1/25/02 3:17:36 PM, Mike Champion <mc@[...].org>  wrote:

> 1/25/2002 3:37:54 PM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@[...].com> 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >There ain't no The Web.  Just a bunch of 
> >pieces hooked up and variously reliable 
> >each according to their owner's intentions 
> >... Just As God Intended. :-)
> 
> I'm not sure what the point of this subthread is ... if it's to deny 
> that "The Web" exists because it can't be unambiguously defined, then 
> that leads to all sorts of black holes.  (Does "Len Bullard" exist 
> since  he consists of a different set of cells than he did when his 
> parents named him?  Where EXACTLY is the canonical set of neurons and 
> synpses that define the one and only Len Bullard?  If it turns out 
> that the "Len Bullard" who posts here is really just an AI experiment 
> that the "real" Len Bullard created to give him time to do his day 
> job, do they both exist?) <grin>
> 
> If it is to suggest that all the wailing and gnashing about 
> preserving the purity of the Web Architecture is misdirected energy, 
> because "The Web" is a fuzzy set of all sorts of ideas and 
> technologies that more or less interoperate most of the time, then 
> I'm inclined to agree.

I think the point is that "The Web" is an emergent phenomenon of all those varyingly hooked-
up 
pieces, just as Len Bullard is an emergent phenomenon of a bunch of ever-changing cells, and
 that 
treating it as if it were a physical object would be committing the fallacy of reification. 
 A 
person, a river, or a Web are in many ways best thought of as processes rather than things.



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