Is the Internet liquid?

[Corrupted Unicorn]

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I mean, you surf on it and you dive in it in search of information or entertainment... and time ago, when I embarked on my personal archival of Things that Matter on the Internet to Me tm, I compared the magnitude of that quest as "trying to drink the ocean".

I'd also like to bring up one of my dreams:

I was swimming in some sort of giant aquarium, but as I swam, some part of my consciousness thought "if by day I surf the Internet in search of art knowledge, by night I dive into the depths of my subconscious to integrate what I learnt into myself". The dream is at least kind of true: what we learn by day is "fixed" while we sleep (and that's why sleep is so important for students). I never envisioned it with swimming, tho. But it also makes sense, at least for me? I like to think while I swim, and many good ideas have ocurred to me while doing so.

Of course, I'm not talking about a literal liquid (although something could be said about the water cooling systems used for the servers that keep the Internet up and running), but as someone who really enjoys swimming and is eager for the upcoming summer, there's something... cleansing, magical, even trascendental about submerging oneself in a body of water. The difference in temperature, the wetness, but especially, how light your body feels and the way you move around, way more different than on land.

And it's not just the Internet, to me (as my dream exemplifies). The folder I have destined to hold all images that make me fall in love with art again and again is called "the Inspiration Pool" 

I don't know, I just sense that non-physical planes, like the one made of your own thoughts inside your head, or the communal one we created like the Internet, are ethereal  In the sense that, like air, cannot quite be seen or perceived by regular means or senses... but in terms of manuveuring thru them, they feel more like water, to me.

What are your thoughts?

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[Melooon]

I like this question a lot  It fits into the general topic of what is the internet and why do we keep comparing it to things we know from the non-internet. Its a feeling of what does it mean to understand a liquid? And what is it like to be in and to be a liquid!

A screen is a Liquid Crystal Display, and usually we put screens behind glass (or make them out of glass in the case of a CRT) and glass is a liquid ~ on on a very surface level, I guess you can quite literally say that most peoples experience of looking into the web is literally looking into a kind of pool.

The information and images in that pool flow past like water under oil and the question is what happens if you fall forwards into it. When people really surf the web it is like falling into another world and if you don't know that world it feels like falling backwards, but the nice thing about water is that even if you fall backwards you might get a shock but you can usually swim up again.

Then there's the darker side of liquids; they are places without air, and you drown in them; I certainly feel like I'm drowning in information sometimes when Im sorting through archives of 10,000 gifs 

After that there's the annoying question; is liquid the internet?  Were things that flow and go always the same? Was that definition ever really there to start with or was it just something we invented to organize things?

Of course there is no particular answer here; there are just things; and if those things are pools and rivers then that's what they are, and that's what they always have been  I think the internet can be a sea and a river, and a sea and a river were the internet before it knew what it was!

I just remember this video about Ted Nelson after writing this! In it Ted Nelson describes a childhood experience of being in a boat as an inspiration for the idea of Hypertext and his Xanadu project (which inspired Tim Berners-Lee's model for the World Wide Web) - Iv posted this elsewhere, but its wonderful!

[Vidknight]

This honestly make sense to me , and I can see the internet being like some sort of liquid.

Let me compare this to me showering to illustrate what I mean (Don't worry I'm not going to go that in depth), but when I shower there is this relaxing feeling I get where all I hear is just the running water, the feeling at being complete peace it's like all the stress just washes right off me, and in some cases makes me tired 

Just like the internet I can get these feelings of just true tranquility just searching the web, and discovering new things seeing so many people individual personality shine it gives me this peaceful feeling.

Now of course just like liquid the internet can also invoke not good feelings. Jumping into a pool of 120℉ water (49℃) , and sitting there for a hour doesn't feel good, just like reading rage inducing articles don't feel good  . But for the most part depending on the places you go, and the stuff you read (,and the liquid you consume, and use) it can invoke this feeling of tranquility

Heck I feel we can go even deeper   with how liquid takes many different forms (Water, Juice, Teas, and Sodas just to name a few) just like how stuff on the internet takes many different forms (Music, Art, Videos, and Games for example).

Even deeper, and we can see how liquid can fit in a ton of different containers (like Cups, and Jars) just like how the internet can fit in many different devices (Phones, Laptops, and PCS)

All in all I feel that yes while it's not actually liquid it does feel pretty similar to liquid depending on the way you look at it.