Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson were visionary thinkers seeking solutions to the problems of information overload and hierarchical storage systems that seemed to stifle human creativity and associative thought. Now that we have the World Wide Web, in what ways have these visions of Bush and Nelson been realized? What remains unrealized?
“Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified” – Vannevar Bush
This quote basically predicted the internet, but more specifically, Wikipedia. This and every page on the internet contains Nelson’s “hypertext” idea, linking you with a click to infinite amounts of knowledge. The linking goes even further with “hypermedia” which explains JPEGs, GIFs, Flash players, embedded Youtube videos, Spotify, etc, etc.
People naturally want to categorize everything, but the hierarchical structures of the past couldn’t possibly arrange all data at the time in a truthful, accurate way. Like an old library, this is a branching system, not like the rhizomatic system of the internet.
Nelson’s “Xanadu” concept still remains somewhat unrealized. If you post some artwork online, for instance, the source of the creation will sometimes be lost and you can lose credit for your work. The hyperlinks we have don’t trace back to the original. The state of copyright today is in disarray.
