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Subject: [humanmarkup] PBS-Doc-artifact
- From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
- To: humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org, cognite@zianet.com, clbullar@ingr.com,kurt@kurtcagle.net, mbatsis@netsmart.gr
- Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 15:46:39 -0700
Title: PBS-Doc-artifact
Subject: [humanmarkup] RE:
[humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-artifact
From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>,'Rex
Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org,humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 08:08:51 -0700
Title: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base
Schema-artifact
Thanks for the reminder, Len. This is
true. What we also need as we develop the schema itself, is the
background usages--the rules the use the property sets. Actually from
their viewpoints those are the foreground usages. In any event, we
need to design the schema for its many uses, and so far, while we do
discuss various usage scenarios, we are pretty much staying nailed
down to foundational work. And it is good to be reminded of that.
I hope we hear from Philip soon, since
designing inherent grammars using nouns as verbs, I assume, and using
the spoken language metaphor or model for that programming
usage--which I assume (again recognizing the danger of assuming) will
be applicable to a wide range of specific application areas.
Ciao,
Rex
At 9:37 AM -0500 5/21/02, Bullard,
Claude L (Len) wrote:
The schema itself is a set of nouns if you want to go down a path of
trying to think of it as a spoken language, but it actually isn't. It
is a data object description. It is important to keep the
data definitions, classification of properties of interest, separate
from the ways in which they may be applied. All the schema
should be concerned with is those property sets which can affect a
human communication, that is, creates a context for that act or
actions. The rules that can use these property
sets vary enormously depending on the type of interest. In
effect, the schema classifies the kinds of codes that will
used.
Be wary of 'verbizing' nouns (thinging). That is an object
implementation and has value, but a simulation and a relational
database aren't the same level of implementation. Someone
trying to collect information based on a standard code set,
someone implementing a simulation using that collected information,
and someone creating analysis reports based on that collected
information aren't doing the same job. In the current draft, the
original intent was to name the observable or inferred properties of a
human communication such that all the other jobs could be done using
the rules (say, business rules or policies) of the particular
tasks.
len
Subject: [humanmarkup] Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base
Schema-artifact
From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
To: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>,
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org,humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 07:21:55 -0700
Title: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base
Schema-artifact
Hi Everyone,
Since much of the discussion on
artifact has occurred in replies to other threads, I am going to
gather up that discussion here with the proviso that I am not going to
quote paragraphs, just names, dates, the thread Subject from which it
was taken and the time it was posted working forward from the earliest
to the latest. Please excuse the disjoint character, but I wanted to
collect only the discussion relating to Base Schema-Artifact, so Dr.
Candelaria deRam's exposition on Base Schema-Address should be
reviewed for the context of those comments, and especially for the
abstract discussion of HOW our schemata, Primary and Secondaries needs
to be understood and how it perhaps, ought, to be modeled.
Note: There are on-going discussions
throughout these threads that deal with the way or manner in which we
are building the overall Human Markup Language Suite or Set of
Schemata, including, though rarely addressed specifically while we are
concerned with XML Schemata, RDF--which I wanted to mention as
another aspect which we will need to be dealing soon.
Please, if you have more
artifact-specific thoughts, please reply to this message to preserve
the thread, and delete portions of previous posts with which
your comments are not concerned.
Thanks,
Rex
On Sun, 19 May 2002 11:38:34 -0500, Rob
Nixon, Subject:Assorted meeting notes, wrote
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.
(concluding):
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.)
On Mon, 20 May 2002 10:54:38 -0500,
Len Bullard replied in that thread:
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.)
To which, on Mon, 20 May 2002 11:34:20
-0500, Rob replied:
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
To which in turn, on Mon, 20 May 2002
16:11:54 -0500, Len replied:
The example for signal was
something
like breaking an electrical field to
make a Morse code. This
gets tendentious quickly. For
example, there is a person
on the other side of the cube drumming
their fingers on the
desk. Is this signal? In
the sense that it is "drawing
attention" yes; in the sense that
it conveys information,
explicitly, no. One can interpret
it, eg, significator of
boredom or nervousness, but unless it
is organized into
some kind of regular beat with
duration, one might not interpret
it as Morse. Signal
requires more properties to be
interpretable, that is, to make an
optimum choice, we
need more than just signal. It is
a dark and stormy night and
we are driving across the Ponchatrain
at high speed.
Up ahead, we see someone waving
excitedly. We have
to choose:
1. Stop. There is an
emergency.
2. Drive on. This is a nut
or a robber.
Only as we are plummeting into the
swamp do we
understand they were signaling an
emergency based
on the bridge being down. It is a
bit late.
Pattern recognition and the optimum
choice are
not simple problems.
A piece of jewelry is initially exactly
just an interruption.
It attracts attention. It may
have symbols on it and these
may be readily interpretable.
Otherwise, it is decoration.
Training is everything. Knowing
the difference between a sign
and a signal is a training issue
(apriori experience). A
sign should be obvious to someone
trained to recognize it.
The only really compelling property of
a signal is that
it "attracts attention" and
can be made to carry information,
but in and of itself, is just a
media-type noise when
first noticed that has to be correlated
to be interpreted.
Yes, an artifact can be a compressed
means, but I would
argue it is a sign or probably a symbol
if it contains a
lot of information. Without an
interpretant context, one
can't say. For example, the
notion that an address is
symbolic is interesting only if within
a culture or
learning set, an address has acquired a
meaning,
eg, prestige address, slum, business
area, gangland,
whatever. It is not an artifact
per se unless we
dumb down artifact to mean
"thing". Otherwise,
the first primary association of
address is to
a geoLocation. Other
relationships depend on the
system.
I'm not sure we can make that schema
handle the notion
of "broadcasting
value". I can see an implementation
of an object-oriented communication
that does that.
We may find that the abstractions of
signal, sign and
symbol are inappropriate and turn to
simply, messages,
but then again, we may find that
messages are aggregates
of the above.
Meanwhile, in her post on Base
Schema-Address and Artifact, Dr. Sylvia Candelaria deRam, wrote:
Intro.
Now the HumanML committee has moved
[from "phase 0", discussion] into
the stage of actual schema design for
HumanML.
Thus saith Rob Nixon:
At 11:38 AM 19-05-2002 -0500, you
wrote:
>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
...>speak in the
>languages of physics, mathematics,
and systems sciences,
...
> 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:
>
... [marvelous exposition, q.v.,
referred to in part below]....
Per Rex Brooks and Ranjeeth Thunga's
guidance, we've begun jointly
re-working
through the caderie of possible terms for HumanML. Today in
our conferenced telephone meeting note
was taken that since our problem
is handling the "human" which
is invariably also contextual, a shallow
list of terms such as suitable for some
other markup endeavors is
patently insufficient. How, then, to
proceed to bring contextualization
into our base of primaries (cf.
primitives)?
The following analysis of the first
term under discussion, ADDRESS, sets
it up as RELATIONAL, with CONTEXT
CONDITIONS.
It turns out to be amazingly consonant
with Rob Nixon's concurrent
discussion of the second term,
ARTIFACT.
Rob's point j) describes how an
ARTIFACT is "manufactured" ... "out of
the knowledge and information field of
the individual or the group". His
points g) and h), speaking of
'trajectories' zooming "through the
knowledge and experience 'space' of the
individual perceiver" [who is,
themself,] "a node in a cultural
and social network...with (feedback
loops) interconnecting the artifact
nodes and beliefs) among the
interacting individuals" propose
the interesting idea of "momentum"
within a dynamic net.
When an ADDRESS is a special case of an
ARTIFACT, as I'd opined in our
phone meeting, Rob's description of
ARTIFACTs in terms of nets are thus
illustrated by the concrete
"semantic-net-portions" for ADDRESS set out
below. Elaboration on
contextualizable nets follows, and then some
questions to work from.
<snip--captured in entirety in
Base-Schema-Address thread>
C.
related working term: ARTIFACT
comment: A particular ADDRESS is an
[instance of an] ARTIFACT. ADDRESS is a
kind of ARTIFACT (cf. ISA, AKO,
subclass). In having to do with significant
(maybe even purposive) activity it
differs from being a plain location.
It has co-operative significance: That
"human" social property ;).
================
<snip>
At 7:00 AM -0700 5/14/02, Rex Brooks
wrote:
Hello again,
I'm continuing along with
our examination of the Base Schema a little more quickly than I
probably will as we go along in order to get you all used to the
process and to keep it in front of your eyes, hopefully to encourage a
bit more participation. Please note that even though we have not in
any sense exhausted discussion on the first element, address, I am
continuing on. Hopefully we will hear more voices about whether we
need to specifically associate that element with existing address
systems and whether residential v. postal v. email or all three and
more need to have specific attributes defined within the element.
Another note in favor of participation now: it is easier to be heard
in a smaller group than a larger. So participate while you can.
That is part of the idea
here. If you don't notice how an element is important to you now, and
we don't fully qualify that element for your eventual use later, we
are going to have many more problems with our implementations than if
we all put in the skull sweat now, while the process of making changes
and adjustments is a whole lot easier than it will be once existing
implementations rely upon the way these elements are defined for use
now.
In other words, don't
look beyond your mirrors for the the culprits responsible for not
defining an element the way you need it later if you don't put in your
$.02 now. Nuff Said.
So, our second
element:
artifact
This is a Complex Type
with the attribute of abstract which means an element cannot use it
directly but must use it as a complexType derived from this
complexType.
This becomes somehat more
clear in the annotation which specifies that it is a specifically
"Human" Artifact, of, or relating to, Human use in
communicating the depth of contextual information that
HumanMarkup is designed to do. Examples are objects such as clothes,
jewelry, pictures, trinkets which express interests, hobbies, status
or lifestyle--to which I would add cultural affiliations in
particular.
It is further specified
that is a member of the xsd:attributeGroup referenced by
"humlIdentifierAtts"
As a base element,
artifact is very important because it forms the basis for a whole host
of secondary schemata elements. The presentation of an individual is
always a case of context since without an audience, even if one is
simply admiring or examining one's self in a mirror,
presentation cannot
exist, at least in a pragmatic sense, as opposed to a logical
conundrum, and I would suggest that we are not really chartered
to engage in that kind of argument unless it is necessary to produce a
pragmatically useful result.
I am wondering if another
related element might be called for in the base schema, which I was
going to bring up eventually regardless of when or where in the list
it occurred. That is comes up with the second element is
propitious.
This is an element such
as artifice as a verb, or another verb for the act of creation, which
would also be an abstract complex type allowing for all manner of
Human creation.
And this in turn
introduces an entirely new thread, in which I will ask that we not
indulge in relation to artifact, because we will arrive at it in due
course when we get to the element: signal.
The primary reason I
bring it up now is to forestall an entirely separate and inappropriate
set of arguments that could probably be brought up for every element
we discuss. That is the apparent lack of verbs in the base schema. I
would prefer, if we can, to hold that discussion in abeyance
until we get through the entire list we have because our base schema
is not currently configured to include operators, and operators, or
the lack thereof, is such a large field that I think we would
get bogged down in it and this will give us all, especially those of
us concerned with specific subcommittees and secondary schemata a
chance to look at the set of operators we each will want and to think
about what the base elements for those operators will need to be.
There, I've gone and put
my foot in it.
Ciao,
Rex
--
--
The following passage comes from the minutes for May's monthly
meeting.
"...
Briefly, the artifact element, which stands
for objects such as clothing and jewelry--as a symbol--communicates
various concepts about a human's culture and behavior and beliefs. As
such, it is a result of an act of human creation, for which we do not
have a verb. The term itself comes from artifice as a
verb.
In the
discussion which followed a number of concepts surfaced which Rob
Nixon volunteered to chronicle separately in order to keep track
of them. This seems like a good adjunct to the policy of also
collecting up new elements separately as well. Due to that, it won't
be attempted in these minutes to capture that entire
conversation, though a few highlights will be mentioned.
No attempt at a chronological account
is being made in the items that follow, since note taking
became
problematical during our discussion in terms of concepts derived from
one or another of these items tended to refer or relate to
earlier and later discussions, so please don't assume that one item
led to another in the order I present them. I will use the option of
bulleting these items in order to call this out as a non-chornological
part of this meeting's minutes.
* Artifacts,
alphabetically, are the first door into the area of culture, which
concerns Human Markup greatly, so we need to be especially careful in
the way we deal with it, because it is creating a de facto
methodology. This brings up one essential fault in the procedural
decision to deal with elements in any particular order.
However,
what this concern in itself brought out is that artifacts act as
association nodes, or meta-conceptual objects. Teasing out specific
cultural, or wider social meanings will require
attention.
* Artifacts
also point out the way in which elements can be nouns yet have
verb-equivalent attributes from which operations and/or methods can be
derived.
* Artifacts act as compression points for
cultural, scientific, economic and other contexts. Rob mentioned this
and Philip readily agreed, and while this writer still doesn't quite
grasp exactly what they mean, both of them have volunteered to explore
this connection more thoroughly in separate posts.
* Artifacts also pose the question of
what a culture is.
This
prompted a discussion that included the notion that artifacts needn't
be physical, at least not in the sense of being a physical object such
as a bracelet or a necklace, or a burka. Again, due to a lack of
knowledge and experience, the writer doesn't quite grasp this, though
the idea that the concept of an artifact can symbolize a wealth of
connotations is clear. How that symbol exists separate from an object,
or the representation of a physical object in digital information
terms is not clear. No doubt we will hear more on this. (I hate to
sound so utterly literal but could this notion of non-physicality be
explained by the example of a perfume, which simply can't be worn or
carried or used physically as an object but can be "worn"
and can operate as an artifact?)
* Artifacts also have time-bound
meanings, and this aspect, along with the notion of artifacts as
compression
points deserves to be explored more
thoroughly.
* Artifacts
can act as educational devices.
--
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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