Expansion of concept detail, in the hypertext environment, is an immediate possibility. Where in reading books we move, most often, from page to page, hypertext provides the possibility of moving directly from concept introduction to expansion of concept information, from topic introduction to explanation of topic, or from concept to related concept. While this has always been a linear possibility in Gutenberg text, hypertext facilitates the option of personally selected and volitional access to various pathways of idea development.

Thierry Bardini of the University of Montreal Communications Department discusses a relationship he sees as a range of concept perspective noted in the work of Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart. With view to earlier writings by Vannevar Bush and Benjamin Lee Whorf, Bardini considers association versus connection as poles on a continuum in his work (more to follow).

• Notes on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Daniel Chandler, 1994.
• Notes on Vannevar Bush: Kerry Redshaw, 1996.
• Notes on Ted Nelson: Peter Schmideg, 2000.

In the notes referenced above, Benjamin Lee Whorf writes about language itself defining the reality of any given language speaking group. Hypertext is at this time largely a language experience, but it is of a complex nature in that it consists not only of words written in any given language highlighted by hyperlinks which delineate paths through text. It also consists of the computer technologies that make such creativity manifest. So, what do we have? Computers, related hardware, physical and wireless connectivity, and the protocols currently established enabling software programs to make real the World Wide Web as a currently flourishing hypertext environment. Perhaps this high technology setting for our hypertext language experience is not to be considered incidental. Even as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis declares that language itself structures perceptions of the reality within which we speak and write, so, perhaps the protocols, hardware, hardwire and wireless connections - and even electricity itself including its sources of generation - act as a unitive feature of hypertext as it is on the World Wide Web. If this is so, then we have a non-linguistic cohesion that operates according to the same protocols for any language group writing hypertext for the Web. If Sapir-Whorf is true, this does not make linguistic statements in different languages identical. However, it does possibly imply an underlying process that is the same for all people using the same protocols, the same networks, similar mathematically constructed computers, and the same electricity - assuming we do not yet delve into sources of electrical generation and all that consideration implies. Perhaps this electronic milieu, global in its expanse, diversified in its many nodes and participants, does even act as a unifying feature of our hypertext. We may even rely on this underlying reality for a given comprehensive sense in our hypertext endeavor.