Skier Warning: off-topic post

While trying find this blog on this vast series of tubes we all love to surf, my Dad has run across a conceptual snag. Thast's right, not a technical snag, but a conceptual snag. If he cannot find a site immediately, he assumes that the site in question "must not be on his internet." He assumes that there exist several (or perhaps many, many more) internets, among which all sites are divided. So if you do not like that sites to which your internet provider gives access, you must either accept that, or get a different provider. So, Dad if you indeed find my blog on "your" internet, here is a conceptual diagram of the essence of the internet, as it relates from computer to computer.

Key: PC=personal computer
Mac=Macintosh
ISP=Internet Service Provider

Dad, this is your concept of the internet


This, however, is a concpet which is congurent with reality


Dad, your concept of the internet, while dead wrong, has not been without literary and philosophical precedent. Gottfried Leibiniz was an early Modern Philospher who was a leading proponent of the multiple universes. Also, any astute reader of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy understands both the possibilities and perils of the existence of multiple worlds.
Whether this is the greatest of all possible worlds, as Leibniz argues, or there exist multiple worlds-and the possibility of paths between them can lead a mortal to wage war on heaven- as Pullman dooms, there is still just one internet, in this world.

Next post: more skiing, hopefully