Hypertext & Complexity LO4919

John Zavacki (jzavacki@epix.net)
Tue, 16 Jan 1996 05:12:36 -0500

Replying to LO4874 --

Al Selvin wrote:
>
> John Warfield wrote (a few weeks back) -- was "Learning Histories LO4531"
> [...subject line changed by your host...]
>
> > I do have one theoretical problem with hypertext. It seems to be
> > founded in the assumption that knowledge can be organized in the form of
> > a hierarchy, and that the best way to study a hierarchy is to go down
> > one long path through it, without ever seeing the whole hierarchy.
> > It also seems to be founded in the assumption that hierarchy is the
> > most general form of knowledge organization.
>
> I don't think that this is not a property of hypertext itself, but in the
> way some hypertext systems have been implemented. Used creatively,
> hypertext can subvert the whole notion of a hierarchy by providing
> multiple ways of organizing, or viewing, the same information. What is
> seen as the "right" levels of importance to one view or organizing
> principle need not be the same set of things as another view, while both
> can be easily accomodated in the same system.snip>
> The degree to which a hypertext database appears hierarchical is due to
> its design, rather than a property of the medium itself.

I agree wholeheartedly here. Years ago, before hypertext was common, I
played with a DOS implementation I found on a BBS. I used it
associatively. The documents I wrote showed more the development of my
thought that a hierarchy of ideas. Many of my links were based on my
personal development and appeared somewhat like a hermeneutic spiral. One
file I kept up with for quite some time was a journal which I searched
while writing in order to establish links for comparative purposes. A
learning history application could be done similarly in the area of
establishing contiuous improvement projects which are linked to similar
corrective and preventive actions to maintaing a systems view.

There are interesting and uninteresting ways to use technology.

-- 
jzavacki@epix.net 
	John Zavacki
	The Wolff Group
	900 James Avenue
	Scranton, PA 18510
Phone: 717-346-1218	Fax: 717-346-1388