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A complex system
By nature, a browser edition, as described in the section about Principles, is not immediately transparent as to how it can be read and studied, and even more as to how it can be written. This difficulty is due to the complexity of the system, particularly with regard to the aspect of interplanarity.
But this complexity is precisely what makes the system powerful. Thus it is my contention that it is worth recalibrating our mental templates with regard to this new potential that digitality offers us. It is a challenge, on the level of what was encountered by the first speakers when language began to take shape, or by the first scribes when writing was first introduced.
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Digital books
It is more than a practical matter. Websites understood as digital books are structurally and conceptually different from their analog counterparts. They must be approached in their distinctiveness, so that, understanding the new complexity, we may adjust our notion of what reading and writing means.
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An epistemic system
What is required is an explicit confrontation with a new and distinctive epistemic system, i. e., a system that serves to first analyze and articulate knowledge, and then to convey it, in a way that differs structurally from the current standards. This epistemic angle must be made clear, building on the Principles we have outlined, but also showing how the finished product reconfigures the scholarly discourse.
The goal is to show the difference between a a digital book built on interplanarity and the two alternative “epistemic systems” that are in current use: a standard website on the one hand and a printed publication on the other.
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Reading and writing
Given the nature of a digital book conceived as a distinctive epistemic system, the very notion of reading and writing needs to be reviewed for what it means in terms of organizing and conveying an argument. We will look in some detail at this issue, in general and, in particular, with regard to how it can be applied to the UGR system.
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