"Wit and sense are but different avatars of the same spirit"
L. Stephen Pope 1880
You can often tell when something exciting is happening in scientific or technical fields because unusual or unfamiliar words start to get bandied about. This will usually indicate that new or expanded concepts are being employed which conflict with, or are not fully explainable by conventional language.
In new media and object oriented programming circles, it became necessary to conceptualize the idea of simultaneous different forms or patterns existing within object oriented environments, where objects with flexible boundaries could be combined in many different ways to form quite separate ephemeral virtual objects. For this purpose the word "paradigm" was adopted, to describe the different conceptual states or phases in which an object oriented system could be viewed.
We shall be using this word, and the enigmatic concept it represents, throughout this book, so, let us just stop for a moment to consider its roots.
The Oxford Dictionary tells us that Wittgenstein used the term paradigm to denote "a logical or conceptual structure serving as a form of thought within a given area of experience" and that A. F. Parker- Rhodes described the concept of paradigm as useful for approaching problems of mathematizing the process of syntactical description with greatly enhanced resources.
Paradigm then, although used long before computers and object oriented programming came into existence, uniquely captures the essence of choosing one from a number of possible patterns which can exist within the same object oriented framework of computer programs. It is used in a way to encapsulate a mind set, or, a particular way of looking at things.
For the purposes of this book we shall also need another word: a word which will conceptualism the manifestation of a product or service which results from the combined input of many pieces of interacting information.
We need this word to describe products and services which have no tangible form or composition until they are called into existence for an immediate purpose: products and services which are created on the fly as a direct response to a need.
A word which may fulfill this role is the word: avatar.
The meaning of Avatar
Longman's dictionary defines avatar as follows:
Avatar: (n)
1) Incarnation of Vishnu, a Hindu deity;
2) An embodiment of a concept or philosophy
The Oxford dictionary tells us that avatar can mean:
1) Descent of a deity to earth in an incarnate form (i.e., as in "the fifth avatar appeared as a dwarf")
2) A manifestation or presentation to the world (i.e., the avatar of mathematics)
3) A display
4) A phase
Webster's Dictionary also calls an avatar:
1) A manifestation or embodiment of a person, concept or philosophy.
2) A variant phase or version of a continuing basic entity.
The Random House dictionary describes an avatar as:
"An embodiment or concrete manifestation as of a principle attitude, way of life, or the like."
From these various interpretations of the word avatar, there begins to appear a conceptual picture. It is a manifestation of an image, a display, or, the embodiment of an idea or concept which appears before us in our biological world.
In the landscape of the Internet and the World Wide Web such manifestations and embodiments take place on a computer screen.
The idea of the avatar "coming down" from an unspecified source in one of many possible phases fits in nicely with the idea of self constructing products or services constructing themselves on a computer screen as a result of information "coming down" from the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Certainly this concept of an avatar embodies many of the aspects of computer messages and presentations being transferred from the Web to a client computer screen, but, there is one aspect which makes this word perfect for encapsulating the concept of Web communications - the mystical aspect.
The mystical aspect implies that the deity "Vishnu" has no specific form or shape before manifesting as an avatar on earth. It is implicit that any physical appearance of an avatar is merely a temporary form or phase from an infinite variety of possibilities. - a transient form from an indefinite, indefinable number of sources. It is the capturing of this concept, which makes the word avatar ideal for the purpose of describing the Web communication products which will be described in this book.
It is this same mystical quality which makes life so hard to explain or describe.
Most people know about the germ cells (sperm and egg), from which our human form is made and it is commonly supposed that they must contain a unique set of DNA specifically purposed for the creation of the human form.
This is not true. The human body results merely from a unique selection and use of the instructions which are contained in this DNA. This same DNA that creates the human form is capable of creating all kinds of exotic phenomena.
A few changes to the DNA, or a slight change in some of the instructions, and that self same cellular machinery could produce all kinds of different variations of shape and form - very few of which would be recognizably human.
There are no recorded experiments on humans but there are certainly very many well documented experiments carried out on animals and insects whereby, making a few changes to the genetic machinery in cells causes all sorts of strange effects. Arms growing in place of legs, multiple eyes or wings growing onto insects bodies; the genetic information in the cell can be manipulated to cause almost any variation it is possible to imagine.
The human, animal and insect forms we see in the world today are not ordained creations: they are simply current "phases" of an infinite possible variety of phases, any of which could be called up at any time through different messaging of the genetic information contained in the genes. In this sense, life forms can be seen as the avatars of the biological cell.
In this book we shall be creating a software cell which will emulate a biological cell. You will discover that this cell has extra-ordinary powers and will be as equally capable of producing an infinite range of versatile life forms on the Internet as any biological cell are within a biological environment- the products of these software cells we shall be calling avatars.
copyright 1997 Peter Small - No part of this document can be used or reproduced in any form without express permission
Details of book, CD-ROM and online continuation - peter@genps.demon.co.uk