Okay, so the readings today really made me question what I am worse at; philosophy/abstract concepts or math. (Let me tell you, I am awful at math. Like the IRS will definitely come after me one day because I’m so bad at doing things with numbers.) So keeping that in mind, I’ll try and give a shot to what we were assigned to read this week.
The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges is obviously a metaphor for the Internet and its’ vastness. That much I can get from the reading. There are unlimited web pages, like there are unlimited books in a library. Just take Wikipedia for example. You can link almost every webpage together if you play, The Wiki Game. One link, leads to another, which goes to a different page, which can sometimes link to another page and then back to the first page. The Internet is the new library, just with less biblical references.
One quote in particular stood out to me:
The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one’s fecal necessities.
Source: Twinfamy.com
Each user can take a different path to find what they need. Bear with me while I dork out, but I thought this sounded a lot like the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter. The room presents itself to those who need and ask of it. As Borges points out (I think?) there are so many different pathways to take, which lead us to what we are searching for. Libraries, like the Room of Requirement and the Internet are nothing unless we are searching something out that we want to know more about. All three are infinite and continuous.
I probably won’t get too much credit for this post, abstract thinking was never my strong suit and I’m really unsure how to relate this to multi-media writing, without sounding too stupid and off topic. I’m sure class discussion will help to clarify things. Until then, I’m going to go walk by a wall three times until a door appears for me to go through.
