alek blogs

Memex: futuristic device?

If idea has almost sixty years and it is till interesting then there must be something in it. That is certainly true about memex.

First motivation for memex from "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush from July, 1945 (emphasize is mine):

(...) The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature. (...)

So how such device would work? One organizing theme is about machine remembering and recalling anything that operator deems interesting:

(...) When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item. Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails. (...)

Finally what really matters is ability to organize, recall and share knowledge and that idea what was well captured in this example:

(...) The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.
(...) And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the outraged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail. (...)

It seems that linking creates such trial and good search engine is tool to recall trails and now blogs are making easier to create trials but still this is long way to go ...

There are other tools that try to do this but so far I have not found yet one that works for me ... where is my Memex? so i start forgetting what i can easily recall:

(...) Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important. (...)

created Sun July 20, 2003 7:08 PM EST [2003/7/20 19:8 EST] permalink

This blog is about:
XML, Java, and everything else (or nothing ..)

Find more about
blog author

Blogroll:
Sam Ruby
Russell Beattie
Diego Doval
Joel on Software
and some (almost) harmless entertainment: The BileBlog

Projects::
MicroLogger
Xydra
WSIF
XmlPull API
XPP3/MXP1
XSOAP
XMessages

RSS
0.92 [validate]
2.0 [validate]

Filter Entries:
Life
Java
XML
Computing
Web Services