RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community-first characteristic

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Moving right along, you may want to take note of the fact that I am 
changing the subject line slightly, to keep the overall object of 
this method organized, which is to say automatically archiving 
discussions about topics and generating documentation of our work at 
the same time.

If Rob will please add the new Primary Base Schema element: 
humanGroup to the list he agreed to compile for us as we go along, I 
would appreciate it. As I recall, this is the second candidate, with 
Base Schema element: semiote being the first. If you all recall, we 
will be collecting up these additional terms and concepts as we 
proceed discussing the straw man elements from Len's first draft of 
HumanML Schema.

Please remember that this is separate, organizationally, from the 
semiote experiment discussion, of which, more later on in the 
weekend. In case it isn't apparent I'm getting ready to go 
hammer-and-tongs on this stuff for a while to move it along and see 
if I can't generate some momentum, or else make a fool of myself. 
Either way,  expect to see some progress.

The obvious first new concept we have generated is the semiotic 
experiment, and the second additional concept is that we agreed that 
we can, if it turns out to be necessary, develop a Secondary Base 
Schema at this base level before proceeding the the VR-AI, and HPCDML 
sub language schemata. I wanted to remind us of that before getting 
on to the next discussion.

BTW, if y'all don't pipe up, I'm gonna roll along this track as if I 
am proceeding without dissent. I know I am being rather 
single-minded, but as the facial animation system I developed shows, 
I'm not especially interested in waiting. We can always revisit these 
element discussions, remembering to reply to the last post to a 
thread we wish to reopen.

Okay, so the next question is: What is/are the first characteristics 
which cause us to change the label of a humanGroup to community? In 
other words, if, as in Len's straw man, a community is an Abstract 
Human Organization, what is it that constitutes an organizing 
principle? This actually is a lot more fraught with peril than it 
appears, because this is where we first encounter the idea of 
intentionality, whether implicit or tacit, or explicit because 
whatever principle causes organization to occur, it implies agreement 
for membership, or the notion of consent which Len rightly raised 
earlier on.

I suggest that the lowest common denominator of organization is 
purpose. This is different from the dictionary definition of 
organization as the act or process of organizing, the condition or 
manner of being organized, or simply an association, although it 
implies purpose when it cites an administrative or functional 
structure such as a political party as an example. (Webster's 
Ninth-as I have stated elsewhere.)

In case you haven't already figured out where this endless monologue 
is going, the characteristics of different purposes seems like the 
obvious next step in the ladder of abstraction I am trying to 
illustrate and use to build the more complex uses we can determine 
for: community

If you kindly allow me to clean off the last round of tomatoes I will 
let you know when you can toss the next batch </facetious>

Ciao,
Rex

At 6:33 AM -0700 8/2/02, Rex Brooks wrote:
>Well, Hi Again,
>
>I hate being the only one to reply to my own posts, but if I must, I 
>will. The point of having sound bedrock concepts like humanGroup 
>defined as nothing more than two or more humans in the same place at 
>the same time is that it is not organized in any other way. That 
>means no preconceptions about what higher level concepts arise from 
>it. This avoids messy thinking when we start climbing the ladder of 
>abstraction and add more symbolic sign systems on top of the 
>bedrock. That is to say that there are no preconceptions about 
>contextualized understandings until we add them, and it also 
>requires that we add them as we derive those higher level 
>abstractions, like community.
>
>Let me give an example. A crowd of music lovers at a concert shares 
>a number of attributes. They have paid for a ticket to attend, so 
>they have conducted a certain kind of shared group activity. They 
>are assembled together at the same time in the same place according 
>to various rules of social conduct that can range from taking 
>assigned philharmonic theater seats to ground grabbing at outdoor 
>festivals, so they share a common context but not with each other. 
>Both groups will be listening to the same music at the same time at 
>their respective events. In many senses of the word they constitute 
>a community, but there are essential differences between concert 
>attendees at different kinds of concerts and between music lovers 
>that are concert attendees on a certain date and voters in a 
>municipal election, deiciding community issues on a certain date, 
>which constitute a very different kind of community. We need to be 
>able to differentiate them as early and as specifically as we can as 
>to type of function, number of members, etc, in order to fulfill our 
>mission of improving communications.
>
>Likewise, to include thoughts about diplomacy or conflict 
>resolution, both groups, or communities, may encounter areas of 
>conflict, such as differences of opinion over school bond issues or 
>length of lines for restrooms and the relative distribution of such 
>for the sexes, but group behavior will be widely different in both 
>cases, so reports made about incidents at each community event need, 
>from a HumanMarkup standpoint, need definitions for commonly shared 
>attributes for these distinct communities in the event of riots over 
>lack of restrooms at a festival or the need for a recount on a vote 
>for school bonds which will affect local taxes.
>
>Feelin' lonely out here,
>Rex
>
>At 9:02 AM -0700 8/1/02, Rex Brooks wrote:
>>Hi All,
>>
>>I am replying to this message again because I want to keep the 
>>thread intact, not because I have changed my mind. In fact what I 
>>want to do is to carry this a bit farther because I have had 
>>further thoughts.
>>
>>In suggesting that we start with a pared down definition of either 
>>the element community or else a new base element which I would coin 
>>as humanGroup and define as simply two or more humans (small h 
>>since these named humans could be digital representations of agents 
>>or biological individuals) either gathered together in a digital 
>>environment capable of representing multiple users or representing 
>>themselves as belonging to an association of humans with some given 
>>name. Thus the higher level abstractions-symbol systems--would be 
>>either named communities or time/date stamped interactions existing 
>>for as long as they exist in a server and on clients, capable of 
>>being saved/logged by any entities involved.
>>
>>The reason for having an atomistic definition is to keep our 
>>semiotic representation as clean and crisp as possible. We may end 
>>up, after the semiotic experiment with a two part definition of 
>>most if not all of our Primary Base Schema Elements, with a 
>>semiotic definition first, and an XML HumanML definition second.
>>
>>Thoughts?
>>
>>Ciao,
>>Rex
>>
>>At 9:55 AM -0500 7/30/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>>>1.  I didn't mean to use consent as an attribute candidate.
>>>I was just offering that as one exception to community by
>>>consensus.  In other words, yes, as you say, not abstract
>>>enough.  Group simply means that a set of humans has been
>>>grouped.  It leaves the reason vague, and acts almost
>>>like the Group in VRML (grouped for whatever reason; the
>>>label is an identifier, not a classifier).
>>>
>>>2.  Perception.  That is vague because it is overloaded,
>>>for one.   I prefer not to tackle it now.  At the moment,
>>>I am interested in considering how a human in a group
>>>or not in a group can be said to have competence over
>>>multiple sign systems.   In other words, belonging
>>>to a culture may say of a stereotype, yes this stereotype
>>>can handle this sign system, but it can't be said
>>>of an individual human unless they observably demonstrate
>>>competence.  That is the HR problem in a nutshell.  Once
>>>we have a sign system, then testing is the way to deal
>>>with perceptions.
>>>
>>>We will only ever be able to deal with models of humans,
>>>and models of systems modeled humans work with.
>>>
>>>len
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com]
>>>
>>>Actually, I'm thinking in sets, both overlapping and enveloping, that
>>>is subsets, supersets, and intersecting sets. I don't have a
>>>structure yet. I'm hoping that as we explore this element, some
>>>structure or structures will emerge. I also think that what is
>>>occurring to me is the beginning of an approach to the concept of
>>>perception. It has always been the big missing piece for me. If you
>>>look back at the class structure I did, for example. I included as
>>>much of the established concepts, such as personality type models, as
>>>I thought seemed safe, but I did not include cognition or perception
>>>models. I may be getting closer to a comfort zone for that, but I'm
>>>not there yet.
>>>
>>>I agree that the familial relationship is less consenting while
>>>children remain in their minority, though it would apply after that,
>>>and even before, psychologically if not legally. I'm not sure about
>>>consent as an attribute at the base level. I'd like to hear from the
>>>others. What I am thinking is: group - any collection of one or more
>>>humans with or without consent, and group is the atomic level of
>>>community. How it orders itself in ascending levels of abstraction is
>>>not clear to me yet, but this seems necessary to me as the basis for
>>>building up a picture of where group/community belief structures
>>>define however much of any given individual member's perceptions or
>>>predisposition toward taking the group/community belief structure as
>>>their own perceptions.
>>
>>
>>--
>>Rex Brooks
>>Starbourne Communications Design
>>1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
>>http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
>>
>>
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>
>--
>Rex Brooks
>Starbourne Communications Design
>1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
>http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
>
>
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-- 
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com