John,
Thank you for this. I will not be attending SemTech this year. When will the 3
hour tutorial be available as a webinar? Pls do this. (01)
I too appreciate 'geometry' over triples. Triples was introduced to open a
dialogue about the instability of triples (whether from current implementations
of ontologies or Codd's relational model or the inappropriateness of
Chomsky-based grammar instruction in K-12 schools) when subjected to the forces
of dialogue. (02)
Do you have any estimate of the number of relationships entailed in
disambiguating any given word? My first guesses were derived from your Big Top
diagram --- minimum 12. (03)
But that focused only on a word. Disambiguating a sentence of length L may be a
much larger number, especially if containing -nyms. (04)
I wonder whether the future of ontology-based systems will require a capability
of meshing nets and discovering the two most coherent. (05)
On Feb 14, 2012, at 9:52 AM, John F. Sowa wrote: (06)
> Jack and Paul,
>
> JR
>> Ontologies serve as patterns for engines that produce meaning.
>
> That's a good way to summarize a lot of complex issues in a short
> sentence. In fact, it is consistent with a tutorial I'll present
> at the Semantic Technology conference in June. Following is
> the abstract:
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/kdp.pdf
> Knowledge Design Patterns
>
> JR
>> Ontologies consist of triples that foster meaning only when
>> interrelated to other triples 'just so.'
>
> But I don't think that's a good way to describe ontologies.
> The only reason for triples is that somebody had a particular
> implementation in mind. That is a "premature optimization",
> which Knuth and others have called "the root of all evil".
>
> JR
>> So the analogy is about the integrity of meanings as communicated
>> by an arrangement of signs.
>
> I agree. But there are many, many kinds of signs. At the end of
> this note is a review of a book about semiotics.
>
> PT
>> Perhaps Bucky was thinking with 'arrangements of relationships.'
>>
>> The subtitle of his 2-volume "Synergetics" is "explorations in the geometry
>of thinking".
>
> Bucky had a lot of good insights. In particular, I much prefer the
> term 'geometry' to 'triples' -- it includes continuous structures that
> cannot be constructed from triples.
>
> John
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Semiotics Continues to Astonish
> Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:11:05 -0500
> From: John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: cg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <cg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> That subject line is the title of a recent collection of articles
> about the life and Work of Thomas Sebeok, his contributions to
> semiotics, and his relationship to C. S. Pierce. Following is
> a review from Linguist List:
>
> http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=4540771
>
> Unfortunately, the book costs $150. But whether or not you buy the
> book (or ask your local library to buy it), the review makes some good
> points. Since it's rather lengthy, I include some excerpts below.
>
> One comment that I especially liked is the view of human language
> as a "modeling system". That term captures what Wittgenstein was
> trying to say with his term 'Sprachspiel' (language game), but it
> has the advantage of avoiding the often misleading word 'game'.
>
> That term also explains why most words in language are ambiguous:
> there is no such thing as one ideal model that can fit all possible
> ways of interpreting and talking about the world. Instead of being
> a defect of language, the option of using words in multiple ways
> is essential for adapting a finite vocabulary to an infinite range
> of possible uses.
>
> Note that the roots of all our modern languages are grounded in
> the perceptions and interpretations of our stone-age ancestors.
> The option of multiple meanings (or 'microsenses' to use a word
> coined by Alan Cruse) enables us to adapt words from the stone age
> to 21st century science, engineering, business, politics, and arts.
>
> John
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> Excerpts from a review by Jamin R. Pelkey on Linguist List:
>
> The book is divided into six parts. Part 1, composed of 19 essay
> chapters on Sebeok’s scholarly contributions from the perspectives
> of 18 of his closest colleagues, comprises three-fourths of the book’s
> content. Part 2, “Vignettes and Stories” includes seven anecdotal
> chapters of celebration and reflection, offering biographical and
> (in the case of Chapter 27) autobiographical insight into his life
> and work. Parts 3-4 reproduce a series of letters, including
> selections from Sebeok’s correspondence with Juri Lotman of Tartu
> University, Estonia. Parts 5-6 provide a listing of burial site
> co-ordinates and a collection of black and white photographs of
> Sebeok and colleagues...
>
> Extending the Influence of C. S. Peirce
>
> Numerous contributors (e.g., the editors’ introduction, 6-7;
> Lisa Block de Behar, 39; Søren Brier, 51; Ivan Mladenov, 283;
> Susan Petrilli & Augusto Ponzio, 307; Brooke Williams Deely, 374)
> emphasize the vital importance of Charles Sanders Peirce’s thought
> for the development of Sebeok’s transdisciplinary semiotic paradigm.
>
> Peirce held that signs, far from being fixed and static entities,
> are active and processual. Sebeok’s identification of sign activity
> with life processes should be understood with this in mind, as
> Petrilli affirms (299). In a 1984 address, Sebeok referred to Peirce
> as “our lodestar” (7). Sebeok draws on Peircean insights liberally
> and explicitly. As John Deely notes (125), Sebeok also synthesized
> Peircean thought with other sources...
>
> Others argue that Sebeok could have been even more attentive to Peirce
> (see especially Brier 61-67, 72-73); yet, as Deely (136) argues, it
> is not likely that there would be a widespread awareness of Peirce’s
> semiotic (i.e., his system of and approach to signs) at all without
> the efforts of Sebeok. In terms of establishing a global dialogue
> on the nature and action of signs, it was “Sebeok, not Peirce . . .
> who ‘turned the tide’” (140).
>
> Exposing the Pars-Pro-Toto Fallacy of Semiology
>
> One of Sebeok’s major contributions was an exposé of the part-for-whole
> (pars-pro-toto) fallacy inherent in Saussure’s theory of signs,
> otherwise known as “semiology”. Sebeok’s approach served to “expand
> semiotic boundaries beyond the linguistic” (Mladenov, 286) to
> incorporate the communication activities of non-human animals,
> bacteria, plants and more...
>
> From Williams’ perspective (372), one key reason many today treat
> the word ‘semiotics’ with suspicion is largely due to its unfortunate
> association with a textually-bound ‘semiology’...
>
> Distinguishing Between Language and Communication
>
> Related to Sebeok’s pars-pro-toto rejection is his important
> distinction between communication in general and language as
> a modelling system that enables a human-specific mode of
> communication in particular...
>
> Defining Biosemiotics
>
> Considering the pervasive nature of communication processes, Sebeok
> held that the field of semiotics must be at least co-extensive with
> life processes, including phytosemiotics (plant communication) and
> zoosemiotics (animal communication) in addition to anthroposemiotics
> (8, 308)...
>
> A number of unsettled semiotic-internal debates surface between the
> essays, such as whether semiotics should be characterized as a
> “doctrine” or a “science”...
>
> Another unsettled question that emerges is a lack of consensus on
> which level of human perceptual/conceptual modelling is primarily
> inclusive of language. Whether language is a primary, secondary
> or tertiary modelling system depends in large part on the definition
> of language to begin with, and how distinct it is kept from speech...
>
> As an overview of the current status of semiotic understanding, and as
> a personal introduction to Thomas A. Sebeok for those unable to meet
> him prior to his death in 2001, the volume is indispensable. “The
> dynamic of semiotics is immense in scope,” writes Sebeok “seemingly
> all-encompassing” (1986: x). Since, as Deely brings to our attention
> (134), even experienced objects presuppose signs, to neglect semiotics
> is no mere rejection of culture-bound speculation. Thanks in large part
> to Sebeok’s contributions, human understanding now has a viable (and
> congruent) way to bridge the chasm between nature and culture.
>
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