Ted Nelson talk at UCSC 10/25, 2PM

[Jim Whitehead]

Drop me a quick email if you're planning on coming...

- Jim

http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/events/seminars/nelson.html

Ideas, the Final Frontier-- Computers Beyond Hierarchy and the Web beyond
HTML
Ted Nelson

Friday October 25, 2002
Baskin Engineering 330
2:00pm-3:30pm

Abstract
Most uses of computers simulate either hierarchy, paper, or both (Acrobat
and the Web). Hierarchy is notably unsuited to most human thought,
creativity, and ongoing changes of projects; paper is a form of confinement
to which we have adapted for two millennia, though the ideas have tried to
escape for a thousand years-- through footnotes, annotations, parallelisms,
and creative layout.

If we dare to challenge these traditions, the alternatives still need
structuring for implementation. The issue is the optimal representation of
ideas-- what relations among discrete structures can best replace
hierarhical directories, and what generalizations of electronic document
will allow profuse bidirectional connections, track content flow from
version to version, allow publishing of annotations and ongoing parallel
documents, and permit large-scale quotation of copyrighted material? (All
are vital for a true electronic literature.)

The Xanadu document designs have long included parallel pages, deep
interconnection, side-by-side intercomparison, massive rearrangement with
origins showing, and new forms of copyright permission and micropayment.
CosmicBook is a demonstration of the traditional Xanadu interface that
reaches across window boundaries. VLIT (Virtual Literary Format) is
essentially a new version of Xanadu with all proprietary elements (including
algorithms and trademarks) stripped away. ZigZag is an n-dimensional
construction kit (suggested by spreadsheets) for the representation and
manipulation of lists, information, ideas, and other structures, even
including a new model of programming. These examples only begin to show what
possibilities lie outside today's computer conventions.

Biography

Dr. Ted Nelson is a Project Professor at Keio University in Fujisawa, Japan,
and a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton in England.
Through his pioneering work on the Xanadu system, Dr. Nelson coined the
term"hypertext", and developed the design of a highly distributed networked
hypertext system. Dr. Nelson's book "Literary Machines" was instrumental in
promoting the vision of the computer as a novel textual medium capable of
rapid interlinking of information, ultimately acting as inspiration for the
Web. His book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" was a pre-PC appeal to
personalize and de-institutionalize access to computing. Recently, Dr.
Nelson has been involved in a series of international collaborations,
working with Hyperstructure Group at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland
and Les Carr at the University of Southampton on the ZigZag project, as well
as Ian Heath of Runlevel 3, Limited in Southampton, England on CosmicBook.
Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Japan in Media and
Governance, 2002 (Thesis: "Philosophy of Hypertext," in English), his M.A.
from Harvard in Sociology (Dept. of Social Relations), 1963, and a B.A. from
Swarthmore in Philosophy, 1959.