ORB Visualization
(soon)
On Richard Ballard’s concept of a linguistic/semantic gap
I am bringing a conversation together on this subject and am involving those individuals whom I think have important parts of the discussion.
Richard,
You said:
" . . .
he is diligently making the journey to understand the linguistic/semantic gap
and the transition from process to semantic declaration. "
I still do not see completely what you are thinking when you say "linguistic/semantic gap". So we fail to communicate well.
But I understand that the subject is for you “complex” or perhaps simple but complicated. By “complex” I mean fundamentally and as part of the essence of the thing that there is a non-singularity to the “thing”. As an example of things complex, I would point to any ordinary thing of the natural world. As an example of things not-complex, I would point to language symbols and to mathematics. These are both abstractions, as in mental experiences. As I am a trained mathematician, I can point out that by “simple” or non-complex I mean something that has clear non-overlapping composition built out of atoms that are crisp and non-ambiguous by nature. I would hold that there are no examples of naturally occurring simple things. But this is my root belief – I hold no one to this belief, as I remain unsure of it myself.
We still do not understand each other after three years of work. I still do not know if you believe that complexity is an illusion. Many mathematicians and scientists do believe that observed “complexity” is just something that is ultimately reducible to things that are simple in nature and lawful in a physical sense. This is an "extreme" form of reductionist belief. This extreme belief would hold that there is nothing complex in essence and that every natural thing is in fact simple in form, structure, function and behavior. I think that reductionist is a useful mistake. The mistake allows for the control over systems as if they had no internal reality, no feelings and no soul.
But I do not think that you feel that complexity is an illusion.
Perhaps complexity is not relevant? SchemaLogic Inc's innovator, Breanna Anderson, makes an important contribution to metadata management. The contribution finds that ambiguation and disambiguation is a critical issue in controlled vocabulary management.
Following Breanna Anderson’s lead, the Knowledge Sharing Foundation’s concept finds that the localization of terminological reconciliation structure is an essential part of our knowledge management.
http://www.bcngroup.org/admin/technologyReviews/InformationalLatency.htm (on metadata)
http://www.bcngroup.org/area2/KSF/Notation/notation.htm#_Section_4.1:_Description (on disambiguation)
I would say that the "epistemic" gap is also involved in a "transition" from process to semantics. Semantics is meaning and meaning, ultimately, is only present in real time, i.e., as pragmatics. This is not a philosophical statement. It is a simple and direct observation through the senses.
The epistemic gap has to do, as you know, with the difference between things that exist and things that do not exist. It has to do, also, with organizational scale and observation. Non-measurable quantum states are separated from our observation by this gap. J. J. Gibson and even H. Maturana would talk about the Cartesian gap as being an epistemic gap.
I take the Heisenburg gap is an example of an epistemic gap. I have been criticized for saying this. But I think that this criticism is wrongly placed. Peter Kugler can correct me if this is not correct, as he has taken the time to think about all of the issues. Robert Shaw might also make a comment if he time allows. I would understand what either one said and I would change my mind about the definition of gaps if they showed me the argument.
The issue lies, it seems to me, in the present moment. The past and the future do not have the same ontological status. Both are different from the present. Is this how you see it?
So it is easy to get confused. What is the meaning of the term "transition" in your statement "transition from process to semantics".
Later on you talk about the ambiguous encoding.
Ambiguous encoding is sometimes an encoding that has taken something singular and un-ambiguous. So “ambiguous” is the same as “confused”.
But sometimes the natural world itself has a natural ambiguity such as the path to a future state (Robert Shaw). Gerald Edelman, in his book “Neural Darwinism”, uses the expression " response degeneracy" to speak about the uncertainty of how function and structure become entangled with the moment as process tries to conserve what are in fact conflicting causes.
Is this statement of mine consistent with how you regard my inner thought? Do you understand not only what you think about this but what I think about this?
Peter Kugler is the one person in the world, that I know, who best is able to talk about this issue. He does talk about a particular "Rosen" diagram.
Peter Krieg is also someone who can address this issue, as could John Sowa.
Peter Krieg's contribution develops a process representation that is consistent with Peirce, in my mind at least, and yet does a bit more in producing an operational logic that has variation on outcomes depending on how the logical atoms are specified and the rule of inference allowed to constrain algorithmic steps. This reminds me of quasi-axiomatic theory, but the origin of the work is from von Forrester.
< This conversation is about the fundamentals of science, and not in any way about business or politics. But in any case, I must acknowledge that we all feel a type of inhibition in developing a conversation using e-mail. But perhaps it is important for reasons that I have stated elsewhere, regarding the National Project. >
****************************************
It takes a
Community to Create a National Project
****************************************