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1/25/02 3:17:36 PM, Mike Champion <mc@x...> wrote: >1/25/2002 3:37:54 PM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...> >wrote: > >> >>There ain't no The Web. Just a bunch of >>pieces hooked up and variously reliable >>each according to their owner's intentions >>... Just As God Intended. :-) > >I'm not sure what the point of this subthread is ... if it's to deny >that "The Web" exists because it can't be unambiguously defined, then >that leads to all sorts of black holes. (Does "Len Bullard" exist >since he consists of a different set of cells than he did when his >parents named him? Where EXACTLY is the canonical set of neurons and >synpses that define the one and only Len Bullard? If it turns out >that the "Len Bullard" who posts here is really just an AI experiment >that the "real" Len Bullard created to give him time to do his day >job, do they both exist?) <grin> > >If it is to suggest that all the wailing and gnashing about >preserving the purity of the Web Architecture is misdirected energy, >because "The Web" is a fuzzy set of all sorts of ideas and >technologies that more or less interoperate most of the time, then >I'm inclined to agree. I think the point is that "The Web" is an emergent phenomenon of all those varyingly hooked-up pieces, just as Len Bullard is an emergent phenomenon of a bunch of ever-changing cells, and that treating it as if it were a physical object would be committing the fallacy of reification. A person, a river, or a Web are in many ways best thought of as processes rather than things.
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