Jorge Luis Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths
What stuck out to me about this reading was the juxtaposition of choice and inevitability. Tsui Pen’s Garden of Forking Paths, describes a labyrinth of infinite choices and the simultaneous outcomes of all of these choices in our lives. Despite the multitude of choice and the infinite number of outcomes this presents, I found it interesting that this story seems to focus on inevitability over choice. Yu Tsun seems to consider his impending death as inevitable despite all the choices he makes through the story (such as choosing to go to Ashgrove and choosing to go to Albert.) When riding the train to Ashgrove, he states that those lacking willpower, “should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past,” which seems to imply that he had given up choice from that point on. The fact that he saw glimpses of other parallel worlds could also imply that it was inevitable that he would meet Albert Stephen, and that this moment was a moment of convergence with one outcome, that he would kill Albert.
Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib/ Dream Machines
This piece really puts into perspective how far personal computers have come with a large number of his suggestions already implemented. (Such as version control and some of the educational applications like the digital dissections.) His thoughts on user-interface design using fanatics can also be clearly seen in today’s technology. I especially enjoyed his educational hyper-media format which seems to simulate a one-on-one tutor that can be memorable and personal despite being a computer. The idea of Stretchtext, a hypertext in which narratives can be told in finer or coarser detail with the turn of knob, is also intriguing and is somewhat similar to what simple Wikipedia is attempting.
