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Intertwingularity


Intertwingularity is a term coined by Ted Nelson to express the complexity of interrelations in human knowledge.

Nelson wrote in Computer Lib/Dream Machines (Nelson 1974, p. DM45): "EVERYTHING IS DEEPLY INTERTWINGLED. In an important sense there are no "subjects" at all; there is only all knowledge, since the cross-connections among the myriad topics of this world simply cannot be divided up neatly."

He added the following comment in the revised edition (Nelson 1987, p. DM31): "Hierarchical and sequential structures, especially popular since Gutenberg, are usually forced and artificial. Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged—people keep pretending they can make things hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't."

Intertwingularity is related to Nelson's coining of the term hypertext, partially inspired by "As We May Think" (1945) by Vannevar Bush.

Peter Morville, an influential figure in information architecture, discusses intertwingularity in some of his books. In Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become (2005), Morville uses the concept of intertwingularity to describe the experience of using hypertext on the web and starting to use computers embedded in everyday objects, termed ubiquitous computing. In 2014 he published a book called Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything about the intertwingularity of the universe, crediting Nelson with the word.

David Weinberger wrote about intertwingularity in Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder in 2008, explaining that providing unique identifiers for items helps enable intertwingularity.


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