In 1406 or 1407, Christine de Pizan noted that ancient authors claimed that “art wishes to follow nature.” To clarify this point, Christine explains that art follows nature “when a worker properly contrefait a thing that nature has made.” As an example, she cites the case of a “painter who shall be so great a worker that he will depict the appearance of a man in so lively (si sur le vif) and so proper a fashion that everyone will recognize it, or a bird, or another beast,” and she notes that a sculptor would do likewise. She then remarks that some people refer to art as the “apess or ape of nature, because just as the apess greatly imitates the manners of humans, art greatly imitates the works of nature.”¹⁴⁵

We can say that a message, M, is epistemically defective if either it is false, inappropriate, or connected to other beliefs in ways that are inapt, misleading, or unwarranted.

They [the laws] are at present, both in form and essence, the greatest curse that society labours under ; the scorn of the wicked, the consternation of the good, the refuge of those who violate, and the ruin of those who appeal to them.

Meanwhile, the pioneers of the computer-mediated communication networks collectively referred to as cyberspace are not willing to wait. Employing whatever tools they can find, they are constantly pushing the techno-cultural envelope. Life in cyberspace is often conducted in primitive, frontier conditions, but it is a life which, at its best, is more egalitarian than elitist, and more decentralized than hierarchical.