As ever different disciplines have interestingly different perspectives. I suspect that ethologists, evolutionary psychologists and, perhaps, George Lakoff et al would point out that our brains have been honed over several million years to help us survive in a spatial world. So it is no surprise that we employ spatial metaphors to describe, explain and 'organise' new experiences nor that Kant's 3 questions are compelling (to most of us :-). That said Michele is clearly right to ask questions about what such metaphors are doing to the analysis and design of these 'new' phenomena and 'experiences'. I am reminded of a rather heated debate I had with some 'virtual worlds' researchers at the ECSCW 97 conference whose 3D workflow system demanded that to delete a 'document' I had to 'pick it up' with the mouse, 'walk' [literally if you will] to the 'wastebasket' and 'drop it in'. For them, a re-creation of reality was the 'perfect design'. I just wanted to delete a document. Which brings me back to my interpretation of Michele's point: we need to be careful not to take our metaphors literally. Ben -- Dr Ben Anderson t: +44 (0)7710 187 806 www.essex.ac.uk/chimera