As human beings we have developed through the millennia a rich and amazing diversity of “mind things”, things that only seem to exist in our inner mental world. Most of those things seep out into the “real” world more or less. The concept of linear time for example may very well have been developed only about ten thousand years ago (“only”, because as human beings we have a track record on our planet I like to start one million years ago, which is one hundred times longer)¹ . This mental concept may have come into existence in a certain period, possibly that of the first dynasties of Egypt, but it is very likely that it did not originate at a certain time or place, but that it came to be more or less synchronous at different locations in the same period. This can be inferred from similar events that cannot really be attributed to a certain “inventor” or originator, but that seem to have been “in the air”.

This article is available in English as The Mirrored World.

Software is de spiegelwereld. De buitenwereld is de "gewone" wereld waarin wij leven. In toenemende mate zien we dat, met de groei van het internet en talloze software systemen waarmee we ons omringen en waar we in toenemende mate niet meer zonder kunnen, er sprake begint te zijn van "twee ikken": de ik in de gewone buitenwereld, en ons ik in de binnenwereld, de persoon die wij zijn als we googlen naar onze persoon, de profielen op allerlei forums, de blog aanwezigheid van steeds meer mensen. De virtuele persoon die we in toenemende mate ook zijn.

This is the English translation of De Gespiegelde Wereld.

Software is the mirrored world. The outside world is the "normal" world we live in. More and more however we see that, with the growth of the internet and numerous software systems we embed ourselves in, and increasingly grow dependent on, a situation begins to emerge of "two identities": the Me in the outside "real" world, and the Me in this new inner world, this mirrored world, the person we are when googled to, the profiles of our identity on the various forums, the blog presence of more and more people. The virtual person that we increasingly are too.