A Note on the Theme of this Blog: Everything is Deeply Intertwingled -- and, Hopefully, Becoming Smartly Intertwingled

The next post (to appear just above) is the first to indulge my desire to comment more broadly on the theme that "everything is deeply intertwingled" (as Ted Nelson put it). That has always been a core of my worldview and has been increasingly weaving into my posts -- especially on the problems of how we deal with "truth" in our social media. I say we should move toward making things more smartly intertwingled.

That post, and some that will follow, move far out of my professional expertise, but I see all of my ideas as deeply intertwingled. (I have always been intrigued by epistemology, the theory of knowledge: what can we know and how do we know it). This current  topic provided the impetus to act on my latent intent to broaden the scope of this blog to these larger issues that are now creating so much dysfunction in our society.

Beyond Ted Nelson's classic statement and his diagram (above, from Computer Lib/Dream Machines) the symbol that most elegantly conveys this perspective is the Tao symbol, which appears in many of my posts. It shows the yin and yang of female and male as intertwingling symbols of those elemental opposites — and the version with the dots in each intertwingled portion, suggests that each element also contains its opposite (a further level of intertwingling).

[Update 6/13/19, on changing the blog header:]

This blog was formerly known as “Reisman on User-Centered Media,” with the description:

On developing media platforms that are user-centered – open and adaptable to the user's needs and desires – and that earn profit from the value they create for users ...and as tools for augmenting human intellect and enlightened democracy.

That continues to be a major theme.