Tying it all together

In Lingo Sorcery we discussed creating intelligent agents which could act as an interface between the user and the computer:

From chapter 12

"It is through the arranging of rich, two way dialogues, between a metaphorical [software] entity and a human being that the real potential of Lingo can be unleashed..."

If this idea is extended just a little further we can think of creating a metaphorical entity to be an interface between the human and the Web. This entity can take any form whatsoever and its characteristics can be determined by the information which it links up to or downloads from the Web (don't think of the whole Web here, think only of the part of the Web that is created to be within the interface's Intranet system).

Again, this is one of those conceptual things that at first thoughts make no significant impression, until, quite suddenly, the concept sinks in - then it blows your mind away.

Imagine the scene in the near future...

A person goes into a record store (or a library) and buys (or hires) a CD. The CD is a CD-EXTRA which can be placed into a computer where the track zero can be played as if it were a CD-ROM. Track zero of a CD-Extra can carry up to 650 megabytes so there is plenty of scope for some imaginative graphics and sophisticated programming.

Included on this 'track zero' is an Internet protocol engine which connects the CD to the Internet. Straight away, the user need not be confined to the contents of the CD but can be plugged into an Intranet system: a whole new world which can be of any conceivable form or magnitude.

In this way, the buyer of a CD can be made to appear to be at the center of a whole new world of excitement, adventure and entertainment, or, be conversing with the most informed and amazing entity ever encountered.

If this doesn't blow your mind away then you haven't quite clicked onto the right paradigm.

Using a Director player and a Director movie as the combined browser and software shell - the user can be educated, informed and entertained by a vast Internet system which is represented by whatever metaphorical interface is created through graphics and programming.

Sounds, graphics and software objects can be pulled in from both the zero track and the Web to combine and recombine into all kinds of interesting compositions and scenarios.

In Lingo Sorcery we saw how objects can clone themselves, become self modifying and able to create new objects from parts. Extrapolate this concept to include the contents of the Web where software objects can collect bits of code and spare parts or modifications on the fly from Web pages. Think how such a system could evolve and develop.

Take another conceptual jump and think of the ideas explained in "How God Makes God", where biological [software] objects evolve intelligence and emotions by mixing, matching and optimizing software and hardware components.

Intranets are able to transfer information and working parts. Couldn't they evolve in the same way as biological structures?

Just imagine: going into a record store and for ten dollars buying your way into an amazing new world that is forever up to date or buying the most incredible teacher who can pull information from the net to answer any question you have with the latest data available.

This is the way it is going to happen - and it is starting right now.

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