New word and old ideas

Noosphere - "sphere of human thought" - sounds so genX, but Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came up with this nearly a hundred years ago.

I definitely realize, as I get older, that the fraction of what little I think I know shrinks relative to the volume of what is really out there to learn...and even if I continue to learn more...which I really try to do...would I recognize a good idea if it hit me on the head with a sledge hammer ? Read the following passage:

"Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, 'memex' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together.

Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through a maze of materials available to him."

---Vannevar Bush's classic essay "As We May Think"

Now some of you technical types out there may have read this before, but being in the life sciences, I hadn't. I thought, OK, cool, Bush is describing things like an iPod, Blackberry, Wikipedia, Blogs, WWW, etc...but the kicker is that the essay was written in 1945!

So I have a bad habit of being a realist sometimes...but next time I hear something that sounds a little far fetched...I think I will try to embrace the possibility.