Like the Google Earth scale bar, a bigger picture is presented, even to the magnitude of the earth, that can be focused down to a single object that has grown dimensionally smaller over time. The initial user interface of Google Earth starts with the globe. Enter an address and it spins to the part of the world that it is located and then descends upon it with a satellite view to a set number of feet above the location. From there the user takes control to home in. It is an excellent way to place a location in geographical context.
Geography and mapping is a point of entry to put things in context. Given a map anything can be overlayed on it. Any information related to location can be presented. Then whatever that information is can be drilled down to find business hours, house value, underground mineral resources, historical significance, etc. It is a richly object oriented environment from which to leap from the physical domain of location to the universe of conceptual, logical objects that can be extracted to degrees of abstraction from their physical relationship to a thing on earth that we look at. Google Earth enables us to look at anything on earth.
Google Earth is an App that must be downloaded to your computer that is tailored to present a visual interface point of entry for the user. If I wanted to go to the Whitehouse then I could use Google Earth to get there. I could also just enter the address in a Google search box and one of the hundreds of thousand hits returned, probably among the first would be a point of entry to see it as a satellite view. The remainder of the hundreds of thousands of hits could all be connected to looking at the Whitehouse as a point of entry to an extremely physical relationship to all the physical things it connects to, like every one of us, as well as all the conceptual things it connects to and the place of those conceptual things in a highly abstract and complex "map" that is structured in a manner that is infinitely more difficult to navigate than the geographically structured world of Google Earth.
How in the world to navigate that conceptual world? Analogous to navigating the history of navigating the physical world using physical markers and attributes upon which to hang conceptual things like time and position of celestial points of reference and the magnetic field of the earth or the prevailing winds and currents. Of course, this all depended on the earth being round and the way the universe moves. Physical certitudes that once proved are anchors to conceptual structures of facts/truths.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Good way to structure what I think and do during that day.
Looking at Google Earth, shift the focus to the location of the NSA. It is no secret any more than where our seat of government is located. The NSA headquarters is Fort Meade, Maryland. From that center it has physical and conceptual connection relationships throughout the world. There is a map of NSA word wide physical geography that can be overlayed on Google Earth to the extent that it can be discovered. There is also an associated conceptual map connected to NSA global physical presence or associations. Some associations are physical/conceptual bound to each other tightly. Others are unbound associations where the physical and conceptual connections are highly abstract. Made abstract by design. It is a spy agency.
Google Earth is becoming and Open Source tool. Open Source to the extent that we can hang any kind of information on it to create a tailored user view of physical and conceptual relationships applicable to anything we desire. Users can attach theirr own pictures of locations on earth for all to see. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a new world mapping of information. We use it to get from Point A to point B and buy a cup of coffee there. It is a structure with which to navigate to infinite places of the world and the world of our concepts overlayed on that physical world.
The evolution of our conceptual world is increasingly measured by its abstractness. Its distance from a reality we call the real world. Real in the sense of physical world or the reality of conceptual beliefs we hold to equally as true as the ground we stand on.
Taking a break. This is getting heavy but is going somewhere. I have to stop and do a map check..something I did often on a recent bike tour in France!
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