[humanmarkup] Re: [humanmarkup-comment] [humanmarkup TC] Assortedmeeting notes -from Rob

[Rob Nixon <rnixon@qdyn.com>]

Thanks Len,

Regarding:   3.  An artifact may be a sign or a symbol.  It is
not a signal except insofar as it is an interruption
in an observer's view....

I would argue that MANY, if not most Artifacts can be considered to be a
"compressed" signal form, especially if it is within the prior experience of
the perceiver.   I don't think that an "interruption" in an observer's view
actually will cover it.  In fact, I'm not sure I know what "an interruption
in an observer's view" really means...   The pattern of photons reflected off
the object, the tactile feel of the object, the smell of an object, even a
written or audio description of the object all act as signals which are then
decoded and processed via the pattern recognition structures of the brain (
or A.I. algorithms).  They are not just static tags.   Nothing is static.

Perhaps I'm being too literal here.  Or I am missing the point.   But I would
also point out that there are developers who have already expanded on the
concept of an Artifact as noun "only"...   and many are going that direction
in the VR realm (which we must be able to support).  i.e. The "Artifacts" in
"The Sims" ( i.e. Refrigerator, Paper, Sofa, Shower, etc.  ) do act as
signals to the environment ( specifically the virtual humans ).  These
artifacts "broadcast" their "benefits" to the "Sims" in the environment and
the virtual humans respond.

Again, I am trying to make sure that we don't lock ourselves into an
interpretation of a concept that may actually be evolving.

Thanks,
Rob

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:

> Doing this quick so not enough time to be simple.  I'm
> not enthralled with "verbs" in XML Schemas.   They don't
> belong there.  On the other hand, nouns created by an
> XML Schema do have to participate in relationships and
> verbs as business rules, etc., certainly have to be
> considered.  I guess I see schemas almost like property
> sheets; just data objects.
>
> First, be sure these topics can diffentiate a data standard
> from a system specification.  If we mix up these levels, we
> will never emerge.   XML is strictly a naming system that
> includes a structural means to organize names. Insofar as
> verbs can be named, they can be XMLized, but the object model
> of XML is not very good when it comes to doing things like
> DAGs.  So artifacts as "nodes in a network" is a description
> more amenable to RDF possibly.
>
> 1.  Meaning, semantic.  Is always assigned regardless of
> time.  It is always system specific, or view specific.
>
> 2.  A system may have a cultural description the currency
> of which may correspond to some shared data values but
> this is not required nor explicitly a norm.   That is,
> the context of human communication is always personal,
> or more to the point, rooted to individuals.
>
> 3.  An artifact may be a sign or a symbol.  It is
> not a signal except insofar as it is an interruption
> in an observer's view.  One might say it acts in that
> context initially, but I'm not sure that is very useful.
> An artifact is a noun.  It may be a property of some
> process.  (really, an artifact is just a way to group
> a set of non-random assemblies of substances that
> are made by humans.  The term is very vague but was
> put there to include things such as jewelry, clothing,
> etc.).
>
> 4.  Building a state machine description of a communication
> is fine.  Choice of choices with rules operating over each
> transition.  Again, not very XML and possibly not very
> relevant to the schema except insofar as the schema describes
> the names and structures of messages/state representations
> passed among nodes in the network.  Differentiate intelligent
> choices (choice of choices:  a well-defined process operates
> over the selection) from interpretable acts, or simple
> observables (we know this person did this, but we cannot
> name the rules of the process, only inspect the outputs
> at some declared set of transitions).
>
> 5.  Because meaning is always "assigned", time is a context
> property important to interpretation where interpretation
> requires a view definition.   No argument there.
>
> Time is independent of instantiation insofar as identity
> based on type is concerned.   Apriori use of a class such
> as book does not infer a place in time, just a set of
> properties for the classification.  Yes, it is important
> not to create "effects from the future" as a side effect
> of instantiation.  Nothing should prohibit it as a kind
> of artifice (time machine novels are what they are).  Time
> itself, is just "previous" and "next" if we deal with
> it linearly.  Time affects instancing based on type if
> the type, not the instance, has evolved and that evolution
> is time-ordered for the purpose of identifying it.  It is
> possible to timestamp an event, classify it as a type of
> incident, and move on to other forms of interpreted
> classification.  For example, an observable or
> reportable event is recorded, an incident declared that
> requires a response (eg, call for service), and later,
> that incident is classified as say, a type of cultural
> act (eg, a crime type, murder, rape, etc.)
>
> 6.  Yes.  Addresses if physical addresses have a couple
> of descriptions of value.  Typically, they should be a
> name coordinate system (and there are lots of these;
> compare British city/street/dwelling addresses to
> American addresses for similar constructs) mapped to
> a geoLocation coordinate system.  They have histories
> but these depend on the object associated with the
> address.  For example, people who have lived at an
> address, businesses that occupied that address, materials
> that might be found at that address, etc.  These are
> often tied to alerting systems.   So again, we need
> the context of the view (why is this object a member
> of this set), to discover which history is of interest.
>
> len
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Nixon [mailto:rnixon@qdyn.com]
> Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 11:39 AM
> To: Rex Brooks
> Cc: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org;
> humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [humanmarkup-comment] [humanmarkup TC] Assorted meeting notes -
> from Rob
>
> Hello everyone, sorry for the delay.
>
> Here are a few notes related to the discussion we had during our monthly
> HumanML Technical Committee conference call on the 15th.  Many of these
> are my thoughts on the subjects discussed, so any "naive" thoughts on the
> topics at hand are entirely my responsibility.   I tend to speak in the
> languages of physics, mathematics, and systems sciences, so I'm sure that
> there are other more appropriate ways to present this material.  There
> are also overlaps with the concepts underlying the semantic web approach.
>
> These notes are not meant to send us wildly off course, but rather to
> make sure that we have explored our assumptions.
>
> 1). ARTIFACTS:
>
> a) The "meaning" assigned to an artifact can change over time.
>
> b) The derived meaning at any given time is associated with the cultural
> framework in which it is considered.
>
> c) There can be many parallel (in time) meanings assigned to an artifact,
> with each meaning deriving from different cultural (or group) frameworks.
>
> d) It's possible that an Artifact can act as more than a noun in that an
> Artifact can act (and I would argue almost always act) as a "signal"
> within the perceptual field of the perceiver.
>
> e) As an overly simplistic model, Artifacts can be thought of as the
> nodes of a network, with beliefs acting as the connections between the
> nodes.  Clusters of these nodes and connections, can be thought of as
> context, with the entire network viewed as the knowledge and experience
> of the individual perceiver.
>
> f) By treating each network as a surface(of arbitrary dimension) we can
> add time into the model as a series of  stacked surfaces with the
> "artifact" nodes connected to their corresponding nodes in the surface
> "beneath".  The evolution of the meaning of the "Artifacts" over time can
> be viewed as a series of vectors, where these vectors may fork, continue
> through, or dead end ( as the artifacts may separate into multiple
> artifacts upon examination, remain consistent, or actually be lost in the
> physical or in memory).  This process can be viewed as a type of Cellular
> Automata (CA).
>
> g) These connected series of vectors can be thought of as a trajectory
> through the knowledge and experience "space" of the individual
> perceiver.  You will also find that there is a type of "momentum"
> associated with these trajectories as groups of related "artifacts" and
> the connecting beliefs about those artifacts reinforce each other.   It
> takes more to shift the perspectives (in relation to the artifacts) as
> time goes on if they have been reinforced.
>
> h) It should also be understood that each individual perceiver can be
> viewed as a node in a cultural and social network (which is hierarchical
> in nature)  with (feedback loops) interconnecting the artifact nodes (
> and beliefs ) among the interacting individuals.
>
> i) Artifacts can also act as a pointer to a series of Metaphors, or in
> and of itself act as a "Metaphoric" node.
>
> j) In essence a (manufactured) Artifact can also be viewed as the
> "condensation" of "meaning" out of the knowledge and information field of
> the individual or the group.
>
> k) It is also important to understand that when we are dealing with
> "Artifacts" (objects) within Virtual Simulations, the concept of linear
> time and cause and effect can no longer be viewed as it has been
> traditionally.
>
> If for example I am running a series of simultaneous "Simulations" each
> based on a specific time period ( i.e.  1920, 1930, 1940, 1970, 1993,
> 2002) and I share an (Artifact - a book, a building, a coin) "object"
> among them (that contains "Static Data Members", "Static Member
> Functions" ) I will run into a problem with potential cause and effect if
> we use a simple linear view of time.
>
> The following example should highlight the problem:
>
> If for instance my six simulations utilize a class of object called
> "Book", each of the six simulations will contain their own object
> "instantiations" of the book class.  You can think of the "Book Class" as
> the Archetype of a Book, and each instantiation of the Book Archetype in
> each simulation as the "physical manifestation" of the Book Archetype.
> In this sense each of the books in the six different simulated periods
> have no relation to each other (other than "Bookness") and therefore can
> not effect each other.  However, if we include data and functions called
> "Static Data Members" or "Static Member Functions" in our Book Class (
> Archetype ), then we create a link between ALL instantiations of books in
> ALL simulations.
>
> The reason for this is that the Static Data Members and Functions are
> associated with the CLASS and not the individual book objects in each
> simulation.  So if we had (for what ever reason) static data members
> called "Highest Catalogue Number" and "Date Assigned" which were used to
> assign the next instantiated books catalogue number in any given
> simulation,  all books everywhere in all simulations would access that
> "Highest Catalogue Number".   Here is the problem,  let us say for the
> sake of argument that when we start our six simultaneous simulations (
> ie. Boston - 1920,1930, 1940, 1970, 1993, and 2002 ) that it just so
> happens that the first "book" object is instantiated in the 1970
> simulation.  The catalogue number "1" is assigned to that book instance,
> and the date of "April 5, 1970" is recorded in the Static Data member
> called "Date Assigned".
>
> Now it just so happens that since the start of our six simulations the
> next instantiation of a book occurs in the 1930 simulation.  The local
> simulation sees that there has already been one book assigned, and so it
> updates the "Highest Catalogue Number"  to 2.  What it discovers however
> is that from it's (the particular simulations perspective) the first book
> was assigned 40 years in it's future, so in effect, it has experienced
> and effect from the future.  A simple time stamping of events in this
> case would lead to chaos and confusion.  Now if we update the Date
> Assigned for this second instantiated book to Feb 23, 1930, from the
> perspective of the 1970 simulation it has just had it's past changed by
> something occurring in the 1930 simulation.
>
> This again is only meant as a simple example of my point.  The goal hear
> is not to pick apart the example or to say that no one would ever do
> this, or that this would simply be a bug, or to justify that these
> effects as being in entirely different times lines.  I am trying to point
> out that there can be non-linear, a-temporal effects in simulations and
> we must at least consider this as we discuss "artifacts" and "knowledge",
> and "meaning".
>
> The concept of time in this venue (and I would argue our own) can only be
> viewed as a series of events and not as a single linear sequence we tend
> to think of it as.  It would also be possible to set up a series of
> complex feedback loops that would involve interactions between the 1930
> and 1970 simulations that would be hard if not impossible to explain from
> the perspective of VR characters in each of those simulations.
>
> >From the perspective of the VR characters, knowledge from the future
> would be mysterious and unexplainable.  And from the perspective of the
> VR Quantum Theorist, experiencing the bizarre effect of having  the
> results of a previously carried out experiment apparently fall into line
> with information only more recently taken into count suddenly becomes
> understandable.
>
> If our VR simulations are going to model our own weird "experience" they
> must incorporate mechanisms of this nature, and therefor require us to at
> least explore these concepts as we define a useful XML HumanML dialect.
>
> The previous points have been greatly simplified for clarity ( I hope ).
> The goal of the previous points have been to illustrate that the concept
> of an "Artifact" as a simple noun is insufficient.   I believe that
> rather than viewing an (artifact)/"Signal" as an interruption in a static
> field (as was discussed during the meeting), that they should be viewed
> as semi-recurrent / semi-stable dynamic "processes" (or eddies) in a
> fluid field (where "fluid" describes a dynamic network structure.)
>
> Regarding:
>
> 2. ADDRESSES ( as well as many other attributes )
>
> We must allow for multiple concurrent addresses, as well as a historical
> list or tree of address ( again as we move forward and backward ) in time
> related to VR simulations (leaving out our non-linear time effects
> previously discussed).
>
> Again, these are all only points to consider.
>
> Rob
>
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