cross-posted to CCR:711 Network(ed) Rhetorics

In thinking about Six Degrees, I keep coming back to his question, “how people end up creating a network structure out of a social structure (and vice versa), what can they do with it once it’s there?” (Watts 129). When I think on this, the word that keeps coming back to me is desire.

When I write blog posts, I have a desire to makes sense of things, to connect with others, to record things for future use, to figure out how stuff works, to see what connections I can make between ideas, and even to just engage in random word play, especially in the beginning to see where it gets me. Did anyone else notice the “s” alliteration on the first page of the preface?
In poetics and in lots of other things there is rhythm or synchrony. When we blog, we form connections (or try to)–between ideas or between and among people–that reflect our interests, thinking and/or learning process at a particular moment in time. Other bloggers pick up those thoughts and play with them–turn them over in their minds to see what sense might be made of them. But we need to be talking about these things at relatively the same moment in time. For example, when we do a keyword search and find a blog post on the subject that is several months or years old, how frequently do we comment on that post? We may choose instead to simply link to it. If the other person notices and is interested (desires) in conversing, then a conversation may re-ignite because of synchrony.

I’m trying to circle back to network structure and social structure. We toss ideas out there to join an intellectual community (social structure) — to see what we and others might make of these random musings. I think this might have something to do with our desire to make connections (construct social identity) — be it with people or with ideas–and have something to do with synchronicity. Is this then a function of who we are as academics and our quest/thirst for knowledge (context) as a function or exponent of distance? Signed: term-inally boggled.