RE: [humanmarkup-comment] [humanmarkup TC] Assorted meeting notes-from Rob

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Gee, it's a few hours later on, and there's more. We're having very 
odd weather for this time of year, here-stormy. Doesn't bode well for 
the flooded uppermidwest. Not great timing for me either since I 
just got caught out in the teeth of a cold downpour with hail in a 
gale.

I think I may pull some of these observations together and post it 
under address and artifact respectively, just to keep them in those 
parameters even while we continue the free flowing discussion. I am 
hoping to gather it all together later in a condensed form.

Carry on,
Rex


At 4:11 PM -0500 5/20/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>The example for signal was something
>like breaking an electrical field to make a Morse code.  This
>gets tendentious quickly.  For example, there is a person
>on the other side of the cube drumming their fingers on the
>desk.  Is this signal?  In the sense that it is "drawing
>attention" yes; in the sense that it conveys information,
>explicitly, no.  One can interpret it, eg, significator of
>boredom or nervousness, but unless it is organized into
>some kind of regular beat with duration, one might not interpret
>it as Morse.   Signal requires more properties to be
>interpretable, that is, to make an optimum choice, we
>need more than just signal.  It is a dark and stormy night and
>we are driving across the Ponchatrain at high speed.
>Up ahead, we see someone waving excitedly.  We have
>to choose:
>
>1.  Stop.  There is an emergency.
>2.  Drive on.  This is a nut or a robber.
>
>Only as we are plummeting into the swamp do we
>understand they were signaling an emergency based
>on the bridge being down.  It is a bit late. 
>Pattern recognition and the optimum choice are
>not simple problems.
>
>A piece of jewelry is initially exactly just an interruption.
>It attracts attention.  It may have symbols on it and these
>may be readily interpretable.  Otherwise, it is decoration.
>
>Training is everything.  Knowing the difference between a sign
>and a signal is a training issue (apriori experience).  A
>sign should be obvious to someone trained to recognize it.
>The only really compelling property of a signal is that
>it "attracts attention" and can be made to carry information,
>but in and of itself, is just a media-type noise when
>first noticed that has to be correlated to be interpreted.
>
>Yes, an artifact can be a compressed means, but I would
>argue it is a sign or probably a symbol if it contains a
>lot of information.  Without an interpretant context, one
>can't say.  For example, the notion that an address is
>symbolic is interesting only if within a culture or
>learning set, an address has acquired a meaning,
>eg, prestige address, slum, business area, gangland,
>whatever.  It is not an artifact per se unless we
>dumb down artifact to mean "thing".   Otherwise,
>the first primary association of address is to
>a geoLocation.  Other relationships depend on the
>system.
>
>I'm not sure we can make that schema handle the notion
>of "broadcasting value".   I can see an implementation
>of an object-oriented communication that does that.
>
>We may find that the abstractions of signal, sign and
>symbol are inappropriate and turn to simply, messages,
>but then again, we may find that messages are aggregates
>of the above.
>
>Nothing is locked in as far as I am concerned.  I tossed
>that schema out as a strawman originally to get people
>to discuss the concepts in terms of their requirements.
>So far so good.   But I will be very surprised if what
>gets out as a good final draft is that one.   It is based
>on research into the abstractions of semiotics and some
>familiarity with police records management systems that
>are used for administrative reporting, not simulation systems
>based on communications among objects via messages.  It is
>exactly this issue of tool appropriateness, that the schema
>may be used for lots of different applications, that will
>bedevil us.
>
>But that's the fun too.
>
>len
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rob Nixon [mailto:rnixon@qdyn.com]
>
>Thanks Len,
>
>Regarding:   3.  An artifact may be a sign or a symbol.  It is
>not a signal except insofar as it is an interruption
>in an observer's view....
>
>I would argue that MANY, if not most Artifacts can be considered to be a
>"compressed" signal form, especially if it is within the prior experience of
>the perceiver.   I don't think that an "interruption" in an observer's view
>actually will cover it.  In fact, I'm not sure I know what "an interruption
>in an observer's view" really means...   The pattern of photons reflected off
>the object, the tactile feel of the object, the smell of an object, even a
>written or audio description of the object all act as signals which are then
>decoded and processed via the pattern recognition structures of the brain (
>or A.I. algorithms).  They are not just static tags.   Nothing is static.
>
>Perhaps I'm being too literal here.  Or I am missing the point.   But I would
>also point out that there are developers who have already expanded on the
>concept of an Artifact as noun "only"...   and many are going that direction
>in the VR realm (which we must be able to support).  i.e. The "Artifacts" in
>"The Sims" ( i.e. Refrigerator, Paper, Sofa, Shower, etc.  ) do act as
>signals to the environment ( specifically the virtual humans ).  These
>artifacts "broadcast" their "benefits" to the "Sims" in the environment and
>the virtual humans respond.
>
>Again, I am trying to make sure that we don't lock ourselves into an
>interpretation of a concept that may actually be evolving.


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