I'm thinking mountain and molehill on this one. Hypertext simply allows me to share common knowledge like allusions do so often. I don't know the story of Adam and Eve and the writer has a link to it I can get up to speed, share common knowledge with the author. It glorifies bibliographies. I always saw hypertext as a democratizer and nothing more, certainly not the philosophical stuff I've been reading. Very heavy, perhaps stretching it, and definitely stuff of which doctorates are made. Hypertext lets me the writer link my allusions. Hypertext lets me the reader share knowledge and choose the order in which I wish to read something. I find this philosophy stuff fascinating. Ted Nelson has always been an enigma to me and perhaps always will be. We are tapping the database of knowledge and that was something I always envisioned by Nelson. To try to pin hypertext down will be an illusive process and fantastical. Hypertext is probing the brain of the writer since the writer makes the links and it probes the reader who makes the choices.

Shakespeare texts are hypertext with the play on one page and the definitions on the opposite side. High school English texts are hypertext as we use the back of the book to help define elements of the text being read. Bibliographies are hypertext. Now with the web, I can make a link and without turning pages or going to a library I can access the material via a hyper link.

afternoon changes in that as I read one page return to it another day new links appear. It grows and I don't actually consider it hypertext since the author is exerting a bit more control, allowing me access when he thinks I'm ready, That is linear not hypertext.

But I do love this discussion as it enthralls and confuses me and that is just what I need this weekend, like that hole in my head to get rid of this week long headache.

Ted Nellen 8-)

  _o    \o_         __|     \ /      |__         o _    o/   \o/
 __|- __/    \__/o    \o     |     o/     o/__   /\    /|     |
    >   >    /  \     ( \   /o\   / )     |  (\  / |   < \   / \

~ Sophocles ~ (BC 495-406, Greek Tragic Poet)

http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/
http://www.tnellen.com/ted/