12 January 2007

Blogging and Global Consciousness

"It is the ‘turning inward’ aspect of the self — its recursiveness — that gives it its peculiar paradoxical quality.”
UC San Diego professor V.S. Ramachandran on the "Neurology of Self-Awareness"

Some claim that through the Internet we have created a new kind of consciousness, a global self. They must be right. As I stroll through the blogosphere I find so many blogs about blogging. The catalyst may have once been to engage in a dialogue, to change the world, but the continual and seemingly inevitable distraction, towards which so many bloggers eventually flock like moths to a light, are rankings, stats, and market share. So busy looking for how to get readers they forget why they wanted them in the first place.

Blogging has become an act of chronicling blogging - a recursive act that seems certain to implode.

4 comments:

Dave said...

I came across a blog a few months ago which had a post bemoaning that the author was trying to make some money on the blog and could not drum up any traffic. I looked at a few posts which were a litany of moaning. I left a suggestion that he write something of interest. I went back a few times. No more posts. Maybe I did some good.

Ron Davison said...

LOL!

I suddenly have a vision of ninja death squads wandering around the blogosphere practicing triage on self-absorbed blogs.

Damon said...

reminds me of a question i have desperately pondered for years....

If I could pull my bottom lip up over my face....what would happen if I swallowed?

David said...

Said another way Damon, it's on the verge of becoming a self-licking ice cream cone.