@johnrobb 1/ Yes, you'll know folks long before us posited that emergent aspects of complex, connectionist models are ultimately evolutionary and that cyberspace fits the bill. FWIW, I posted world3.scribble.com/world3/meme1/conn18.html to the web in '95. The first hyperlink, worth a looksee, too, perhaps.
Image description
Original X alt text
Prior to stepping into the greenworld, I bounced around high tech. Among other efforts, I helped jumpstart the National Information Infostructure Awards, in its day the 'Oscars of the Information Superhighway' - which later morphed briefly into the the Global Information Infostructure Awards, before sinking without trace. By then I had moved on to co-found the National Computer Ethics & Responsibilities Campaign with Dr. Peter Tippett (then of Symantec). The Congressional Briefing on Computer Ethics we co-chaired, was responsible, I believe, for hosting the first ever web connection in the U.S. Congress. Pressing on, I conceived and placed the website for the Save the Earth Artrock Auction; conceived and curated World 3, a metahypermedia exploration of website design which engaged the contributions of many of the world's leading hypertext philosophers: "...World 3 is about many things but, fundamentally, it is a space about how to use space to communicate." ....
Image description
Original X alt text
After further pondering the implications of emerging technologies, I penned a technical white paper positing the creation of a server-based, dynamic node interaction protocol for the web, superdoubleplus-precised in the August 1996 issue of WIRED - a simple way to take the fabric of the web, now essentially static, interactive; in a sense, 'turning it on': "...What's the most effective way to strengthen the Web? Strengthen hyperlinking. Create dynamic nodes." Other web-related articles included... I concluded my singular fascination with cyberspace ontology by curating the Electronic Frontier Foundation's consiousness archive, A Space Without A Goal. ASWAG has been described as a "monumental exploration of the morality, and even the theology, of the internet." "...Consciousness is collective. All is Flow. All is flow - Alice in Wonderland. All is low - Heraclitus. All is flow - David Bohm. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin...