the post-renaissance
society of tomorrow, is the very notion of renaissance itself.
Interactivity, both as an allegory for a healthier relationship to
cultural programming, and as an actual implementation of a widely
accessible authoring technology, reduces our dependence on fixed
narratives while giving us the tools and courage to develop narratives
together. The birth of interactive technology has allowed for a sudden
change of state. We have witnessed together the wizard behind the
curtain. We can all see, for this moment anyway, how so very much of
what we have perceived of as reality is, in fact, merely social
construction. More importantly, we have gained the ability to enact
such wizardry ourselves.

The most ready examples of such suddenly received knowledge come to us
from the mystics. Indeed, many early cyber-pioneers expressed their
insights (see my Cyberia for examples3) in mystical language coining
terms such as 'technoshamanism' and 'cyberdelia'. Indeed, in some ways
it does feel as though our society were at the boundaries of a
mystical experience, when we have a glimpse of the profoundly
arbitrary nature of the stories we use to organise and explain the
human experience. It is at precisely these moments that the voyager
wonders: "what can I tell myself - what I can write down that will
make me remember this experience beyond words?"

Of course, most of these mystical scribblings end up being
over-simplified platitudes such as 'all is one' or 'I am God'. Those
that rise above such clich, such as the more mystical tractates of
Ezekiel or Julian of Norwich, defy rational analysis or any effort at
comprehension. Our only choice, in such a situation, might be to
attempt to preserve just the initial insight that our maps are mere
models, and that we have the ability to draw new ones whenever we
wish.

This is why the scientists, mathematicians, engineers, businesspeople,
religious and social organisers of the late 20th century, who have
adopted a renaissance perspective on their fields, have also
proclaimed their insights to be so categorically set apart from the
work of their predecessors. Chaos mathematicians (and the economists
who depend on them) regard systems theory as an entirely new
understanding of the inner workings of our reality. They are then
celebrated on the pages of the New York Times for declaring that our
universe is actually made up of a few simple equations called
cellular-automata. Sc