http://hyperworlds.org/architecturemind.html

Xanadu and zigzag, a new architecture for the mind.

by Jack Seay - April 7, 2006

Every form of media presents a certain architecture, a certain
structure for the mind to work in.

Paper is a 2 dimensional method to present information. It is
difficult and expensive to publish in. You have to cut down trees,
grind them up, flatten them out and dry them. The full process for
getting from final draft to the book in the bookstore is painfully
expensive and full of osbstacles. The book is portable, but difficult
to carry more than just a few of them. The book is also highly
disconnected from the rest of literature. One way links, in the form
of footnotes, point outward, but are difficult to follow. You have to
locate the referred-to document, which can be time consuming and
expensive. Because the links are one-way, you can't see what has
linked to the book you are reading without considerable effort.
Although you can highlight text, and write notes in the margin, this
is a limited form of reader-editing. You can't move paragraphs around
to make more sense to you. If it's an outline, you can't restructure
it or add more than the page size allows.

Film (and other audio-video) is another architecture for the
presentation of literature (the fruit of minds). It is not usually
very portable in the most common forms. You are generally presented
with the structure and video and audio chosen by the director and
other editors. You can't add notes. You can't link to and from it. It
is disconnected from other movies and books. It is a very powerful
method to present a lot of information quickly. It can also have a
profoun effect on the emotions. So can a book, but that requires a
type of talent that few possess. The tools to produce video have
dropped dramatically in recent years due to video cameras and
inexpensive software editing tools. But the end product allows very
little user interaction, other than pausing and restarting the video.

Music and audiobooks have undergone many changes in recent years. But
the way we interact with it is still very much unchanged. Each song
is an island to itself, disconnected from all others. There are no
links between parts of songs. Reviewers can't easily insert more than
a few seconds of the audio into their review because of copyright
restrictions. Websites allow the grouping of music according to the
choices of an editorial board, but don't let you change that
structure to one that makes more sense to you. Recent software, such
as iTunes, allow for the selling of music on the Internet, but all
songs are the same price (chosen by Apple). If you get halfway
through an audiobook and decide you don't like it, you have still
paid for the full document. Paper and film have this same limitation.
You can't draw a diagram showing your favorite songs and audiobooks,
and how you rate and categorize them, and link to that. You are stuck
with the organizational structure chosen by others.

Although some websites that sell music, (usually on plastic), and
books, (usually on paper) allow you to write your own reviews, you
can't choose to ignore the reviews of selected reviewers or create a
document showing just the reviews you like the best and allow others
to see your list.

Although there exists software to allow you to mix music and video
into composite works, copyright restrictions will probably keep you
from publishing it. The law allows you to only quote small snippets,
guaranteeing that you will not be quoting in anything resembling an
accurate context. The current methodology virtually gaurantees the
viewpoints of others will not be fairly presented, as it will be
difficult to quote the full document you refer to, or link to just
part of it. Also, someone reading, hearing or seeing that document
sees no links to your review of it.

The whole structure of how we present our media today: music, books,
movies, etc. is very disconnected, restrictive, and still limited to
unnecessary carry-overs from the paper and plastic world of publishing.

Xanadu seeks to do away with the limitations of the structures of
literature as we know it today: movies, music, the web, books,
magazines, radio, television. Xanadu has a radical system of
copyright that permits and rewards everyone to quote anything in as
full a context as needed. Content creators are financially rewarded
when others include part or all of their works in another. This will
happen instantly and automatically, making the services of lawyers
unneeded.

If you want to present your own philosophical, religious, scientific,
and/or artistic view of "the Universe as you see it, and how you plan
to make it better", you will be given the freedom to stand on the
shoulders of the giants who have come before, and even those now
living. You will not ask permission to quote them as much as you
need, or even create a new version based on theirs. Yours will always
link to the original and show that the original has been modified,
allowing side by side viewing of both versions.

Computers are malleable literary machines, but we have, until now,
imposed on them most of the same restrictions of paper and plastic
that we have used in the past. It is time for a new architecture for
the mind.



Jack Seay - Lubbock, Texas
http://hyperworlds.org - Replacing the Web