Intertwingled

Preface

“People keep pretending they can make things hierarchical, categorizable, and sequential when they can’t. Everything is deeply intertwingled.”

– Theodor Holm Nelson

In 1974, Theodor H. Nelson wrote and self-published a book with two covers. The first, Computer Lib, is an introduction to computers that notes “any nitwit can understand computers, and many do.” The flip side, Dream Machines, is an invitation to the future of media and cognition that states “everything is deeply intertwingled.” This prescient codex served as a bible to many pioneers of the personal computer and the Internet.

In 1994, I started my career as an information architect. I was driven by the belief that we can make the world a better place by organizing its information. ...