the phenomenology of the internet
After a lot of thought, I've managed to change my understanding (what I believe) of the internet in order to better reflect the reality (what I know) of it. By that, I mean that I have mostly come to grips with the idea that every web page is hosted on a specific, physical computer; as much as I am attracted to the concept of information existing in a dynamic and metaphysical "ether," I have to admit to myself that this is just a romantic fantasy, although it continues to inform my experience of the internet in one way or another.
But there is something about the internet that I can't internalize, no matter how hard I try: that is, that while the human creator and observer of a web page maintain their traditional roles, where machines are concerned the dynamic of activity and passivity is completely reversed.
Think about a building. People can enter and leave any time they want, and once inside they can go to various rooms and look around; some rooms are connected, and some are separated by closed walls. Like a web page, it can only "hold" so many people; and the more people are moving around within it the slower things tend to go. For these reasons, in terms of our experience houses and web pages are somewhat analogous.
The problem for me is that these analogies are not true for the computers involves-it is as though the computers are constructing them for out benefit, the same way they are kind enough to present vast sequences of ones and zeros in a format we can better understand. In the case of a house, the building will continue to exist whether there are any people in it or not; and now how many people are inside, there is still only one building. Certainly representations of that building exist inside of each person's mind, but they are somehow different than the building itself. And if you want to visit the house, you've got to walk inside yourself-if you think that you can just ask the house nicely to deliver itself to you, then you'll be in for an unpleasant surprise. In the case of computers, though, this seems not to be true.
If I look at the website of the New York Times, I have the feeling of physically traveling to a place or manipulating a physical object. But this is completely wrong. In fact, it is the "observed" computer-the server-that sends information, while after putting in a request for that information, my computer is a passive recipient.
I recognize that on one level, this isn't so fundamentally different from real life. That's what I was talking about when I said that a representation of the house exists in the minds of all those inside it. From one perspective, there is nothing about the house that fundamentally corresponds to our experience of house-what we experience is our brain's way of presenting to us streams of data in a form we can understand, just as computers do not present a sequence of ones and zeros as ones and zeros (even this idea of "ones" and "zeros" is not what the computer itself experiences). A tree falling in the forest always makes sound waves, but never makes sound-only we can make sound. If we could really experience the universe without the filter of our brains, it wouldn't exist in terms of the five senses-color would simply be wavelengths of light, and sound would simply be vibrations in the air (if we really wanted to deconstruct it, we would have to think start questioning the idea of "matter," which after all is nothing but a lattice of energy); nor would the internet exist as colors and occasionally sounds. This thought creeps me out.
Still, there is a big difference. That is, a house does not have to do anything to be observed. It just sits there. It can't stop reflecting light or containing heat. In this sense, a locked house is totally different than a "locked" webpage. A webpage that you don't have access to doesn't have to do anything special to keep you out; all it does is not send information to your computer. When this happens, I have a sudden concept of the falseness with which I perceive the internet: As a traveler in this collapsable world, I have a right to go where I please, don't I? I can use my own energy and wander on my own two feet, stopping where I chose to observe the scenery. In fact, though, all I am is a quadriplegic in a land of room full of incredibly good Samaritans who, for the most part, will gladly come to me if I call, and even sit patiently as I dictate my thoughts so that others can read them.
But there is something about the internet that I can't internalize, no matter how hard I try: that is, that while the human creator and observer of a web page maintain their traditional roles, where machines are concerned the dynamic of activity and passivity is completely reversed.
Think about a building. People can enter and leave any time they want, and once inside they can go to various rooms and look around; some rooms are connected, and some are separated by closed walls. Like a web page, it can only "hold" so many people; and the more people are moving around within it the slower things tend to go. For these reasons, in terms of our experience houses and web pages are somewhat analogous.
The problem for me is that these analogies are not true for the computers involves-it is as though the computers are constructing them for out benefit, the same way they are kind enough to present vast sequences of ones and zeros in a format we can better understand. In the case of a house, the building will continue to exist whether there are any people in it or not; and now how many people are inside, there is still only one building. Certainly representations of that building exist inside of each person's mind, but they are somehow different than the building itself. And if you want to visit the house, you've got to walk inside yourself-if you think that you can just ask the house nicely to deliver itself to you, then you'll be in for an unpleasant surprise. In the case of computers, though, this seems not to be true.
If I look at the website of the New York Times, I have the feeling of physically traveling to a place or manipulating a physical object. But this is completely wrong. In fact, it is the "observed" computer-the server-that sends information, while after putting in a request for that information, my computer is a passive recipient.
I recognize that on one level, this isn't so fundamentally different from real life. That's what I was talking about when I said that a representation of the house exists in the minds of all those inside it. From one perspective, there is nothing about the house that fundamentally corresponds to our experience of house-what we experience is our brain's way of presenting to us streams of data in a form we can understand, just as computers do not present a sequence of ones and zeros as ones and zeros (even this idea of "ones" and "zeros" is not what the computer itself experiences). A tree falling in the forest always makes sound waves, but never makes sound-only we can make sound. If we could really experience the universe without the filter of our brains, it wouldn't exist in terms of the five senses-color would simply be wavelengths of light, and sound would simply be vibrations in the air (if we really wanted to deconstruct it, we would have to think start questioning the idea of "matter," which after all is nothing but a lattice of energy); nor would the internet exist as colors and occasionally sounds. This thought creeps me out.
Still, there is a big difference. That is, a house does not have to do anything to be observed. It just sits there. It can't stop reflecting light or containing heat. In this sense, a locked house is totally different than a "locked" webpage. A webpage that you don't have access to doesn't have to do anything special to keep you out; all it does is not send information to your computer. When this happens, I have a sudden concept of the falseness with which I perceive the internet: As a traveler in this collapsable world, I have a right to go where I please, don't I? I can use my own energy and wander on my own two feet, stopping where I chose to observe the scenery. In fact, though, all I am is a quadriplegic in a land of room full of incredibly good Samaritans who, for the most part, will gladly come to me if I call, and even sit patiently as I dictate my thoughts so that others can read them.