RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Our Next Meeting

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

This is great Sylvia. Thanks so much. I wish I had had a chance to 
read it before the meeting, rather than just to note it. I think you 
and Len have the beginnings of something that is very important. I 
very much like the SEMIOTE concept. I look forward to seeing how you 
develop this.

Ciao,
Rex

At 9:27 AM -0600 7/17/02, cognite@zianet.com wrote:
>Requested response to:
>At 04:17 PM 16-07-2002 -0500, Len wrote:
>>...  I was adjusting the content model:
>>
>><!ELEMENT sign (sign*, signifier, signified+, referent) >
>><!ATTRIBUTE sign
>>   id ID #REQUIRED
>>   type (symbol | icon | index) #REQUIRED >
>>
>>A signifier may be associated with multiple signifieds.
>>That may be a place to put context modifiers.
>  ...[where as ATTRIBUTE?]
>>type indicates a relationship between signifier and
>>signified, does it apply to all of the possible
>>signifieds?  If that is so, then we should go at
>>this one again.  ...
>>
>>Also, a sign and a signifier are essentially the same
>>thing, yes, so we could drop that or use it as a
>>container for representations (eg, refer to pictures
>>of images) for cases where we know a sign can have
>>multiple forms.
>>
>>Comments?
>
>Here's one initial reaction:
>
>Markup assists a communication process between agents.
>Let us term any "signing agent", whether sender or receiver,
>a SEMIOTE.  Then explicitly, HUML markup is to aid accurate
>transfer of meaning in this particular communicative semiosis process.
>
>         SEMIOTEi  -- markedup signal --> SEMIOTEj
>
>Adopting the Kleene star again to allow for possible multiplicity of
>participants would give something on the order of:
>
>         SEMIOTEi*  -- markedup signal-complex --> SEMIOTEj*
>
>There has ever been the possibility of multiple listeners and speakers.
>The arrow has implications of temporality as well as channel.
>
>Each SEMIOTE acts within a [geo]temporal context, which is
>to admit that this process takes place in the real world, a matter
>that we have to deal with rather more specifically perhaps than
>semiotics has to date.  (If the SEMIOTE does not act, there is
>no communication.)
>
>The signal transmission is also contextually bound.  It is not
>necessarily lossless nor adsorptive in any given case.
>
>Adding context to each component of the description explicitly
>yields something like this:
>
>         (SEMIOTEi - in context)*
>                 -- (marked up signals transmitted - in context)* -->
>         (SEMIOTEj - in context)*
>
>In more detail, there is genesis of the signals:
>         (contextual stimuli)* X (SEMIOTEi) --> reactive interpretation
>         with emission of signal-complexes
>                 at [geolocations and] time(s) A
>                 in media M
>                 complexes include signs:
>                         patterns, which may be traditional in context
>                         inadvertent and advertent [intentionalities]
>
>(The indented features might be rendered as "attributes".) We add to this
>unadorned process:
>                 markup
>                         described (parsed?) portions of the signal-complex
>                                 attribute markings (right?)
>                         additions, like ID for convenience
>
>Those [marked up] emitted signal-complexes get conveyed between SEMIOTES:
>
>         signal-complex with optional markup
>
>         travels between SEMIOTES thru channel(s) - in context(s)
>                 at geolocations and times B >= A
>                 undergoing possible transformation (loss, 
>aggregation, mutation)
>
>         becomes part of the context for
>                 receiver(s) with capacity to do semiotic processing, i.e.,
>SEMIOTESj
>
>All told, the semiosis we would seem to need to describe includes our own
>enhancement, a signal transmission, and context at every step. 
>
>Of a SEMIOTE we may or may not need to explicitly include, for HUML purposes,
>detail of stimuli being both external and internal, of what I've called
>above "reactive interpretation" and Len has included as ineluctable effect.
>Some of this effect we
>might consider primary in that it yields the signal-complex requisite for the
>communicating we model.  When the effect of a SEMIOTE's signaling is
>re-absorbed we have the idempotent case of "reflexion", where SEMIOTEi
>communicates with SEMIOTEi itself.  But it is rather much for HUML to
>try to model all psychology, as Len says!
>
>There seem to be these two sequenced components in our semiosis model, having
>this nature:
>
>         o       SEMIOTEi X context
>         o       transmittable signal-complex  X context
>
>To handle context at every stage, Len's idea of bundling CONTAINERS along
>with components seems quite well-reasoned. 
>                
>Our criterion for design, in this framework, is that good HUML markup lets
>the receiver accurately interpret (comprehend) the reaction to stimuli by
>the sending SEMIOTE.   Our additions should not distort the signals.  The
>critical gap we may
>need to fill involves mismatch of communicant SEMIOTEs' current contexts.
>Presumably the "referents" reside in those contexts.
>
>Put in practice, we may also face issues related to transformation of
>signal-complexes as they pass thru channels that convert them to different
>media.  (Will the attributes
>characterizing the stream need to be transformed also?)  Also, I'm 
>not convinced
>at this point that a signal-complex can be neatly characterized as signs,
>nor helpfully distinguished as icon vs. symbol vs. index, perhaps because
>I've been thinking more in terms of token. 
>
>Signifier seems like a real good term, implying process.  And, as noted,
>Len's idea of
>treating things as CONTAINERS might be just the ticket for including contexts.
>
>SC
>
>Other reactions?
>
>
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