When all is defined by a finite ‘recipe’ of symbols, there is in fact a limit by way of permutation – there is some specific number of all possible collections of pixels, of 1s and 0s, that defines the limits of the internet, yet this is a humanly unfathomable and unquantifiable amount.
Just as Borges’ library possesses some maximum within its 25 symbols on defined page size in defined font size with defined number of pages, the internet possesses the same, just exponentially larger – since there do not exist defined frames for the digits to fall in to. This lack of definition is of course what is so enticing about the internet – there can simultaneously exist a web-page with a detailed account in plain text about the history of the paper clip, and a web-page in glaring color and graphics filled thousands of cat videos. The video can seem to be the wild card, yet there is some limit there – it is just a timed series of frames of defined pixels; each with a given red, green, blue, and black value – and here there is definition in the bit depth, in the possible permutations of each color and its brightness there does exist a limit.
Berners-Lee calls it ‘the idea of a boundless information world in which all items have a reference by which they can be retrieved’. This reference is of course only accessed by some specific series of other references – calling to mind the ‘regression method’ Borges described for finding a specific book in his Library. There is repetition – methods of categorization – in these references; symbols that define the nature of the page (.com, .org, .gov, etc.) and symbols that define the actions required to access the page (“/” referring to the hierarchical, “?” signifying a query). Yet these feel as if you were to stretch a rope across the ocean and proclaim that it in some way contained every particle of matter underneath it, as the currents immediately moved everything it briefly contained.
The defining difference between the two libraries exists in their creation – Borges library is of the divine order; it simply exists and the human is the secondary being within it, which the Internet has been created by humans – there is the possibility of existence for every possible page, given the improbable mathematical calculation of every permutation of Ones and Zeros in every form – yet they do not manifest without some human Creator. There is no ownership within Borges’ library – no claims of authorship or attempts at commerce within his nonsensical books.
Consider now the technical possibility and human improbability of ‘infinity’; is it truly infinite if there is a finite amount that can exist within the realm of human thought at the given moment? The internet at least is in some way defined by human thought; without its Creator it does not tangibly exist, yet it exists in possibility. Yet the scope of human though is unquantifiable, so therefore the internet is in perpetuity boundless. Just as Borges recognized some intention behind even the most nonsensical contents of his library, there is this intention behind every page of the internet, as nonsensical as it may seem. There is of course the machine aspect – internet content created only for the machine, with syntax unreadable by anything else, and the machine instructed to create such content.