DRL Echobox

i feel like i'm witnessing the front edge of the envelope of a phase change in thought and communication. almost like a revolution, in the way that the intellectual forbearers of the Declaration of Independence must have felt, sitting in thier salons, thinking of the way things could, or should, be.

Greg and I stayed up most of the night talking about tagging, folksonomies, taxonomies, and all the other new internet modes of relating information. the things that have come in the wake of the realization that google's spider-it-all search philosophy doesn't take you too far unless you already know exactly what you want are only the the tip of the iceberg of possibility. del.icio.us, flickr and the new m4dz.com only capture the flat name space of recall and recommendation, and not even that efficiently.

the things we invisioned tonight - mapping del.icio.us tags and links to yahoo or dmoz taxonomies, dynamically creating hierarchies of information using tag relationships, the subtleties of how tagging captures subjective, point-of-view specific relations between information sources, while taxonomies captures birds-eye-view, objective information structures, and how to link these two structures - I feel these things being discussed all over the world (almost as though parellel conversations are happening all over the city - but the city is much larger than the city), by people more in the know than myself, but also by people less familiar with the terrain, as well. this is what gives me the feeling of revolution - a revolution in the way thinking and communication is organized.

we can more effectively share our outboard brains, now that we can map our memories and perspective in this new way that bridges subjectivity and objectivity. it remains to be seen how this new capability for thought can do concrete things for the world and its ills and wonders, but i don't think that will be the case forever.

part of what makes me feel good about Music for Dozens and the work i've put into it, is that it could play a role in popularizing the tagging meme - a meme which derives its power from mass utilization. i do feel that if/when tagging is as commonplace as television, whole barriers to the advancement of good and truth in the world will crumble.