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ONE CORPUS CALLOSUM

      Within this metaphor, the computer could be consider as the corpus callosum. This captures the two basic characteristics of computer-based media - integration and interactivity. The corpus callosum links the two hemispheres, as the computer integrates text and image, and it may link the cerebral cortex with the rest of the body, as the computer provides interactivity between thought and action.

      Now that we have the technology to simulate the entire nervous system, we can seriously consider mapping our subjective maps isomorphically on to the objective world. The structure of hypermedia - a net-work of interlinked nodes - is isomorphic with the structure of the mind - a network of interlinked concepts - and the structure of the informatics infrastructure - a network of computers interlinked with telecommunicat-ions (see Figure 7). It serves then as a positive prosthetic which fits.

      A major problem of our post-industrial society is the management of complexity. Our rich information environment enables us to make a subtle subjective map of the objective world. The computer helps us manage this complexity. Just as the telescope brings the too-far near enough to observe and the microscope makes the too-small large enough to observe, so the computer makes the too-complex simple enough to observe.

      To do so, however, we must stop using it as a typewriter. It is necessary to go beyond word-processing (one-dimensional) to idea-processing (two-dimensional) to meta-media (three-dimensional). See Figure 8.

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