Many systems are organized hierarchically. The CERNDOC documentation system is an example, as is the Unix file system, and the VMS/HELP system. A tree has the practical advantage of giving every node a unique name. However, it does not allow the system to model the real world. For example, in a hierarchical HELP system such as VMS/HELP, one often gets to a lead on a tree such as:
HELP COMPILER SOURCE_FORMAT PRAGMAS DEFAULTS
only to find a reference to another leaf: Please see
HELP COMPILER COMMAND OPTIONS DEFAULTS PRAGMAS
and it is necessary to leave the system and re-enter it. What was needed was a link from one node to another, because in this case the information was not naturally organized into a tree.
This, I think, is the brilliance of Notion, and what makes it one of the best examples of “fidelity to digital information” that I’ve come across. The structure of the app reflects the structure of the web itself: digital content is purposefully formatted, like semantic HTML elements, and exists in a hierarchical structure (directories on the web, nested pages in Notion), yet can be linked and referenced to create a complex network of information. And pages in Notion reveal the structure of the information: when nesting a page within a page, the child page always displays on the parent page. There’s no way to create a child page that doesn’t display on a parent page, no way to obscure the structure of the information. The semantic structure of Notion reflects the semantic structure of the web itself.
Truchet's approach was more topological than geometric, and the qualitative aspects of pattern take priority over the metric ones. His principles provide a kind of metaphor for the hierarchy of separation and connection in all things.
So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth, style, hipness, physical attractiveness, fame, political power, economic power, intelligence, social class, and quality of life.
My immediate reaction to this list is that it makes me slightly queasy. I'd always considered ambition a good thing, but I realize now that was because I'd always implicitly understood it to mean ambition in the areas I cared about. When you list everything ambitious people are ambitious about, it's not so pretty.