Illusions,Realities, And Metaphors For What’s Real

“When I interact with the computer, I have limited access to the events occurring within it. Thanks to the schemes of presentation devised by the programmers, I am treated to an elaborate audiovisual metaphor, an interactive drama acted out on the stage of keyboard, mouse, and screen. I, the User, am subjected to a series of benign illusions: I seem to be able to move the cursor (a powerful and visible servant) to the very place in the computer where I keep my file, and once that I see that the cursor has arrived ‘there’, by pressing a key I get it to retrieve the file, spreading it out on a long scroll that unrolls in front of a window (the screen) at my command.” – Aeon