15may2002

Conclusion1


so, more things (and this is me talking here, not a session).

file and resources and how we think about them:

it's all about location and associations. i'm thinking maybe location on the
filesystem is like deep structure, but we connect together these things into a
kind of a narrative surface structure with associations when we consider them.
that's the two things.

BUT
on the web,
location isn't so useful, and it stops being a deep structure (i'm using ds as
being a kind of inherent in-your-head thing) because you're not aware of all of
it. what's more, because you don't know of all of it you have to share your
associations with other people. [associations are the transformative agent, the
morphogen [or whatever it's called, the fundamental unit of change] for making
deep structure to surface structure]

unfortunately that means associations have to be structured in some way, which
in your head they're not normally. this is a meme bullet process: a chinese
puzzle of ideas, packaging up an idea to expand in a hopefully equal way in
somebody else's head. and it doesn't always work. in fact, very rarely works
properly.

the associations end up taking the form of some kind of taxonomy or hierarchy or
network of connections --> which ends up getting confused with the location
thing, and we end up with only one structure. that's why information is
difficult to organise in libraries.

the SECRET PROPERTY of the web or of libraries is that they allow alternative
hierarchies to be bolted on top: card indexes, other portals, etc. but this is
just luck. so all these other ways of organising information, we have to make
sure there's the possibility of organising things in other way.

and THAT's why i don't like these forced associations thing. because they don't
allow associations in the head (because there's no deep structure), and they
don't allow alternative association networks/ surface structure on the top.


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rumbling:
i think a bunch of conclusions are going to come out of all of this, as i
reinterpret, recombine and perculate what's going on. this isn't terribly well
formed, but it'll do as one possible idea.