Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Global Outliner with a bit of Finnegan's Wake
Author: Rob Bender Posted: 6/23/2000; 11:12:43 AM Topic: Global Outliner? Msg #: 18038 (In response to 18033) Prev/Next: 18037 / 18039
I would also comment that, while outlining is restrictive, it seems to be a core human (or, at least, Western and I don't think I'd leave it at that) model for organizing information so that it can be retained and communicated easily. Not the only model, but one key model.I suspect outlining as a way of collecting thoughts evolved fairly recently in human history after paper and writing tools became easily available. Are there any other human activites analogous to outlining? (Hmmm. Are there any good books out there that explore the history of recoding human thought?)
If we wanted to find "core human" ways of documenting ideas, we'd have to go further back and look at things like cave paintings which seem to be more of a mish-mash of visual symbols where related items are physically painted near each other.
A core issue is that most physical media for recording thoughts are limited usually two or three dimensions and have a relativly small amount of space. Human thought, on the other hand, posesses infinite dimensions and fairly infinite space. For most of human history, we have been accustomed to recording thought on these limited physical media and our recordings have thus been shaped by these limitations.
Now computers have come along which do allow for infitive dimension and infinite space. But since we've always been accustomed to using limited media, our initial at using computers have mimicked those media. The real challenge is to create an interface that more resembles the human way of doing things.
Oh, and there's that pesky fact that the way most computers output those stored ideas to us is through a monitor, which is just a another limited physical medium. At least until we get functional brain implants...
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