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Because We Are Digital
crossing the boundaries
page 6 of 7THE MEMEX'S ASSOCIATIVE INDEX The idea of making a large body of information available to others is not new: in 350 BC the Athenian Speusippus created an encyclopedia which purported to contain all human knowledge, as did Lu Pu-Wei in China in 239 BC, who gathered 3,000 known scholars and assembled their knowledge into a work of more than 200,000 words. One of the limitations of these encyclopedias was their mass: Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia Natural History, compiled in 79 AD was said to comprise 37 volumes containing 2,500 chapters. The next limitation was cost; at a time when books were reproduced by hand copying, works of this magnitude were fabulously expensive. The final limitation is more of a cognitive one. When large bodies of information are put together, some organizational scheme must be used. Modern encyclopedias are organized more or less alphabetically, with one entry following another from a to z. This is a fairly arbitrary, modern and limiting system. Diderot's Encylopedie, a text meant to further the Enlightenment by bringing out the essential principles of art and science, was organized by tasks and preoccupations. Vannevar Bush, science advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been somewhat forgotten, yet stands as a remarkable creative interlocutor. In his 1945 vision of the memex, he held out the solutions for the limitations of human mind and dexterity. The memex was an unrealized tool that a more enlightened Harvard audience, listening to Calvino, might already have employed. His machine improves memory, like an encylopedia, while allowing the mind to operate "by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next which is suggested by its association of thoughts." His vision of its ability to scan information allows the user to recombine to recombine art and knowledge: to become a creative interlocutor. He talked of new organizational schemes - ones which can be customized to the needs and interests of the particular users. His device combines two of the liberating capabilities of the digital computer: reduction of images, words and music to a dataset, and networking in what was meant to be a personal device. He foresaw both the internal network of hypertext and the possibilities of the external network. Remarkably today Bush's mechanism is as common as the desktop computer, and yet his essential idea of the memex, that users can be empowered by hypertextual trails through information, is unfulfilled. Why, we ask? It is not the fault of technology, but rather a failure of entrenched values and limited vision. The Web, the most prevalent implementation of hypertext, is essentially a one-way distribution system, where the user has little facility to be creative. We foresee the use of the computer networks to facilitate and empower the creative interlocutor. The creative interlocutor uses hypertext and hypermedia to create trails, these trails transform data into knowledge to be redistributed to others, thus feeding the network. The memex, and the computer like it, create a miniature network within the data they hold in their memory. When linked to a larger network, such as the World Wide Web, their ability to create new meaning is increased almost infinitely. Our ability to nurture and engage our own genius is stifled by an education that fails to recognize the value of associative capabilities inherent in this network. Clearly, this is the task of the redefined humanist and visual education or what we once referred to as the classic Liberal Arts. It must engage us all, as scientists, engineers, artists, and scholars. Technology has failed us in accomplishing this goal because it has been segregated from humanist activity. |
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This site ©2003 Charles H. Traub and Jonathan Lipkin. Maintained by webmaster@intherealmofthecircuit.com. | |
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| Levy, Steve :: Paul, Saint :: Tufts University, Perseus Project :: Minsky, Marvin :: Hypertext Hotel :: Korn, Arthur :: Bartlett, John :: Warchalking :: Roman Empire :: Beethoven, Ludwig von :: Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (GSRT) :: Schlemmer, Oscar :: Cezanne, Paul :: Fessenden, Reginald :: Goethe, Johann von :: Disney :: Mathews, Harry :: Bibliotheca Alexandra :: Eco, Umberto :: Phelereus, Demetrius :: | ||
