mind over matters
one stumbles across icons on the knowledgescape and gradually becomes acquainted through sheer repetition. it is rather like a geographer who perpetually peregrinates within a region with a large mountain in this corner and a lake in that corner, and by the constant traipsing over the same ground, eventually becomes intimate with every gentle slop of that lake against its shore, the distinctive curve of that mountain against its sky. in philosophy, it started with one book. one wades her way blindly through a sea of unfamiliar names - aristotle? plato? spinoza? hegel, berkeley? but what do these words signify? - and then over the years, one encounters these names over and over again, in a plethora of contexts, each context imparting an ounce more detail. in this way, a landscape amasses, and if the geographer wanders often enough, the ground wears down under his feet. connections form, paths become clearer and easier over time.
and it's an organic process. like synapses forming in the brain, associations become stronger through repetition or intensity. inferentially: it's like hyperlinking. it's like what Web 2.0 is primed to become: the human brain writ large, writ virtually. once information is online, it becomes bound into the structure of the web as other users discover and (hyper)link to it. the web is a knowledgescape. it's the development of an organic mind, compressed into the tiny slices of time between input (information production) and syndication (information consumption), but expanded to cover a world of neurons, walking and rewalking their virtual synaptic paths every time they point to new information. and that new information slots into an existing scape; the synapses cluster; the mind is enriched.
not that i countenance for a moment the notion that all information is equally enriching; that no mind contains its share of barbarous rot. but, nonetheless.