Part I: “What does the internet do?” The origins of Web 2.0

This post has been rewritten and can be viewed here.

As I change my mind, and evolve (well i hope so) my views on a topic, older posts will be revisited and revised. I’m not sure if this is against some rule of blogging etiquette but I feel this is the only way to write. 

Some people think that The Book, is a self-sufficient totality that should remain unchanged in all eternity (sort of like the Bible). Some people think that a journal’s value lies in its ability to display the evolution of one’s thought. But I do not see why someone would be interested to trace mine in this blog or to read posts that express viewpoint on which i have changed my mind.

I think that everything is written in perpetual beta (This view of the book originates from people like Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida). I can understand that one may feel he or she has finalised a piece of work. But i can understand it only as a fleeting state of mind or as a sign of thought whose evolution has stopped. Although i would not advocate that ‘King Lear’ could do with an extra Act, im sure that were Shakespeare alive he would have made tramendous changes since.

Leaving art works aside, i think that this is a very valid point for ‘academic’ or quasi-academic works that purport to explain a phenomenon. Two famous thinkers that changed their minds tramendously from their early to their late works are Karl Marx (his views on the mechanics of social change) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (his views on language from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to Logical Investigations).

Well go on then, read that improved post here.