Suspension.

The key thing about working as Networked Self is the notion of suspension.

Suspension, as I define it, concerns the becoming involved in plateau relationships without the desire to reach an immediate conclusion.

To reach a conclusion is to close the singularity down,  to make an enfoldment and drive yourself back onto the fascist attractor. If, while involved in Net.Play you suddenly think, `this is not real, this is not me', then you are fooling yourself - it was you a second ago, and has already become part of your durational experience.

Of course, holding off the moment of enfolding has a risk; life is more comfortable when you think you know what's happening...

- whoops...

A second aspect of suspension is perhaps more esoteric; suspension has long been a primary function of extra-ordinary people.

It was said of Sir Isaac Newton  that his genius was the ability to hold a problem in his mind for weeks at a time, just floating with it until he could intuitively grasp its solution. Likewise the example of the Buddah, who sat under a tree with the resolve not to get up until he had achieved enlightenment, has a similar feel. Looking at this from a soft-science point of view, it seems to be readily acknowledged that there is a certain wave-state (the `alpha wave' pattern) where the mind becomes more open to `lucid-dreaming' and `creative' frames of reference, a kind of dissolution of hard-logic into a reflective receptivity.

To me, this idea of suspension has a similar feel to being in a love; as you name it it is limited, as you experience it you have to give away ideas of what `you' are: If you are on to it, you let it open you out rather than tie you up; as you are in it you realise that efforts to control it are futile.

It's important to note that suspension is not a transcendent principle  in disguise; the Buddha never tried to get above his experience, he just tried to realise what it was, for him, right then. In this way Buddhism differs considerably from institutionalism Christianity, which is defined, systematic and marketable. There are notable exceptions of course, the Christian mystics usually went beyond the Religions paradigm, much to the consternation of the church. The thing that intuitive thinkers, buddha, the mystics et al have in common is this sort of thought: If this is where I am, then what is over there? That is they understand the current paradigm and try to step across it's boundaries, to become the actual material of a phase-shift, not merely float above it.

Considered in this way, the Network paradigm is just one among many, but, crucially, it is historically favoured; it is ours, now, to play with.