Introduction to Memex

Introduction to Memex

Hastily drafted by request.

Later

• I know what goes here, just haven’t written it yet

The Essential Reader

(will be updated over time)

• As We May Think
  • https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1945/07/176-1/132407932.pdf
• A Brief history of Digital Gardens
  • Appleton, Maggie. “A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden”. Maggie Appleton. https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history

Key Terms

Memex

A hypothetical personal information device proposed by Vannevar Bush (1945) that stores a user’s books, records, and communications and enables rapid, associative retrieval via linked “trails.” The memex is an early conceptual ancestor of hypertext, personal knowledge bases, and modern information management tools.

Now commonly used to refer colloquially to personal information management systems, technology, and practices that advance personal information efficacy.

Ontology

A philosophical term that I’m going to try to establish simply. The word is composed of:

• Ontos – from eon, denoting ‘to be’
• Logos – denoting ‘to collect words’

You can imagine the practice of ontology as Essence Reckoning or Reality Accounting. It is the practice of creating a logic — a schematic, a study — of the set or subset of frigging anything.

Intuitively we do this all the time with mental models and language, hence we need this word to declare when we are practicing it intentionally to differentiate our everyday sense making. Very meta.

Modality

Additionally in the meta category of terms is Modality. From:

• Modus, Mode – denoting ‘measure, manner, mood, melody’

The modality is the context or the measures, the bounds, the arrangement, the circumstance for development of an Ontology. You can think about is as the ‘WTF are we talking about?’ response. There is a modality that is emotions, a modality that is dinner, and a modality that encompasses dynamics of dinner emotions.

A Warning

(re: An Oversimplification of Her Beauty)

Recording is by it’s very nature reductive. You can orient the effectiveness of your efforts by the utility or instrumentality of the design. You can use questions to inform that shape the ontology and modality.

• What jobs are to be done?
  • ex: tracking personal coffee intake overtime
  • ex: identifying persons of relevance and their pets’ names
• What queries to be answered?
  • ex: what would be a recommendation for a movie to watch that probabilistically would be favourable to all and hasn’t been seen by any?

An example of reduction of something grand is illustrated by An Oversimplification of Her Beauty.