Bush’s article about technology and the means of storing and accessing data proved to be an interesting read. On the topic of accessing records, he wrote of how then-current methods of indexing clashed with the way the human mind works by association. Almost immediately I was reminded of Wikipedia, where we have articles on subjects that contain links to many different subjects and even suggest similar subjects. Often times on I would find myself getting lost in this link-by-link association, starting at one topic and eventually winding up at another completely different one and if I simply put the two next to each other I would be boggled at the idea that the two are somehow connected or related. This practically reflects the way our minds wander from one idea or topic to another, Bush wrote that we “cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially”, but it seems that we may already have.
When Bush discussed a better method of indexing data, he was leading up to the idea of a memex, an instrument of data storage which reminds us of our modern computers. I think it is interesting that when Bush wrote of a way to recreate our selection by association he was thinking of a “computer” but when I read it I immediately jumped to the hyperlinks of the internet. With all the data that is stored and accessed on the internet it seems that our computers though used to store and access data themselves, are mainly a means of accessing something much larger and greater. It is fascinating to see how Bush could not really fathom what we have now and how the same holds true for ourselves. What could surpass the internet? Is it even possible to do so?
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