Associative trails over folder hierarchy

Hierarchical filing assumes you know in advance where knowledge belongs. Associative trails assume you don't — that the same object is reachable by many routes, each carrying its own context. Vannevar Bush named the problem in 1945; the web partially delivered the answer; most knowledge workers still cope with folder trees and a frantic search bar. The taxonomy hasn't caught up to the associative work the mind actually does.

Deep context mapping is the infrastructure layer that hierarchies cannot become by incremental improvement. It's a different data model, not a better folder tree. Every edge between objects carries meaning; every trail through the edges reconstructs a line of reasoning that filing erased.

What this lets stakeholders do: work the way their minds already work. Find the same idea from three directions without filing it three times. Let agents traverse the trails and surface context that strict hierarchy can't represent.

What's still open: how do associative trails interop with the filing systems every existing tool assumes, without forcing a full migration before anyone gets value?