us hope it organizes in a way that supports the cognitive liberty of every member of our species. Should such a transformation in human consciousness ever actually occur, this planet could truly become a paradise.

     As R. Buckminster Fuller (1) explained in detail in his most comprehensive and accessible work, Critical Path, there is more than enough wealth and resources for everyone on Earth to live comfortably, if only the bureaucrats would stay out of the way.

     Technologically we now have four billion billionaires on board Spaceship Earth who are entirely unaware of their good fortune. Unbeknownst to them their legacy is being held in probate by general ignorance, fear, selfishness, and a myriad of paralyzing professional, licensing, zoning, building laws and the like, as bureaucratically maintained by the incumbent power structures. (2) [Emphasis added]

     Since we live in a universe that is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, why not hold a quantum world view? In a quantum universe nothing is actual, but all is possible. The future is up to us.

See you in cyberspace!

Lawrence Hagerty

12.19.7.2.11