Where do we come from? From an evolutionary history that is far longer than philosophers could imagine. Instead, philosophers devised a human being capable either of shaping the world through its ideas or created by God to shape the design of providence. In reality, we come from something that was there before us; which means that any hypothesis based on the anthropic principle is structurally inadequate. That is why we must take a leap of the imagination and try to think of the world without humans. If you will, it is a matter of taking God’s point of view: which is certainly not the much deprecated ‘view from nowhere’, since it is built precisely by following the thread of principles that go beyond human nature. We can see these same principles at work in the ongoing technological revolution, which is not only a revelation of human nature, but also at the same time an indication of what made human nature possible before any humans appeared on Earth. It is primarily in the present that the origin manifests itself.

0.1 In the Beginning Was the Web

The answer to the question ‘where do we come from?’ is a popular version of the fundamental ontological question, ‘what is there?’, but declined in the past tense: ‘what was there?’ Or more precisely: ‘what was there in the beginning?’ The answer is simpler than it sounds, and it is offered to us by none other than Harlequin: ‘C’est partout et toujours comme ici, c’est partout et toujours comme chez nous, aux degrés de grandeur et de perfection près.’

Indeed, in the beginning was the Web: at least if we want to believe Plato’s hypothesis, which is anything but far-fetched. In the Sophist, Plato speaks of a συμπλοκή, an interweaving or network which can mean both the connection of ideas and that of syllables. It is not difficult to recognise here the ideal antecedent of the Web, providing that one explains the technological or metaphysical con-dition which makes it possible. Now, Plato also speaks about this condition: in the Timaeus he theorises the χώρα, which literally means ‘space’, ‘place’ (it is still a very common name for Greek villages), but which in a metaphysical sense indicates an ‘intermediate genus’, and which consists of a formidable ability to retain.