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Subject: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-culture
Thanks for the clarifications Rex.
I must admit I have been out of touch with a number of Humanmarkup activities and the comments of late, and am admittedly a newbie in this initiative, and seem to have somehow lost sense of the thread on the issues, and would appreciate some direction.
. Particularly, I am having difficulty locating the strawman toolkit referred to in previous posts. I will take some time today reviewing that if pointed at it.
Also, with regard for structured vocabularies and source origins for terminology, the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) may be a useful resource for consideration of choice of definitions of terms applied in Humanmarkup, at least insofar as the TC deems appropriate or applicable within constraint of context.
see http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/
for example, enter keyword "culture" and then try "artifact",
Note also, for further example, that the AAT does not have base definition of "community"
Note also that a number of markup language initiatives, particularly those in the cultural heritage sector, cite AAT as an authoritative structured vocabulary (among others).
Rex Brooks wrote:
Thanks, James, I will review the material in the URLs and I am sure it will be helpful. I must admit that I was so immersed in the semiotics of the article and the resources it led to in turn, that I did not make it clear that the restriction was meant to be the most atomistic definition. I agree with you that it was a definition not description--description is the terminology of xml schema. This illustrates what may be the necessity for distinguishing between a strict huml-prefixed-namespace definition of certain terms and the more broad, and widely used definitions. I'm not saying that we need this, only that we may. By "interpreter" I was meaning semiote as defined by Sylvia Candelaria deRam previously, and I'm afraid that even in my own mind I was overlapping the semiotic experiment with the more focused discussion of the element: culture from the straw man schema. Also, and I admit that I was wrong headed in this, I was laying out the foundation for specifying particular cultures along the lines we had noodled out a little more than a year ago which would involve a hierarchy of attributes like geographical location, historical context, etc. Since our aim is to reduce miscommunication, here is a good example. I look forward to reviewing the material. I expect we will be at work on this term for a little while. This is one of the most important elements, so we need to get this one pinned down as accurately as we can. Thanks, again,Rex At 11:51 AM -0500 8/11/02, James.Landrum wrote:
A condensed definition of culture, which may perhaps be more easily be transposed into the boolean:
"Culture is shared knowledge."
In the above definition of culture, "experience" is implied, as are "behavior" and "actor."
(Note: "Interpreter", as in Rex's definition (what he calls a description) "culture is the community of interpreters that shares the same sum of experience," is too restrictive. No 2 people interpret in exactly the same way, as their individual sum of experiences are not identical, despite being part of a community; one can experience cultural manifestations without strictly interpreting them, or can misinterpret the manifestation. Salience is an issue here- e.g., meaningful interpretation of culture, or cultural behavior, implies insider knowledge. In the above definition, "shared knowledge" implies the ability to communicate meaningfully, that is to say, if one cannot transmit information meaningfully, crucial, or core, cultural knowledge is not shared. The crux of the latter point is that if there is miscommunication, cultural knowledge is not understood appropriately, if at all, and although there may be misinterpretation or miscommunication in the process of information exchange, sharing does occur- and that is culture in process).
review the following URLs for discussions on baseline definitions of culture:
Baseline Definition of Culture (WSU)
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/culture-definition.html
A Definition of Culture (U. Manitoba)
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/culture.html
Definition of Culture (Slippery Rock University)
http://www.sru.edu/depts/artsci/ges/discover/d-4-1.htm
"Culture: The learned patterns of thought and behavior characteristic of a population or society."
Marshall Soules' "Toward a Definition of Culture" (Malaspina CC)
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/culture.htm
Culture: Some Definitions (Southern Illinois University)
http://www.siu.edu/~ekachai/culture.html
Rex Brooks wrote:
Since the paper Len referred us to specifically states that reproduction is not allowed without permission, I will have to paraphrase, and because I'm short on time, I will add my own comments as I go, but suffice it to say that the element culture appears to require some specific semiotic analysis, and will be, of necessity, included in the semiotic experiment, so, much as with community, which led to a common derivative antecedet in humanGroup, culture is also part and parcel inextricably entwined with semiotic thought. I doubt we could have planned it better. So I will take advantage of serendipity and synchronicity and tie culture into semiotic analysis.
Briefly the paper points out that cultural semiotics needs to consider the history of media, largely referred to in the academic literature as the history of technology, as a key component of, and inseparable from, semiotic development--the history of semiotic systems, sign systems if you will--in a mutual system. Thus cultural development is a semiotic process that includes and to a large extent is influenced by the development of media.
Culture has been described as the sum of information and the means of organizing it. Media is a form, some argue the defining form, of organizing information, and so cultures can be expressed as information communities, or as Len implies, sign systems largely defined by the media through which they are shared, or transmitted. I'll have to say that I agree with this, even though I keep looking for ways to challenge this system of analysis simply because it makes for livelier discussions. Sigh, to be honest, I haven't found any such yet.
In the article to which Len posted the url, I found one telling definition which I am going to suggest best describes the true state of the boolean for culture which Len has included in the straw man toolkit:description: culture is the community of interpreters that shares the same sum of experience.
Since I added the words, culture is, I significantly changed the meaning of the phrase I lifted from the article, so I doubt I infringed upon the copyright.
Now, naturally, there will be no two individual members of any community for which this idealized sum is exactly equal, and it will be in determining the limits of congruity which will define membership in any given culture. That will the task of those who draw those lines, not us, although some of us may join in that effort.As usual, I am going to give it more study. Ciao,Rex At 1:33 PM -0500 8/9/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
If you go up a level, that is part of the SEED collection
and there are some really fascinating articles. The
one on quantum mind is a hard read but fascinating in
the notion that consciousness emerges from engagement
with the environment, a topic that shows up in several
of the papers. Consider a set of sign systems that
to be handled simultaneously, (remember the Gudwin
model of intelligence), result in the creation or
emergence of relationships (for us, possibly expressed
as topic maps) that enable coordination. It is a
neat model. Some of our containers would then
become the topic map systems perhaps.
People do choose among media and that by engagement
with and reinforcement by the environment. That is
why I insist on the choice of choices (choosing who
chooses the choices) as a prerequisite freedom for
governance. If the universe is a sign production
system (one model but useful), then when you got
up the morning to dress, what did you choose to
wear and who chose your available clothes? And
even if you had one message in mind for the clothes,
how would your nearest significant person interpret
your choices, how would the first person you met
on the street interpret them, and so on. As you
move from locale to locale and therefore the types
of people you encounter changes, how do the
interpretations change according to the way each
of the locales change the perceptions of your choices
in that medium? Now, consider that you have chosen
a route as well.
Back to reading. I sure have to read a lot to keep
up with Sylvia. Every number has two neighbors.
len
-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com]
I'm not sure about choice per se, but culture is certainly
expressed/shared through media and somewhat characterized by the
manner in which the sign systems are transported, i.e. the use made
of available media. Few cultures, I think, actually choose among
available media, though some do, as in preferring an oral tradition,
or the person-to-person exchange for core cultural sharing, such as
secret handshakes.
Thanks for the paper--sheesh. I thought I wished YOU an interesting weekend.
--
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
--
From the desk of James [Jim] E. Landrum III
NDSU Archaeology Materials and Technologies Laboratories
URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA).
DANA URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive
Email: <James.Landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>
Phone: 701-231-8059
FAX: 701-231-1047
Voice Mail: 701-231-4228
--Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
--
From the desk of James [Jim] E. Landrum III
NDSU Archaeology Materials and Technologies Laboratories
URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA).
DANA URL = http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive
Email: <James.Landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>
Phone: 701-231-8059
FAX: 701-231-1047
Voice Mail: 701-231-4228
--
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