Loops of Perception: Sampling, Memory and the Semantic Web by Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky

Mr. Miller compares the act of DJ mixing and sampling to the way information is stored and searched for on the web. He also discusses how these acts also relate to your mind thinking, recalling, and picking out what's important. "At heart, the process is an abstract machine made to search in the right place for the right codes. The information in your mind looks for structures to give it context. The word you have thought about is only a placeholder for a larger system." Here, he is speaking of your mind, but also pointing out this is much like searching the internet using keywords. People must find common languages to communicate with, to fill the gap between what is inside and internal, and what is external and perceived. "...Quotation and sampling operate on such a deep level that the archaeology of what can be called knowledge floats in a murky realm between the real and unreal." Some species of animals pass on much information to their young through genetics, being born with certain knowledge about how to function in the world. Humans have some instincts, but mostly we're a fresh palette, and need many years of training before we can go out into the world and function effectively. This training comes from the older generations, through the written word, films, music, politics, art, culture, and now more than ever, the internet - which combines as many previously created forms of communication as it can.

Millar argues that as the web expands, it's "...becoming increasingly difficult for users to obtain information efficiently". I disagree. Search engines no longer look primarily at meta-tags, but at the actual content within a page. Google has provided increasingly intelligent search capabilities, now moving into the mediums of digital images, movies, and sounds.

"The information and goods are out there, but you stay in one place; the civilization comes to you." But can you not go to civilization yourself? By contributing your own information and goods, these pieces of yourself connect with others. Perhaps he's saying there's no true way to bring two beings together as one, and so civilization is the connecting piece? That the things we create and express bring us closer to understanding one another, in an unending journey towards clarity.

Don Delillo's Cosmopolis, "In fact data itself was soulful and glowing". Life creating life, and evolving through the use of elements of our past and present.