This document discusses humanity's evolving conceptions of our place in the cosmos through history and how technology is impacting our sense of community. It explores early ideas of unknown lands and legends, as well as key events like Apollo 11 and images like the pale blue dot that have shaped our modern view of Earth from space. While information technology helps transcend boundaries, it also risks exacerbating divisions if misused to spread propaganda or anonymous irresponsibility. The overarching theme is how our perspectives have changed as our observable world expanded through exploration, science and space imagery.

1. One World
Our Evolving Conception of our Place
in the Cosmos

2. Where are we? Why are we
“here”?
• Our sense of our place in the Cosmos has
existential implications for our inherent
importance and the meaning of life. It also
has psychological and social consequences for
our relation to each other and feelings of
separateness and community.

3. Transcendance
• As information technology has developed we
have put a new, or growing, emphasis on
access and connectivity.
• This also has implications for our sense of
community, especially large communities that
transcend geography and borders. And with
real time translation, language barriers.

4. Old World
• Mediterranean means
Middle Earth
• derived from the Latin
mediterraneus,
meaning "inland" or "in
the middle of the land"
(from medius, "middle"
and terra, "land")

5. Visions of New World
• Australis (Latin for southern or of the south)
• Ultima Thule
• Kingdom of Prester John
• Patagonia

6. Terra Australis
Legends of Terra Australis
Incognita—an "unknown
land of the South"—date
back to Roman times and
were commonplace in
medieval geography,
although not based on any
documented knowledge of
the continent. Following
European discovery, names
for the Australian landmass
were often references to
the famed Terra Australis.

7. Θούλη
• The term ultima Thule
in medieval geographies
denotes any distant
place located beyond
the "borders of the
known world".

8. Prester John
The legends of Prester
John (also Presbyter
Johannes) were
popular in Europe
from the 12th through
the 17th centuries,
and told of a Christian
patriarch and king
said to rule over a
Christian nation lost
amidst the Muslims
and pagans in the
Orient.

9. Patagonia
• First mention of these
people came from the
voyage of Ferdinand
Magellan and his crew,
who claimed to have seen
them while exploring the
coastline of South
America en route to their
circumnavigation of the
world in the 1520s.
• "Patagonia" was
interpreted to mean
"Land of the Bigfeet"

10. New Jerusalem
• Christianity interprets
the city as a physical
reconstruction, spiritual
restoration, or divine
recreation of the city of
Jerusalem.

11. Discovery
• Columbus goofed:
• Under calculated the
circumference of the
Earth from Ptolemy.
• Over estimated the size
of China from accounts
of Marco Polo.

12. Experiment
• US Democracy
• Greece
• Roman Republic
• Capitalism
• Yearning of oppressed
against the entrenched
monarchies of Europe
for freedom and social
mobility
• The Enlightenment

13. Earth Image
• Apollo 11
• NASA
• Joseph Campbell
• Stewart Brand

14. Stewart Brand and DIY
• The title Whole Earth
Catalog came from a
previous project of Stewart
Brand. In 1966, he initiated
a public campaign to have
NASA release the then-
rumored satellite photo of
the sphere of Earth as seen
from space, the first image
of the "Whole Earth." He
thought the image might be
a powerful symbol, evoking
a sense of shared destiny
and adaptive strategies
from people.

15. Joseph Campbell
“Our world as the center of
the universe, the world
divided from the heavens,
the world bound by horizons
in which God’s love is
reserved for members of the
in group: That is the world
that is passing away,” said
Campbell. “Apocalypse is not
about a fiery Armageddon
and salvation of a chosen
few, but about the fact that
our ignorance and our
complacency are coming to
an end.”

16. Pale Blue Dot
The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of
planet Earth taken in 1990 by the
Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record
distance of about 6 billion kilometers
(3.7 billion miles) from Earth, as part
of the solar system Family Portrait
series of images. In the photograph,
Earth is shown as a tiny dot against
the vastness of space (halfway down
the brown band). The Voyager 1
spacecraft, which had completed its
primary mission and was leaving the
Solar System, was commanded by
NASA to turn its camera around and
to take a photograph of Earth across
a great expanse of space, at the
request of Carl Sagan.

17. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of
the Human Future in Space, 1997
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of
any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again
that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone
you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The
aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident
religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter
and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and
destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young
couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child,
inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt
politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every
saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a
mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

19. IT as a unifier
• Transcend:
– Geography
– Language
– Time (asynchronous)
• Promote understanding
• Rapid diffusion of information
– Viral

20. Divisions and Risks
• As with all tools, IT can be used in ways that
exacerbate problems and divisions.
• Propaganda
• Misinformation
• Anonymity allows for irresponsibility

21. Great Wall from Space

22. Boundaries from Space

23. Wall Artifact
• Berlin
• Different light bulbs still
used in East and West
• Oestolgia

24. Earth from Mars