Does a blog exist?
If a blog exists – where does it exist? In the mind of the blogger? On the screen of the blogger? On the server hosting the blog? In the code transmitted from the server? On the screen of the blog-reader? In the eyes of the blog-reader? In the mind of the blog-reader?
If a blog is never read – does it exist?
Sounds like someone’s spending too much time looking at blog stats. 😉
Hmmm, Brent, I see your comment is in jest but just in case – I certainly am not worried about my blog stats – they tend to be around a couple of thousand visitors a day. Maybe my own philosophical, epistemological musings and the, to me obvious, connections of this post’s thoughts with faith, theology, and spirituality are not evident even after a moment’s reflection that this is a website devoted to those issues?
I thought of my blog as existing even in the first few months when no one read it. At that time, it existed only for me. A people started reading, it existed for them too.
Insightfuly funny!
I’ve asked myself the same question about content on the internet in general. Where is it?
In his book, “Decoding the Universe,” physicist Charles Seife tackles the science of information. He describes information as matter, something that can be located. (To be honest, I liked his book “Zero” better–probably because I understood it a little better!)
I think Plato would have asked the same question if the internet existed in his day.
“Dear Sir: Your astonishment’s odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.”
Thanks Robert – this is more like the level of reflection I was hoping some would develop from the initial post.
Your limerick, by that prodigious writer, Anonymous, was responding to Ronald Knox’s limerick on Bishop Berkeley’s thinking:
There was a young man who said “God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there’s no one about in the quad.
The reflection on the place of an observer to give reality, existence, to an “object” connects to the often atheistic response to the anthropic principle apparent in our universe, with the positing of hypothetical multiple universes in which there is no sentient life. In what sense do those responders understand those universes existing if, as atheists, there is not even God observing them?
It also connects to another interest of this site, that of the eremetical life only making sense in the context of a God who observes him/her.
“Does blog exist?” I don’t know, I’m a blognostic… 😉
Peters-sensei,
It appears that you have taken to the Zen koan…
If a blog is never read – does it exist?
My feeling is that even if a blog is not read by ANOTHER person, its content has been expressed by the blogger him or herself, and therefore it exists.
The question of WHERE it exists, I believe is a co-creative endeavor between blogger mind and blog-reader mind. Each reader interprets what is read through the prism of worldview, beliefs and past experience. If you have any doubt that reading is a subjective phenomenon, look at all the different permutations that claim a Christian pedigree that interpret scripture in vastly different ways.
Does it exist on a server? Yes and no. Do we exist in our DNA? Do we exist in our cells? Yes, but we are something more than that. I believe a blog is more than the code or the software or the site. A blog involves sharing ideas, mind to mind.
I love YOUR blog. You always have interesting ideas to provoke thought in your readers. This is NOT something I thought of before!
Hmmm… I just realized I said that the blog can exist without a reader, but that a blog is a collaboration between blogger and blog readers’ minds… And that might be construed as mutually exclusive.
I still think it exists before it’s read by someone else. But to clarify, as anyone who writes knows, the mind that is creating is different from the mind that is reading or editing later. In fact, there is nothing quite so inhibiting as to have “editor mind” while writing. It’s commonly called writer’s block.
This made me chuckle.
Having a day of existential questioning? Hope you enjoy it, don’t get lost in the misty clouds of your imagination
🙂
Absolutely, blog exists! In my mind it’s a matter of impact. If left inarticulated it remains locked in the writer’s mind. However, the behaviours and thoughts of said writer will undoubted be impacted by their state of mind and thereby effect all those encountered (in cyberspace or otherwise). If shared, then it’s impact is limitless. It is not the writer’s job to determine the impact of their words, but only to express themselves. The impact is so diverse, intrinsic and unknown that can we really say it does not exist? A pebble cannot tell the water how to respond when breaking its surface, but knows it has caused change merely by being present.
Fantastic question!
re: does blog exist? sure, prescinding from a robustly metaphysical approach to vague phenomenological view, it’s a semiotic reality
Remember the keynote principle of Vulcan metaphysics as expressed in Star Trek IV: The Journey Home: “everytning possible exists”. So, Spock would tell you, all blogs that can possibly exist do exist, they’re simply waiting for bloggers to give them expression.
A blatheist, on the other hand, might disagree, and counter that we create blogs because of a perceived but groundless need for them. He’d then prove that black is white and get killed on the next zebra crossing.
I gotta admit, I thought the question was a play on: Does God exist?
And I’m tempted to say, it’s an article of faith! And a deep mystery.
A blog’s existence is revealed only to those who labor long, knock, ask, and – by grace – are received into the mystery. As its true existence and its fruits is only truly revealed to its lovers.
I’m not up for philosophical proofs! Only for mystical ones! 😉
Some how this reminded me of Quote from St. Anlem in the Office of Readings for today. Where is God? St. Anslem tells us to enter into our soul and shut all the doors to look for him. Then speak to God with your whole heart. “I seek your face, your face I desire O Lord my God. Teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? Surely you dwell in light inaccessible. And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible or who will lead me and bring me into it that I may see you there? And then by what signs and under what forms shall I seek you? I have never seen you. Lord my God I do not know your face….Teach me to seek you, and when I seek you show yourself to me, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor can I find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in desiring you and desire you in seeking you, and find you in loving you” St Anslem Pray for us that we will share a spark from the fire that burned within you to seek the face of God in all the moments of our lives even when we seek out our perfect blog to glorify him!