My comments here are not going to be of a technical nature. They will be observational and speculative. One theme to which I will return is the relationship between identity, a network and some system of beliefs. I am sure I will elaborate this in different ways at different times. One point that comes to mind now. To what extent does an on line presence influence my self in the off line world? A critical comment might be that to even ask such a question is to demand too much of, invest too much in, the on line. For those almost wholly invested in the on line this is also a non question. Note my use of the term 'invested' where I mean what carries expectation of emotional reward, good or bad. (That reward may come from this being a job for a person who thinks 'it is just a job', I'm saying there is always more to it than that.) It is a Freudian term reworked in Lacan as Jouissance . However, expectations including codes of conduct, a sense of how to arrive at correct assessments, speed and reach of communication all carry over from on line to off line with varying degrees of ease. What happens if I apply this manner of conducting my self to the off line world, then? What if the pleasure of being correct, of learning about something that is verifiably accurate, of deriving a narrative of self from the interactions that characterise the on line world to me, which includes participation in (an investment in) the fundamental technologies that make it possible, what if I consider that is all that is necessary for me to have a narrative of self in the off line world? I should add, here I'm not talking about a job that involves on line technologies and reporting back to my colleagues. That is one sort of scenario. What I'm talking about is translating this back into a completely different area of involvement, where I return to my practice as a psychoanalyst which, of course, entails me considering just such issues as a self narrative and so forth.
BTW, I can see that is I feel a post is half decent I will want to fold it back into my blog. Still unsure what to do about this ....