What does this sound like to you? When do you suppose that Bush wrote this?
Read it once more closely and see if it reminds you at all of the world wide
web. First of all, look at the word association (definition: the act of making
mental connections among disparate ideas or facts). People always make references
to their “train of thought” and the ways that his or her mind may
jump from one thing to the next, all based on some small similarity, or association,
they may have. Oftentimes we do not even recognize that our mind is making these
connections. Think now about the Internet, and perhaps research that you have
done. With the clicking of your mouse, you move from cite to cite, using links
within a page or outside it, and they all intertwine to form a path of the research
you’ve covered—an “intricate web of trails” perhaps?
It seems as if the Internet functions on the same type of principles as the
brain. The Internet appears to be based on the model of the human mind—it
seems to visualize what goes on inside of the brain. Perhaps it is a physical
extension of our mental capabilities, because we can now actualize things that
before we only dreamed of. For instance, whereas before a person could make
the mental connection in their mind of a vacation idea and actual places, with
the Internet, the vacation idea can be placed into a yahoo search and the person
can “visit” the places that are options. No longer does it require
getting travel books from the library or a travel agent. The map of our mind
is extended by the use of the Internet.
One of the most interesting things about Bush is that he did not write his essay in recent times reflecting on the ways that the Internet seems to mimic and extend the human mind, but rather, he wrote it in 1945, long before the advent of the technological age.