What you call "cosmology" seems synonymous with what I have called a "world
view" (or at least part of a world view). The world view which Principia
Cybernetica is developing does attempt to integrate the need for requisite
variety (cultural and otherwise), symbiosis, and various technological
applications.
In spite of recurrent misunderstandings, the "global brain" is meant
exactly as a technology to support cultural and cognitive variety, while
still helping these different ideas and practices to harmoniously live
together (symbiosis). But technology, as you'll agree is not sufficient:
any technology will be misused, unless there is an overarching consensus on
what it should be used for and what not, i.e. a shared system of values.
You can use radioactive materials to kill tumors or to build nuclear
weapons. It is up to global society to say that we want the one, but not
the other.
Perhaps the postmodernists will say that you should have respect for any
value system, and therefore not strive to achieve consensus. But that would
imply that you should also have respect for Saddam Hussein developing
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to threaten his neighbors, and
that you should not interfere when he claims that Kuwait is really a part
of Iraq, or that the Jews should be removed from Israel... After all, this
just follows from his own value system, according to which he is the most
important person in the world, and all his enemies should be annihilated.
If I believe that everybody should reject that kind of value system, does
that make me a nazi (closet or otherwise)?
_________________________________________________________________________
Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be> -- Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html