Have you ever looked up the function of something, only to be disappointed that you went the wrong place in the voluminous manual? And that you have no clue as to where the correct position actually is, but you know *somewhere* there's a paragraph that describes exactly your problem and how to fix it? But WAIT! You see the `see also' section at the bottom of the description, and sure enough, after you 'spread your net a little further' (so to speak) into those pages, you find exactly what you're looking for? Isn't there a sort of electric satisfaction and smugness that comes from this conquest? Or, have you ever got the same feeling from finding something buried in a book you knew was there? Or despaired when you couldn't?
The idea of hypertext can formalize these processes and improve their efficacy tremendously. Now, 'hypertext', like all great terms ('love', 'life', etc.) is ambiguous and means many things to many people. I'm not going to get into technical issues such as its implementation here (too much). Mostly, I want to attack the essence of hypertext as a philosophy, and describe some facets of its really awesome potential, esp. currently.
In its most simple form, you can imagine that anywhere a writer is alluding to something he is thinking about in his writing, instead of saying something like ``as has been clearly demonstrated'' or ``as Blotchski so nicely showed'' or ``as I was saying yesterday'' or ''in figure 2b'' or (?)--imagine everywhere there is this 'hidden' information or attribution, there is also an embedded button! Now, imagine that to call up that information or item, you just press the button! In turn, there would be other buttons in these new items. Imagine that all these separate items can be seen simultaneously on your screen in separate windows! Or maybe even a tree diagram of the overall structure. Imagine that you could easily cut and paste from all these documents to create your own and put in all your own lovely buttons to all those delicious elaborations--you could highlight the sections you are most enamored with, and put little electronic 'post-it' notes here and there.
Pretty mind-boggling when you think about it. Its all really a frontal assault on the whole idea of writing, really. Hence the name 'hypertext', which might be considered something of the opposite of 'lineartext' (that old-fashioned, quaintly obsolete, and maddeningly inefficient way humans once communicated). There seems to be something eerily familiar and primal about hypertext for organizing information. Humans brains seem to operate something like astonishingly sophisticated and complex hypertext collections. Human interactions are like that too---watching someone try to accomplish something, you will see their influence spread among various associations as they succeed (or contract as they fail). Also, the path of ideas might be compared to the budding of buttons---people who subscribe to this view call them 'memes' and note the analogies to Darwinian survival theories. This deep hypertext stuff has really been around us all the time, we just suddenly *realized* it.
For example, look in any scientific journal and you will see that some of the most conservative people on the planet are rabid advocates of hypertext. At the end of every article is a description of all the buttons authors wished were in their article. These descriptions are a feeble and crude excuse for the real thing but they are used anyway, because no one has figured out how to put real buttons in paper yet (in fact, that's its main disadvantage). These scientists are extremely finicky and sensitive about their buttons. Reputations are built up or clobbered on who has the most buttons. Articles are rejected if they don't have the right buttons in them. Its considered extremely irresponsible not to have buttons, esp. if what you are saying is not 'original'! In fact, they consider it a serious crime called 'plagiarism'. Buttons are so important that some people study button use to get an idea of overall trends in science. These pseudo-buttons I've been talking about are called 'citations' by the scientists. Scientists can get very excited from constantly pushing each other's buttons.
Mind-boggling indeed! Ah, but I'm not finished yet! Now imagine that all those pseudo-button references were converted to *real* ones, instantaneously accessable over a network. Tying together all the buttons is called 'linking', and links inevitably will become extremely intertwined (as tortuously and convoluted as people are) and spread out over the entire world (as prolific and ubiquitous as people are). Imagine that virtually every human endeavor is somehow represented in this data, directly or indirectly (in video, audio, etc.). Now, imagine also that today's monolithic institutions, such as education or government or the economy, come to be described in terms of this access over the network. People can rent movies or listen to any radio station in the world over it. People could create their *own* movies or radio stations. Instead of a small elite class of editors and writers around today, *everyone* would become an editor and writer. 'Button books' would become humanity's yellow pages.
Suppose that tiny transaction charges are not only possible but easy to set up based on interactions between senders and receivers. You might be astonished to find that you can make a tidy sum from the worldwide accesses to your Aunt Mabel's brownie recipe, which went from nonexistent to inundating after your friend linked a button to it in their recipe 'button book'. You might find that other's presentations make no sense to you in the order they are organized, and your new, improved organization becomes the standard in the field! Or your incredible knowledge of auto mechanics finds itself in a widely-subscribed 'column' (maybe 'framework' should be the new term!). You may find that after graduating many employers are interested in your capabilities so wonderfully elaborated in your world-changing essays submitted in classes. Who knows? Maybe instead of people boring you with conversations on subjects you know about, they would ask you questions related to your brilliant expositions that have been in widespread circulation. Finally, a means for anyone to leave enduring footprints.
OK, so why is hypertext suddenly so hot? Well, the whole idea has such immensity that you need a large cup to contain it, or it will runneth over. Hence, the computer. The computer has been an extremely crucial and effective tool in the quest for hypertexting the world, or the new 'electronic goldrush'. In fact, some think this is the computer's primary secret of success! But there are still many obstacles. Mostly, everyone needs to agree on a common button design. If some buttons can only connect to some kinds of papers, you've got many more complications in the overall network than necessary. The arrays of chains won't hold up unless all the links are strong and uniform. This common button design is slowly emerging, but there are a lot of people who are saying they won't have anything to do with it until they see what the final buttons will look like. But this is a problem, because if they are going to use the buttons, the final design should be influenced by their concerns! (sort of the ol' no hardware, no software; no software, no hardware catch-22.) So if anyone comes along asking how you would like your buttons to work, don't tell them to get lost until they come back with a design you can veto. Help them out. Thanks! I'm sure we'll be seeing quite a few button peddlers in the years to come, so we'd better learn to live with them.