Chapter+2+Noosphere

Sam Arcand, Taj Tallarico, Tim Royce

1.) What is the "noosphere"? Give a concrete example of something that you would find in the noosphere. A noosphere is defined as a "sphere" of human thought. The noosphere is composed of all the interacting minds and ideas on earth. The fact that it is idea of what human thought should be, there is no exact "concrete" example of this sphere because it is human thought which is, not really there. An example of the non concrete example could be one's dreams or just our knowledge of the universe.

2.) What is the synergy between the noosphere and metaphor? How are metaphors used in the noosphere?

3.) How are the principles of wayfinding applicable to virtual worlds such as Second Life? Way finding is learning your surroundings, tracking direction, remembering landmarks and drawing our own maps. In virtual reality life and the web, similar things apply. You need to remember how to find things, have the ability to find things, and draw your own map via the internet or through 2nd life.

4.) How are the principles of wayfinding applicable to the everyday Web? As I said above, you must be able to navigate through the web just as you would be able to navigate through the real world. you must be able to learning your surroundings, tracking direction, remembering landmarks and drawing our own maps in both real world and web.

5.) In what ways do spatial metaphors (e.g., representing the web as a map) fail when representing the web? For the web, there is no physical destination. This causes metaphors such as navigating and mapping to be unable to apply to the web because they rely on a physical destination in order to work.