I found this article called Cyberspace, Cybertexts, Cybermaps" by marie-Laure Ryan throught the Patrik's Sprawl (which is an amazing blog that I read everyday and would recomment everyone to read everyday.) From this article:
Despite these obvious differences between real and virtual geographies, the cyberspace metaphor invites us to think of the Internet as forming a parallel universe made of countless galaxies, planetary systems within these galaxies, worlds within these systems, and nations within these worlds. [1] The image of cyberspace produced by Andrew Wood, Nick Drew, Russell Beale and Bob Hendley [2] (figure 1) is a good example of this mental visualization.
I found this article called Cyberspace, Cybertexts, Cybermaps" by marie-Laure Ryan throught the Patrik's Sprawl (which is an amazing blog that I read everyday and would recomment everyone to read everyday.) From this article:
Despite these obvious differences between real and virtual geographies, the cyberspace metaphor invites us to think of the Internet as forming a parallel universe made of countless galaxies, planetary systems within these galaxies, worlds within these systems, and nations within these worlds. [1] The image of cyberspace produced by Andrew Wood, Nick Drew, Russell Beale and Bob Hendley [2] (figure 1) is a good example of this mental visualization.
The article is really long and I haven't had time to finish it but I think this image is so awesome in a way that it is a mapping of the cyberworld. (As well as the parallel universe theory behind it.)
While I was reading about hubs and connectors, I was thinking about slim molds where they follow each other's pheromone and how it is related to the legendary salesman problem. (To see my related post about the salesman problem please see the Paul/MafiaBoy/Ants entry.) If every link on the internet has a 12 degree separation, wouldn�t the hugs become the big cities or the most visited node or the strongest slim molds pheromone? If we can apply the idea of slim molds here, how about the emergence system of neighborhood interactions. The process of finding the shortest way from one link to another may be a process of emergence; however, if to considered the links as emergence I think it is only applicable in the example of wiki. (Moreover, I really do miss the wiki function where we click on the title and find out what page is linked to the current page.)
On the sidetrack, isn't it ironic that internet helps us to have a more dense and more actively maintained personal network; however, it has a higher degree of separation than in real life? Is it really ironic? Or is it another big mathematical problem behind it?
Note: The links to the slim mold and the neighbor interactions are pointed to the wiki me and my team created and fostered for the same course in the first module revolving around the idea of emergence system by Steven Johnson. I see the importance of the explanation of slim molds and neighbor interactions and I think this wiki would be a great way to explain and to connect everything to gether.
