Dawud, at Healthy Web Design (the designer of this site), posted a video created by Michael Wesch that highlighted the organic, dynamic nature of the modern internet, and indirectly highlighted the organic, dynamic nature of ourselves.
The rich “linking” that happens with nearly every blog post is very similar to our own nervous system. In just the first sentence of this post I’ve attached threads to two different sites. Each of these sites have thousands of their own connections to other sites.
Some of the connections have meaning, and some of the connections are random, but over time, the connections between sites that have meaning will strengthen. They will strengthen as the authors of those sites find the connections useful and as other readers or users find them useful, as well. Similar links will be created, solidifying the relationship.
I can’t help but think of the development of our brain. Every neuron reaches out to hundreds to thousands of other neurons in an effort to pass information along. Neuronal paths are strengthened when a certain activity is repeated and practiced (hitting a curveball, working on long division, etc.). New connections along similar paths are laid down as old, unused connections disengage.
Over time there is a molding- an evolution that is based as much upon the activities of the person as by his or her genetics.
Somehow, out of these billions of connections (in a piece of brain the size of a grain of sand, there are hundreds of thousands of neurons making millions of connections), we have a living working brain- a brain that becomes more than the sum of its parts. It can think consciously, dream, coordinate movement, breathing, and the beating of the heart.
So I wonder: as the use of the internet explodes, and the number of links exponentially increases, what will emerge? This is one of over 50 million blogs. The web of connectivity is reaching staggering proportions.
As a species, our physical brains can get no bigger. The birth canal is only so wide. I don’t know about you, but my computer seems to be more and more intertwined with my life every day. When my own brain doesn’t know something, I immediately reach for the internet.
It kind of makes me wonder…
Dr. Travis Elliott and the Two-Sided Coin » Blog Archive » If computers communicated with laser light, they’d be billions of years behind mother nature said,
March 1, 2007 @ 8:17 pm[…] I was in a coffee shop recently and picked up a recent issue of Scientific American. In it I found yet more evidence that we are building computers and computer networks that are uncannily similar to our own bodies. […]