Destination: Cyberspace
Instead of addressing you as 'hypertravellers', the term 'Peripatetics' is preferred in our application. It originally refers to the students and followers of Aristotle. The name may be derived from Aristotle's custom of walking about (peripatein) while lecturing, or from the peripatos ("covered walk") of the Lyceum, the parklike area outside Athens, where he lectured. The theme of peripatetic has also been explored in many Victorian novels, one of them being Dicken's "Great Expectations." The progression of a novel is seen to be symbiotic to the movement of a main character, both physically and metaphysically. The plot of the novel thickens and complicates as the journey continues. A reader follows the 'footsteps' of a protagonist, and the success of a novel lies in its ability to engage the reader in the literary journey of peripatetic.
Novels aside, 'hypertravel' is about something very different, and yet very similar. In cyberspace, one does not need to go anywhere to go everywhere. This paradox outlines our working definition of travel in cyberspace. Through the antispatial setting of cyberspace, a peripatetic finds his or her way around through navigation using links and nodes.
Our credo is to apply the notion of travelling to the cyberspace experience. We do not intend to just illustrate a virtual entity where hypermedia is all-pervasive. For that has all been said and done. This guide is to inject the element of excitement in travelling to cyberspace, so as to transform an ordinary internet-user into the adventurous tourist.
