RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community: SEMIOTIC COMMUNI TY

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Before I dig too deeply, in the sign experiment, I was 
wondering about the community and containers.  Could it 
be that we are trying to make rules for declaring a 
community (eg, creating markup with infinitely 
extensible code sets), or that we actually simply need a 
rule for identifying a group, then classifying a community?

A thought experiment:  if we were to say that a community 
as Sylvia says, is identified by the act of sharing, then 
classified by the types of things shared, could we condense 
the sign experiment down to a set of signs (recursively 
constructed) and a set of topic maps over those signs 
and that the community can be identified by the act 
of sharing signs, and classified by the shared topic maps?

I'm not a topic map guru.  But given the element type 

<!ELEMENT sign (sign*, signifier, signified+, referent* ) >
<!ATTRIBUTE sign
  id ID #REQUIRED
  type (symbol | icon | index) #REQUIRED >

how would we use topic maps to classify and navigate 
instances of that element type?

len

At 11:11 AM -0600 8/2/02, cognite@zianet.com wrote:
>Some analysis of the term 'community' for the HUML thread.
>SC                                      c. 1 August, 2002 by S. Candelaria
>de Ram, its author.
>
>I. B A S I C S
>	DECOMPOSITION
>	RECONSTITUTION, with Features/Specs
>II.  N O T E S
>	Presuppositionals needed: 
>	En fin:  COMMUNITY, SEMIOTIC COMMUNITY
>III.  O T H E R
>	Representational adequacy
>
>There's some work in here on the definition/description
>of SEMIOTE and its relation to SELF/SELVES.  Looks like
>COMMUNITY and SEMIOTIC COMMUNITY can be handled.  The
>kind of things that can be members of communities gotta be
>SHARERS.  This stuff coheres with the SEMIOTE stuff.
>A concise formulation of COMMUNITY as Process may aid
>in programming to underlie HUML markup (in the way HTML
><UL><LI>*</UL> and <A HREF="LETTERSEQUENCEi">LETTERSEQUENCEj</A>
>entail computer program conversion functions in browsers to
>lay out an Un-numbered List or Hyperlink on the user's screen).
>
>Like the earlier thing I made up on SEMIOTE, this turned out to be
>kind of hard-hitting or "dense", as Rex says, like math is, or logic.
>So for the sake of thinking about all the points, this time I've got
>them numbered like equations below.  I wish they didn't glop up
>  the looks, but let's make a pact to just imagine them in tiny
>italics, or something ;)
>
>--------------------------------------
>I.  B A S I C S
>
>[0]	commmunity
>
>A.  DECOMPOSITION:
>
>[1]	co + mun
>
>[2]	co <- [Romance/Latinate 'with']       + mn <- [Indo-European root, seen
>also in 'moon' esp. as in 'moon around'; still a word in Hindustani]
>
>[3]	co:  share/shared + mn:  one's own world-sensitivity/feelings
>
>B.  RECONSTITUTION:
>
>[4]        shared world
>[5]		  selves with commonality of experience, whether 
>past, present or future,
>	  		and openness to SHARING.
>
>[6]	community: selves with commonality of experience, whether past, present
>or future
>			and openness to SHARING.
>
>Features/Specs:
>
>[7]	Members of a community must have selves with 
>world-sensitivity/feelings.
>(This does not require that members be all of a single species or agent
>type.  Thus
>a group's pets may be part of the community.  Conversely, any community must
>needs
>be diversified.)
>
>[8]	Pre-requisite  for a community's being seems to be the existence of
>selves that share.
>	("Proquisite" might be a better word  -- a possibilitator.)
>
>[9]	Communication is a way of sharing.
>
>[10]	A community may develop characteristic processes of communication,
>describable
>in general as ways of sharing world-sensitivity data (and/or feelings).
>
>[11]	Community is causally prior to semiosis (and to signs as symbols and
>systems of
>signs that serve as symbols).
>
>
>--------------------------------------
>II. N O T E S: 
>
>A.  Presuppositionals needed: 
>
>[12]	SELVES:  With this definition we might need a sufficient
>definition/description of "self"
>			to have  a fully coherent system of terms. 
>Have we got one?
>			Also a process to differentiate SELFi, SELFj 
>(and ascertain plurality).
>
>			Nice to see this fitting into the SEMIOTE 
>stuff everybody liked, like this:
>
>[12.1]
>			SELFi [in context] * -- energy transmission 
>[context] * --> SELFj [in
>context] *
>			==may become==> 
>			SEMIOTEi [in context] * --signal [context] * 
>--> SEMIOTEj [in context] *
>
>[12.2]			which is in general:   pre-semiotic ==may 
>become==> semiotic.
>
>			A canonical special case is idempotency.  The 
>idempotent cases are
>[12.3]			SELFj = SELFi and SEMIOTEj = SEMIOTEi . 
>			Or, in the plural (after all, we are talking 
>COMMUNITY),
>[12.4]			SELVESj =~= SELVESi and SEMIOTEj* =~= SEMIOTEi*.
>			(All carrying contexts as before.  I am using 
>'=~=' here to mean
>			something like 'is approximately equal to'; 
>it's a bit complex
>			due to the time that communicating takes.)
>
>[12.5]			Reflexivity and talking to 
>yourself/yourselves are critical processes
>			for capturing a signal/symbol system. 
>Continues to fall out nicely.
>
>			IT MAY BE THAT THIS, PROCESSUALLY, 
>CONSTITUTES COMMUNITY FORMATION.
>
>[12.6]
>			(SELFi [in context] *
>			-- energy transmission [context] * -->
>			SELFj [in context] * ) *  <==> COMMUNITY
>
>			Note that last *, which indicates repetition; 
>repetition leads
>			to a CONTINUING COMMUNITY, with CONTINUING 
>COMMUNICATION.
>[12.7]
>			It's that last star that constitutes what the 
>"-ity" suffix on
>			"co + mn + ity" indicates.  The -ity says 
>that we've got an
>			"abstract" object; actually what we have is a 
>composite-phenomenon.
>			A composite-phenomenon, with embedded, 
>intrinsic context.
>
>			One more wrinkle regarding the nature of the 
>SELFi whose
>			COMMUNITY forms.
>			Thinking of putting AGENTi,j * in place of 
>SELFi, j * to form communities
>			seems not quite right; something is lacking, 
>something to do with
>			personality or spontaneity of action or maybe 
>of being a SHARER....  So:
>[12.8]			(1) Just having Agents does not necessarily 
>give us a community. 
>[12.9]			(2) We see that the kind of SELVES we need 
>here must have the
>nature for
>			SHARING.  They have to recognize and appreciate that
>			COMMONALITY, processing their world with 
>their sensitivity to it.
>			Recognizing and appreciating are processes, 
>in which HUML can aid.
>
>[12.10]			(Hmmmm....)  This is to posit that 
>the SELVES have to be
>SHARER-SELVES! 
>
>			Earlier discussion in this thread of 
>community-membership-by-assent
>			and children in a family bears on this point; 
>assent might be seen as
>			enhancement of current-SHARING tendency, and 
>dissent as its inhibition.
>			This will still work for a baby.  It 
>interacts with dependence needs.
>			But that's psych, and a simple positing of 
>SHARER-SELVES may cover
>			just enough for what we need.  (Right?)  But 
>the fact of actual
>			participation, willy-nilly, seems to 
>constitute membership. 
>
>[12.11]
>SHARING: Not neatly separable from [potential community-member-]SELVES, as
>noted. 
>			[Processual ascertainment might be practical 
>for this:  What do you
>			think?] 			COMMONALITY 
>is another essential, though.
>
>[12.12]
>COMMUNICATION: a way/ways of SHARING by SELVES		[This is a partial
>			definition/description only]
>
>[12.13]
>Given such definitional dependency, COMMUNITY, based on it, would
>	not be a primitive.
>
>------
>B.  En fin:
>
>[13]
>	COMMUNITY: SHARING-SELVES with commonality of experience, whether past,
>	present or future, and contextual conditions/enablement for SHARING.
>
>[14]
>			(SELFi [in context] *
>			-- energy transmission [context] * -->
>			SELFj [in context] * ) *  <==> COMMUNITY
>
>[15]
>	SEMIOTIC COMMUNITY:
>
>[16]
>			SELFi [in context] * -- energy transmission 
>[context] * --> SELFj [in
>context] *
>			==may become==> 
>			SEMIOTEi [in context] * --signal [context] * 
>--> SEMIOTEj [in context] *
>
>		when
>
>[17a]
>			SELVESi* ==become symbolizers [to themselves 
>and each other] ==> SEMIOTEi*
>		That is, stated more precisely, with the essential 
>contexts explicit:
>
>[17b]
>			SELVESi [context] *
>			==become symbolizers [to themselves and each 
>other] [context] * ==>
>			SEMIOTEi [context] *
>
>-----
>
>A typical contextual condition for sharing used to be common geolocale and
>simultaneous existence.  No more.  Hence need for HUML, our HUman Markup
>Language work.
>
>
>--------------------------------------
>III.  O T H E R
>
>C.  Comments on Representation:
>
>	Seems to me sets are helpful concepts, as noted earlier in 
>the thread, but
>sets are not sufficient for representing the semiotic:
>
>[20]	A "self" is idiosyncratic, unlike an element of a set.
>[21]	A "self" is grounded thru sensitivity, unlike an element of a set.
>
>[22]	A community is necessarily diversified, more than a set is.
>[23]	A set is defined by declaration; it is a theory construct.  A community
>is not.
>[24]	A community comes into being by virtue of its natural existence in the
>real
>world.  [Sharability is also entailed.]  (Artificial agents are somebody's
>artifices -- and that somebody (or somebodies) is a realworld "self". 
>[25]	Animal agents even more clearly come into being thru spontaneous
>actions of
>realworld things.)
>
>Therefore, whereas some of the properties of sets (distinct elements) and set
>operations (intersection, idempotency for example) are conceptual analogues to
>sharing by individual agents, they are not adequate to represent community, or
>self, or communication, which are real (grounded). 
>
>Similar problems are found with standard logics.  Ultimately, these
>observations
>lead into non-classical, grounded logic for representing such things, such as
>given in Candelaria de Ram (1992, PRAGMASEMANTICS: TOWARD A
>COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTABLE
>MODEL FOR LINGUISTIC COGNITION). Representing dynamics is an essential here.
>
>However, for HUML we can finesse all that probably, in preference to our
>computer-document markup/handling goals.  There use of math notation is mighty
>mighty handy for what we're doing, and translates well for computer 
>programming
>to implement it.
>
>-------
>
>SC
>
>
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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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