Gameology 2.0

Good post, Lydia.

I think Manovich cautions us against assuming that such externalization is a good thing. He warns us that hypertext makes us "mistake the structure of someone else's mind for our own"(61). In other words, an understanding of NM Rhetoric will help us avoid such categorization.

As for your first question ("externalizing the mind implies exposing structure. videogames and hypertexts often attempt to keep their structure transparent so that we don't even notice what we are traversing as we traverse it."), here are my thoughts about that: I think the externalization of thought does not necessarily mean it is heavy-handed. Instead, it concretizes certain leaps of thought--leaps unavailable in other media. I think the issue of transparency goes to rhetoric. Just as oral argument tries to lead the reader w/o his/her knowledge, so does NM rhetoric.