Looking at the formulation of the concept of the Memex, it reminds me of a concept we often see when looking back at the past. Throughout all of history, people have attempted to envision what the technology of the future will be and it seems that few of these predictions end up being true. Rather than being fully realized as their initial visions, they end up almost predicting other innovations of the future.
In particular, the Memex itself may have never come to fruition, but the ideas behind it did. Bush's original concept seemed to have predicted several pieces of technology that wouldn't be fully realized until almost half a century later. The concept of the Memex included precursors to things like hypertext, personal computers, and even Wikipedia. There were many ideas in the concept that were incredibly ahead of their time and even more interestingly, they all seemed accessory to the central idea of the Memex.
But the most interesting thing I found about the Memex was something I find interesting about past visions of future technology in general. They're always modeled after currently existing technology. The Memex is envisioned as a desk, for the sole reason that the idea of a standalone machine for all of this seemed absurd. The most simple things we see with our technology are the most bizarre to those in the past. This applies to us, as we'll likely never be able to guess what the technology of the future will look like.
2 comments:
I agree with you that we will never be able to truly know what the future technolgies may look like or how they will work.
I think it's funny how every time a new technology comes out, it's always something that everyone wants right away. There's always this phase that it's the most wanted but then afterwards, it is not so important anymore. We as a society are always looking for something new and throw away the old ideas.
Joey
Your point that the most simple things we see with our technology are the most bizarre to those in the past is right on the money. The idea of a cell phone to us is so simple but people of the past would see it as so futuristic and wild. The rest of your blog was interesting to read and you did a great job! Also the idea that Bush's ideas came to fruition but not the actual memex itself was interesting enough I incorporated that into my post
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