# Memex **Domain:** Information Systems / Memory / Hypertext **Doc Type:** Historical Design Concept **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Vannevar Bush]], [[As We May Think]], [[Cognitive Exteriorization]], [[Personal Computing]], [[Memory Architecture]] --- ## Definition The **Memex** is the hypothetical desk-like personal information system proposed by [[Vannevar Bush]] in “[[As We May Think]]” (1945). It would store documents and allow a user to create associative trails connecting related material. ## Corpus Context The Memex matters less as an accurate prediction of a later device than as a new relationship between person and archive. Memory becomes traversable external structure, and association becomes something an engineered substrate can preserve and extend. That places the Memex in the lineage from the [[Whole Earth Catalog]] and hypertext to personal knowledge graphs and reconstructed continuity. It expands cognition without claiming authority over the person's conclusions, making it an early model of [[Co-Creative Substrate|co-creative substrate]]. ## Key Insight **The Memex externalizes associative memory while leaving authorship of the trail with the user.** ## Sources / Provenance - [[articles/Beyond the Sea|Beyond the Sea]] - Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think”: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/