You say the pattern IS the page, in the sense that it is defined by the source code. But I guess what I was getting at was that the source code by itself, when displayed in the graphical format, contains very little of the wonderful content we get to read on your web-page; most of which I would be amazed if the source code looked anything like the content, such that you could get very much of the content from the pattern of the source code alone. I guess what I’m saying is that the page is very much more than the source code alone, which I guess is kind of trivial in one sense.

So I think I agree with you, but I think I would go further. There is no reason why ANY rendering in one medium should bear a visual representation of its rendering in another, and in fact, I can’t think of any that would. As your nut tree example nicely demonstrates. If you stopped the text after “golden pear”, then it would work, because I wouldn’t be expecting to see the King of Spain’s daughter etc.

That the element is yellow may be arbitrary, but I would hazard a guess that your use of it was not…? I presume there is no law that says it may only be used on words denoting yellow (or golden) objects. If there were, then web pages, and the ideas they express, and how they express them, would be rather more limited than they are, and that would be a shame.

The aesthetically-satisfying feeling of the notion that one medium WOULD ever bear a visual representation of it in another, reminds me rather of a thought-feature of schizophrenia, I believe it’s called delusions of reference, whereby coincidental similarities between things (eg words) are interpreted as meaningful. Rather like that silly Da Vinci Code book, which I haven’t read, but seems to be predicated on the cross-lingual similarity between Sangria and San Greal… There seem to be no limits to man’s search for meaning and order.

Heiroglyphics is a nice example, as is Japanse Kanji and Chinese writing too. But as you try to express and combine more and more complex ideas, these ancient systems of writing become more and more cumbersome. I forget how many characters there are in Kanji, but it is so many that a lot of Japanese people only know a relatively small proportion, and one shift key on the keyboard is nothing like enough. Most English people by comparison know all the characters in our alphabet, and as such are empowered to express any idea they can think of.

And finally, we mustn’t forget cunieform, which was invented in order to do book-keeping, basically, which I think is rather nice, though I haven’t a clue what to conclude from that.

Your comment about how we choose to render things made me want to say something about private languages, but now I can’t remember what it was…

Obviously not every rendering in one medium bears a visual representation of its rendering in another (I rarely opine on dandelions or flowers). I think my pear tree page is interesting because it does. It says as much about the way we choose to render ideas and concepts. The fact that the < form > element is represented yellow is entirely arbritrary.

Back in the day though, writing did bear a visual similarity to the concepts it illustrated. Think of heiroglypics.

Not all predicates lend themselves easily to a visual representation; certainly abstract concepts tend not to. To represent “justice” for instance, you might have a scales, but the scales themselves are not the justice, just a representation of it, as their image is in turn just a representation of them. So I don’t think it is possible, or desirable to cross media like this, although it’s a very nice idea.