[humanmarkup] PBS-Doc-community/SEMIOTIC COMMUNITY

Subject: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, humanmarkup@lists.oasisi-open.org
 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 08:03:20 -0700

 Hi Everyone,

 As I said, I am getting back to the Primary Base Schema discussions
 again. Let me preface this by saying that I do not think that we have
 exhausted the previous elements we have discussed, and, in fact, we
 have not as yet settled on final entries for these elements, but I
 want to continue on because we have enough discussion under each for
 me to retrieve and summarize later, when I do call for finalizing
 definitions.

 I especially want to make sure that you don't think that I believe we
 have finished with chronemic in particular because it was the element
 which launched us into the semiotic experiment, which I also want you
 join the discussions for exploring the signs concept as Len and
 Sylvia have introduced it thus far.

 Now, having said all that, let's consider our next element:

 community

 This is a ComplexType without the attribute of abstract, which means
 that it can be used in and of itself rather than requiring a
 derivation.

 This element is especially important because, while artifact strongly
 implies a culture for the creation of something which can be a trace
 of human activity; name (which I include because it has a candidate
 specification to which we will needs adhere) and address pertain to
 localizing an individual; bodyLocation identifies sites on the Human
 Body; channel identifies the sensory inputs that can be assigned to
 the Human as we evolve the concept; and chronemic introduces temporal
 context; community gives us an element upon which we can begin to
 develop context because all humans, even the autisitc, exist in
 relation to the overall human community.

 One could argue with that of course, citing the well-known tree
 falling the woods, and also citing evidence of humans verifiably
 raised without human contact--yet we can only conceive of these
 arguments and have experience of the wild children through reports
 from our human community because we have some kind of a priori
 knowledge or experience of human community and context. And, that,
 dear friends is good enough for me and all I will have to say about
 it for now.

 What I want to do is consider what Len has in the straw man schema.
 He description begins with: Abstract Human Organization, and I am
 going to take exception to that because I think it is too abstract. I
 think that the element community needs to start lower down the levels
 of abstraction from that. I think it begins with group, and starts
 with two or more human individuals.

 I understand the overall purpose of postulating the abstraction of
 organization, shared activities, etc, and I agree that it is
 operationally more useful at that level for most purposes. However, I
 think that if we start with the concept of group, we can build a more
 fundamentally grounded description, and so I would argue that this

needs to be an abstract type and needs to be derived for
 particularization. The basic unit is the group and differentiates
 from there so that the next level of abstraction whatever it is must
 begin distinguishing identifying characteristics of the community in
 question, from familial to kin relationships to age groups, to status
 groups, etc, etc.

 I am, of course, willing to be persuaded differently. That is, after
 all, what discussion is for.

 I agree that one typifiction of communities is shared activities,
 communications, rating artifacts, sharing worship, business, sports,
 etc. However I think those distinctions are at a higher social and
 cultural level than I want to begin with for community.

 Let me say a couple of things here, which relate to the semiotic
 discussions, too. For the purposes of establishing context as it
 forms however large a part of an individual's perception or
 cognition, and sense of self that it does, we need to start at as
 fundamental a level of abstraction as we can, and build up as
 discretely as possible, the overlapping set of influences of
 communities in helping form perception, especially in terms of
 cultural communities.

 So, if this doesn't get some discussion going, I may just resort
 to... well, maybe not. However, I do hope to see a bit more
 participation. I wish I could just outright declare vacation season
 over, but I will do my best to stimulate you to participate.

 Ciao,
 Rex

 P.S. Needless to say, please reply to this with your thoughts on
 community, so we can keep the thread together.
 --

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 To: 'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org,
 humanmarkup@lists.oasisi-open.org
 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 14:51:28 -0500

 I agree. The current model is not abstract enough.

 Where the issue is is the properties by which we
 can say they are a group, and
 I believe "community" implies consent to share, be
 it property, definitions, workspace, etc. That would
 be problematic for a family unit because a familial
 relationship would have both consent (marriage, divorce, etc.)
 and lack of it (children don't choose parents).

 So are you proposing an abstract class : group?
 Is that the term that best describes it?

 A culture is not a group. A group can have properties the
 aggregation of which might be a culture.

 len

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 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.oasisi-open.org
 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 13:36:45 -0700

 Actually, I'm thinking in sets, both overlapping and enveloping, that
 is subsets, supersets, and intersecting sets. I don't have a
 structure yet. I'm hoping that as we explore this element, some
 structure or structures will emerge. I also think that what is
 occurring to me is the beginning of an approach to the concept of
 perception. It has always been the big missing piece for me. If you
 look back at the class structure I did, for example. I included as
 much of the established concepts, such as personality type models, as
 I thought seemed safe, but I did not include cognition or perception
 models. I may be getting closer to a comfort zone for that, but I'm
 not there yet.

 I agree that the familial relationship is less consenting while
 children remain in their minority, though it would apply after that,
 and even before, psychologically if not legally. I'm not sure about
 consent as an attribute at the base level. I'd like to hear from the

others. What I am thinking is: group - any collection of one or more
 humans with or without consent, and group is the atomic level of
 community. How it orders itself in ascending levels of abstraction is
 not clear to me yet, but this seems necessary to me as the basis for
 building up a picture of where group/community belief structures
 define however much of any given individual member's perceptions or
 predisposition toward taking the group/community belief structure as
 their own perceptions.

 Thoughts?

 Ciao,
 Rex

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 To: 'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 09:55:52 -0500

 1. I didn't mean to use consent as an attribute candidate.
 I was just offering that as one exception to community by
 consensus. In other words, yes, as you say, not abstract
 enough. Group simply means that a set of humans has been
 grouped. It leaves the reason vague, and acts almost
 like the Group in VRML (grouped for whatever reason; the
 label is an identifier, not a classifier).

 2. Perception. That is vague because it is overloaded,
 for one. I prefer not to tackle it now. At the moment,
 I am interested in considering how a human in a group
 or not in a group can be said to have competence over
 multiple sign systems. In other words, belonging
 to a culture may say of a stereotype, yes this stereotype
 can handle this sign system, but it can't be said
 of an individual human unless they observably demonstrate
 competence. That is the HR problem in a nutshell. Once
 we have a sign system, then testing is the way to deal
 with perceptions.

 We will only ever be able to deal with models of humans,
 and models of systems modeled humans work with.

 len

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 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
 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 09:00:10 -0700

 Yep. I agree. How are we doing on sign systems? I saw a few posts on
 xml-dev that included semiotes, but I have been too busy cranking out
 the facial animation system to pay enough attention. Do we have an
 idea what begins to constitute a sign system per se?

 Ciao,
 Rex

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 To: 'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 11:02:46 -0500

 The sign system per se is the sign element type. I haven't
 spent time defining its subelement types. I am like
 you, spending time on work items (in this case, a
 Foxpro application for the day gig).

 len

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-community

 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
 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 09:22:47 -0700

 Understood. Thanks. I'm on a telecon to Web Services for Interactive
 Applications-Web Services for Remote Portal Joint Interface
 subcommittee in the middle of finishing up the first version of the
 spec. However, progress is being made.

 Ciao,
 Rex

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

 From: cognite@zianet.com
 To: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:11:34 -0600

 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

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

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: cognite@zianet.com, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:34:43 -0700

 Thanks, Sylvia,

 This is, as you say, dense and that is good. The work we are doing
 needs to be dense in the sense of bedrock. In any event, this will
 take a bit of time to digest. And my morning work time is done and
 now it is on to chores and tasks of a more mundane nature. I will get
 back to this either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

 Ciao,
 Rex

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

 From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 To: 'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,
 cognite@zianet.com,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 13:42:41 -0500

 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?

 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?

 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?

 len

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

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: cognite@zianet.com, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 08:51:06 -0700

 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

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

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>,'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,
 cognite@zianet.com,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 07:06:01 -0700

 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

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

 From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 To: 'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,
 cognite@zianet.com,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 14:44:43 -0500

 As much as I can follow it, sure. But individuals
 don't belong to sign systems. They use them and by
 use, appear to belong to a community of use. That
 is precisely how public safety systems use gang grafitti,
 and criminal argot. Use of it is simply evidence that
 further inquiry is warranted. On the other hand, the
 use of it in correct contexts is one way members
 of such communities identify each other and communicate
 in code or shorthand.

 It doesn't matter so much as it does that one have a
 reasonably easy to use system for collecting and organizing
 observations that enable one to select and dispatch
 resources for testing observations and for mediating
 behaviors of the observed.

 Umm... actually, a soccer riot is a predictable behavior
 of a named community. The act does not define the
 community but the observed potential does organize
 the circumstances under which the behavior may occur.
 Thus, to plan for allocating and dispatching resources
 to act on the event, or to preempt the event, the model
 works pretty well.

 I think we pretty much agree on this.

 BTW: any well organized relational database is a topic
 map of sorts if one includes the relationships that provide
 views to involvements among the table types. That is
 what a data dictionary system provides. The challenge
 is to build one that will scale up to lots and lots of
 users with different points of view (say, task oriented
 views). What a topic map can provide is an implementation
 neutral way to express the information needed for the
 topic.

 len

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

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>,'Rex Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,
 cognite@zianet.com,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
 Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 10:19:54 -0700

 Getting closer. The notion that we can use semiotic topic maps
 appeals to me as a way to organize sign systems into data
 dictionaries. It also happens to answer the question of how we are
 going to get the relevant data resources connected up for HumanML
 applications.

 This is an area where I wish I had a few grad students or post grads
 who could be fascinated into doing some heavy lifting for us.
 Classifying Cultures, even at the level of simply organizing the
 names of such cultures into a table that would serve as the basis for
 one such data dictionary, ought to be worth a couple three masters
 theses or doctoral dissertations. However, I doubt it is going to get
 done yesterday just because I would like to have it to hand now.

 Regardless of the writer's fantasy, (sigh), there are a couple of
 further thoughts on community that I want to get into our archive
 before I trundle onward. I think that, also in contradistinction to
 the straw man schema, community is probably going to be used in other
 elements, which is really just a way to capture one more change that
 I think is needed in this element before it gets added to Primary
 Base Schema, which is where I think it belongs along with humanGroup.

 And, Lastly, community is yet another non-linear, atemporal,

context-bound and therefore time-bound even though atemporal,
 element. That basically means that a WASP cultural entity exists
 simultaneously in 1776 and 1976, though the attributes of said
 culture for any particular time period will be slightly different
 both in the way that the community views itself and how it is viewed
 from without or by other cultural communities.

 My! What a cooincidence. the next element in alphbetical order is:
 (you guessed it) CULTURE. I can't really promise, or warn you all
 when I will get to it. I have some hope for today, but it will
 probably be Friday or next week/

 Ciao,
 Rex

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

 From: cognite@zianet.com
 To: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 18:24:24 -0600

 At 10:19 AM 07-08-2002 -0700, you wrote:
 >Getting closer. The notion that we can use semiotic topic maps
 >appeals to me as a way to organize sign systems into data
 >dictionaries. It also happens to answer the question of how we are
 >going to get the relevant data resources connected up for HumanML
 >applications.

 It may work; there's already structure to connect to. The current
 graph structures may need extending.... It's not trivial, but hopefully
 can be done in steps. Perhaps -- moving from the shallower use of
 already-explicit
 notations that can be applied, onward to our own terms/tags/processes and API
 for apps, though.

 Actually there's so much structure already that seeing where to go.... 8-o ;)

 <snip>

 > a WASP cultural entity exists
 >simultaneously in 1776 and 1976, though the attributes of said
 >culture for any particular time period will be slightly different
 >both in the way that the community views itself and how it is viewed
 >from without or by other cultural communities.

 very interesting that the processual definition of
 those-who-communicate-constitute-a-[changing]-community

 makes communities of whoever continues the dialogue...so that
 literary critics join with the authors they discuss even posthumously
 in a community [of common interest]! Nice, I reckon.

 Makes it quite consonant with topic continuity, all right.
 There is work on Self-Organizing-Maps; for a quick overview
 this is cool: http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/wlg/1081. It gathers
 from Finance, Bio, and NLP (Natural Language).

 >REX> 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.

 Headers contain readily retrievable metadata cues to such things as sets of
 conventions pertinent to various natural languages: 1, pre-established.

 The documents themselves bear information too about sign systems they
 embody: 2, intrinsic.
 Some of it may reside in tags: 2a, explicit;
 Some may some not: 2b, derivable.

 Cumulatively, the sign System -- along with the referents (signifie's) that
 are necessarily part of semiosis -- is emergent.

 How does that come into play?

 Here's an example I just ran across of XML tags that gave very pertinent
 info for HUML (REF: http://www.ontopia.net/~grove/software/xmlarch/ )

 Result

 <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
 <persons>
 <author>Geir Ove Gr�nmo</author>
 <mentioned>Eliot Kimber</mentioned>
 <mentioned>David Megginson</mentioned>
 <mentioned>Lars Marius Garshol</mentioned>
 </persons>

from:

 <ul>
 <li><a
 href=""http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/docs/n1920/html/clause-A.3.html";>Architec
 tural Form Definition Requirements [AFDR]</a></li>
 <li><a href=""http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/document/1957.htm";>ISO/IEC
 10744 Amendment 1</a></li>
 <li><a href=""http://www.isogen.com/papers/archintro.html";>Eliot Kimber's "A Tutorial to SGML
 Architectures"</a></li>
 <li><a href=""http://www.sil.org/sgml/topics.html#archForms";>The" SGML/XML
 Web Page: Architectural Forms and SGML/XML Architectures</a></li>
 <li><a href=""http://www.megginson.com/XAF/index.html";>David Megginson's XAF package for Java</a></li>
 <li><a href=""http://www.megginson.com/SAX/index.html";>SAX:" The Simple
 API for XML</a></li>
 <li><a
 href=""http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsga/download/python/xml/saxlib.html";>Lars Marius Garshol's SAX for Python</a></li>
 </ul>

 I don't know what the rule is that lets these inserts be inside of
 ..., or if you
 could use .... where there wasn't a handy enclosure by layout
 markup tags. Do you?

 In the example file biblio1.out for this python ADFR (XML Architectures)
 parser, a relation
 between the author's name (and original site of www.infotek.no ?) and
 Norwegian is also shown, but I don't see where it came from; loss of the
 slash thru Gronmo is noted -- perhaps that was done assuming Norwegian
 character set, but metainfo has this -- doesn't it indicate English as the
 document language?

 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "">.

 -------------

 ?test where="before"
 ?test where="after"
 (biblio
 -

 (firstname
 Anationality norwegian
 -Geir Ove
 )firstname
 (lastname
 Aht #IMPLIED
 Amodified yes
 -Gronmo
 )lastname
 (note
 Aht address
 -You can reach me at
 -grove@infotek.no
 )note
 -

 -

 )biblio

 -------------

 SC

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

 From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
 To: cognite@zianet.com, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org,Rex Brooks
 <rexb@starbourne.com>
 Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 20:16:54 -0700

 I've done a quick review and this is very much what I had in mind.
 The resources are there. It's a matter of tapping them so that they
 get directed where we need them to go when we turn the spigot on. Of
 course it also helps if the resources are in the form and order
 (sequence) we need, too. I'll study this in more depth soon.

 Ciao,
 Rex

humanmarkup message