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

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Again, I'm going to take it point by point. What I haven't mentioned 
before is that if I don't comment on something you can generally take 
it that I agree. However, feel free to call me on it, because I might 
simply have missed something or inadvertently skipped over something.

At 1:42 PM -0500 8/2/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>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?

Now that I am thinking about it, this is pretty much where I have 
been heading. I want to draw distinctions between groups and 
communities. It seems to me that we are exploring how and where those 
distinctions can be made, or what rules seem to emerge from our 
collective experience and thought for making those distinctions. 
Basically I don't think an emotional mob, an archetypal lynch mob, 
for instance, qualifies as  community in the way I think of a 
community, and such group dynamics are distinctly different from a 
community process, such as a local PTA.


>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?

Works for me.

>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?

This is a very important consideration. This is where we have 
recourse to standard published subject indexes (which don't exist 
yet) which use one or another upper level ontology as the base search 
structure. What I suspect is going to happen, of necessity, will that 
major, organized disciplines will provide indexes to their topic 
areas, stating which ontologies they use and we will have search 
engines of search engines at the front end of our document trees for 
topic maps so that we can track our criteria sets. (OH GD, here come 
the patterns again! This is like deja vu all over again. Once you 
start recognizing patterns, your mind goes straight to one of 
Wolfram's patterns whenever you see one. I'll be glad to get done 
with that damn thing!)

<digression>For those of you who thought the concern over the Topic 
Maps community's apparent preference for the Cyc Ontology (made by 
someone associated with that system and for whom, I would suppose, no 
potential extra fee is a consideration) with little or no 
consideration given to the DAML+OIL, except for similarly-minded 
folks to say they find faults here and there with it in terms of 
classifications of associations such as dog being or not being an 
associated member of the either the pet or domesticated animals 
(superset--my term) published subject topic.</digression>

Sorry for the digression, and I hate to make it sound trivial because 
it decidedly isn't, especially when we get down to classifications of 
communities by topic maps over shared sign systems.

Also, just to make it clear to those among our lurkers who aren't 
getting IT straightaway, this represents a major reduction in 
computing  performance overhead, and an increase in speed for finding 
associations to which an individual's memberships in communities 
apply. That's also why we need to make sure we get this as correct as 
we can, because we will probably be living with the results much like 
we do with credit reports, motor vehicle code violations histories, 
etc.

To repeat, memberships in communities would occur by assertion, I 
assume, or by behavioral tracking. Communities would be defined by 
shared sign systems. Topic Maps group associations by categories, 
categories are organized by ontologies, found by search engines of 
search engines, mostly all done by metadata in the headers of 
documents, delivering the sign systems to which an individual belongs.

Is that what you're looking for Len?

Ciao,
Rex


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