RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community: SEMIOTIC COMMUNITY

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Hi Everyone,

I am going to go through this item by item and then I hope I will 
have formed an opinion about Len's subsequent suggestions/questions. 
It may take me the whole weekend. The one consideration that I think 
we have take into account a priori with this term, is the historical 
record of sociological thought concerning community. It was part of 
the underlying substrate that informed my initial comments concerning 
the necessity of paring down the concept to humanGroup first so that 
we could start from a viewpoiint that sees the atomic level as far as 
we can, i.e. the definition of two or more humans gathered together. 
Sociological thought has made a distinction between macro and micro, 
impersonal and personal,large or social and small or local, the 
gesellschaft and gemeinschaft. The term humanGroup is meant to 
prefigure those distinctions since we are committed to harmonizing 
with the largely accepted academic schools of thought with regard to 
our work. That said, nothing we have explored here breaks with that, 
but builds upon it implicitly. The density in Sylvia's work is making 
this atomistic analytical framework very concrete and that is pretty 
much what we are about.

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.


I agree that the concept of sharing is fundamental, as is the concept 
of selves, although I am not sure if we might not want to examine the 
concept further insofar as digital information system analysis is 
concerned.

It may be that the concept of self is somewhat farther up the ladder 
of abstraction than the base entity of the human, which, so far, 
merely has to have the capacity for asserting itself as such to 
qualify.

Consciousness or awareness of selfhood is pretty difficult to test 
for successfully, and equating self with human (small "h" such that 
it can represent a biological or software entity) does not quite work 
for me. I will set that aside for now. I'm not going to satisfy 
myself about that in next few minutes if I haven't yet in my work on 
this so far. (Self is right up there with Perception as the Big Bad 
Bogies that I have not yet satisfied myself about.)

What I propose to do is the equate self with small h human for now. 
Otherwise we run into the question of testing for selfness which I 
think gets us in trouble. We may want to exclude software agents from 
sharing in community--but that is another discussion.

>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.)

We'll need to define the conditions (what I usually call 
characteristics) that a community must satisfy in order for it to 
meet the definition enabling its validation as existent.

These conditions/characteristics will then probably define what kind 
or type of community it is, i.e. what it shares.

>[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).

Okay, this is good.

>
>--------------------------------------
>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:

As I mentioned earlier, I think we will have to accept self as 
self-asserted small h human for now, and that keeps everything in 
this section working the way I think Len is exploring.


>[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.)

Yikes! We better be careful about this. I think I understand, but 
what I understand tells me that we just casually decided to invent a 
whole new computing operation, and I'm not enough of a computer 
scientist to begin understanding the ramifications of that.


>[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.

Not entirely sure of this. This gets a "could be" but I have to try 
to punch holes in it a while before I agree.

>
>[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.

This does not require 12.5 and is therefore A-OK by me.


>[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.

This works for gemeinschaft but needs more qualifiers to achieve gesellschaft.

>			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.

Capacity for sharing by an unbiased test based on appropriate 
responses might get us closer to what a SELF is, or what constitutes 
a SELF, but for now I'm gonna stay with small h human, and leave it 
at self-assertion, and say that I think we can allow communities to 
build and conduct their own tests, because I do agree that once they 
qualify, they are objects in their own right, and may be required to 
build and conduct their own tests if they want to interact with 
other, larger communities==the way the world works, like OASIS for 
example.

>[12.10]			(Hmmmm....)  This is to posit that 
>the SELVES have to be
>SHARER-SELVES!

I think that gets closer to SELF, but I'm not sure we even want to 
try to define and test for SELFNESS yet.

>
>			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.

I think processual ascertainment == test ;) I think I preagreed in 12.9

>[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.


I ABSOLUTELY agree, community should not be a primitive, humanGroup should be.

>------
>B.  En fin:
>
>[13]
>	COMMUNITY: SHARING-SELVES with commonality of experience, whether past,
>	present or future, and contextual conditions/enablement for SHARING.

OUCH, (not your statement, my thought)! Another bugaboo just struck 
me between the eyes. We are going to have do distinguish somehow 
between and among: Acceptance==reception of signal; 
Agreement==acknowledgement of signal, AND no transmission of 
contradictory signal; Assertion of Commonality==?

That's not right, and I know it, but I just don't have the time at 
the moment to think it through more. I'm getting very antsy with the 
number of times the word test is occuring to me. Somehow we need to 
allow for it and yet not overburden the use of HumanML due to 
performance overhead.

>[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.

Yep. Hit the nail on the head there.

>--------------------------------------
>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.

I think set applies to overlapping memberships in communities, less 
in regard to the individual whose memberships are looked at through 
that particular filter.

>[22]	A community is necessarily diversified, more than a set is.

Agreed, set theory should not be used where impractical. It's just a 
viewpoint/filter for making sense out of the background field.

>[23]	A set is defined by declaration; it is a theory construct.  A community
>is not.

Actually, I'm thinking more of finding a way to allow these kinds of 
sets, communities, to emerge and, in effect, declare themselves 
rather than us declaring them.

>[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".

This is true but gets sticky. When you give discretion to an 
artifice, is it still and artifice only? I don't want to debate it, I 
just mention it because someone inevitably will, and we might as well 
line up our arguments ahead of time.

>[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.


I'm glad for that. I really am having to think about a lot of the 
implications of the Wolfram work in that darn book.

It is useful to know that demanding simplicity won't really prevent 
or even reduce complexity in the results of a process, nor that 
complexity in analytical tools will better analyze complex processes. 
However, there as yet appears to be no great ground rules for 
recognizing which initial conditions for a process will result in 
repeating, simple or complex  patterns. Darn.

>-------
>
>SC
>
Ciao,
Rex
-- 
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com