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ATOMIC_THOUGHT

                                              December 20, 2006

What is the
atom of thought?

What is the indivisible
building block of which
ideas are made?

Answers we are
sometimes taught:

  words
  sentences            Hierarchies of
  paragraphs           abstraction again.

  These answers                     Pieces that fit together to form
  are clearly                       larger pieces that fit together to form...
  wrong.

     For any one of them you choose,
     the context of each piece
     changes what the piece means.

     Paragraphs can not be chopped up
     and swapped around in just any
     order.

     And larger works built
     of those paragraphs also
     depend on each other.


          The interconnections are complicated,
          and the web is everything.                  In this context,
                                                      "the web" is not
          No person experiences the same web.         (soley) the www.

                                                      If that sentence
                                                      were moved elsewhere,
   I bring up this point                              "the web" would mean
   here because:                                      something else.

  o  In a hypertext, different                           In some places,
     nodes can be arrived at                             I refer to Montaigne's
     by different paths.                                 distinction between
                                                         conversation and
         So nodes have to be                             debate.
         written so that they're
         comprehensible by                               Elsewhere I might
         different paths.                                use "debate" to mean
                                                         Montaigne's
                                                         "conversation".
 o  In a collaborative editing
    environment, text is continually                        And these are
    sliced and re-sliced, worked                            just the elementary
    over by different minds.                                differences...

         If the group does not
         understand that no
         entity is independant           It may be that the
         of each other, the flow         only solution is
         between the pieces will         a flat, disjointed
         continually be disrupted.       style, where no
                                         sentence can depend
                                         on it's neighbor.


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