Talk:Computational semiotics

It is the attempt to expand the realm of useful, computationally tractable logical operations, extending computer science past data processing into full semiosis.

Any results yet? Anyone working on this? Literature? --zeno 13:19, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I also wonder what the "computational" in "computational semiotics" means. I see nothing "computational" in user interface design, as opposed to computational neuroscience or computational linguistics.

The two references at the bottom of the article do not look very promising. One containts an "inductive proof" for a very simple formula, but only for n < 11...

I removed the sentence mentioning artificial intelligence and knowledge representation, because I do not see any link between Computational semiotics and AI or KR.

--zeno 09:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Computational Semiotics

• JA: Computational semiotics is currently a very active interdisciplinary field between logic, theory and practice of computation, formal amd natural linguistics, cognitive sciences generally, and semiotics proper. The article may be in need of clarifying this a bit, as there are presently a host of different groups working in varies degrees of independence to isolation from each other, but the interest area has a long history, going back to Peirce, if not indeed Locke and Hume. Jon Awbrey 15:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Jon,

thank you for your quick response. Anyway, many questions remain.

IMHO the article needs _a_lot_ of claryfiying.

Problem is, I have been studying AI and knowledge representation for a few years now, and I have never seen (or even heard of) a system that was implemented using results from computational semiotics.

I also see _no_ connection at all to theory of computation. Just dropping the name in the article does not count. So please edit the article in a way that at least people with a CS background could understand the connection between the fields (most educated people would be better, though).

If the area has such a long history, why do people work in isolation from each other? Scientists co-operated already in the 18th century, why should it be impossible now? If there a different groups, their different ideas of computational semiotics should be described.

I do not understand the term natural linguistics. What does it mean? The analysis of natural language? Formal linguistics also deals with natural language.

Do you work in this field? Do you know people who do? It would be great to invite them to help with the article and clarify things.

With kind regards, --zeno 14:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

PS: What means "very active"? Are there many research groups, conferences, journals, publications, results?

• JA: Yes, I agree that a lot of clarification is probably due. I am thick in the middle of some other articles at the moment, but will try to give it some attention over the next few days. As a general first comment, though, I think this is probably one of those "other people's names for things you already know about" types of issues. But the recognition of computation as an instance of "semiosis", any process involving signs, symbols, symbolic expressions, etc., is a rather venerable idea, that some folks trace back to statements made by Locke, Hume, Leibniz, etc., and that was more expressly and fully developed by C.S. Peirce. Jon Awbrey 15:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Natural linguistics

• JA: The exact phrase "natural linguistics" gets 612 hits, the exact phrase "natural linguistic" gets 12,500 hits on Google. The use of these and similar phrases to refer to "natural language theory" and "natural language processing" is rather common. Jon Awbrey 00:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do not think Google is always the right tool for such questions. Anyway, 612 hits is not that much. Exact searches for "computational linguistics", "theoretical linguistics", "sociolinguistics" gets hundreds of thousand hits. IMHO we should not create new terms just for Wikipedia, it is our mission to collect existing knowledge. With kind regards, --zeno 00:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

PS: Please use the preview button, in order to avoid editing conflicts. Thanks ;-)

Formal language theory

• JA: Zeno, Please take time to think what you are saying. I will get back to this tomorrow. Jon Awbrey 00:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Quo Vadis?

• JA: User:Zenogantner deleted the entire list of Quo Vides copied below. User:Zenogantner has already expressed an opinion about the legitimacy of the field referred to in this article, and that is his or her opinion. But that has no impact on the existence of the discipline being decribed here, and User:Zenogantner is ill-advised to try and enoforce his or her preference that the field not exist by removing the record of its existence and its topical connections to other subjects. The See Also list was formed over time by several editors and, speaking for this editor, is intended to be helpful to the general reader who may be interested in knowing about the subject of the article. If User:Zenogantner is interested in being helpful to the reader, then he or she might explain how his or her wholesale deletions of vetted information is intended to be so. Jon Awbrey 14:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

See also

• Artificial intelligence
• Computational linguistics
• Computer-human interaction
• Formal language
• Information theory
• Knowledge representation
• Logic of information
• Meaning

• Natural language
• Relation
• Relation composition
• Relation construction
• Relation reduction
• Relational database
• Semiotic information theory
• User interface

• JA: Zeno, I will intersperse my replies to your remarks, but it may take a couple of days to work my way through them all. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well. I have not removed any substantial information that is lost now.

• JA: You have removed information that was added to the article for the purpose of helping readers undertand what the field is about and what other subjects it is related to. I consider that substantial information, sparse as it may be at present.

I have not removed a record for the existence of the field in any way.

I have deleted a paragraph containing only links, in an article that contains, at least viewed on my laptop, nine lines of content. Opposed to a box of 27 lines containing only links, and a two-column paragraph of 8 lines containing only links, no explanations. So I don't really see the problem here.

• JA: All WikiPedia articles are to some extent "works in progress", and this one was a mere stub just a short time ago. No doubt you have met with the concept of "incremental improvement" or "stepwise refinement" in your computer science studies. I write programs and proofs that way, and I also write articles that way. Until the article can be refined in greater detail, these provisional bits of info may serve the interested reader in the meantime. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

If you know so much about the field, how about explaining why a common theme of this work is the adoption of a sign-theoretic perspective on issues of artificial intelligence and knowledge representation.

• JA: I am incidentally familiar with the work of several research groups on "computational semiotics" that have sprung up on the international scene over the last decade. I do recall an earlier flurry of activity in CHI and "Groupware" that made some use of semiotic ideas back in the middle 1980s when I was actively studying some remotely related areas. I have no particular stake in the current approaches, but I have been studying the various themes in the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, including topics like abductive reasoning, inquiry, logical graphs, semeiotic, sign relations, and so on, for almost 40 years now, so I do try to follow recent work. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I am currently studying in the field of AI and KR, and looking at the content of the article, and the linked literature and websites, I see no connection to the field of knowledge representation. So how can that be a common theme?

The main problem in our dispute is, as you said, that I doubt that computational semiotics exists as an established field of science outside Wikipedia. I am really willing to be convinced, and I'd really like to see a good article on such field, if it exists. But at the moment I am not convinced. All I see is some fuzzy buzzword dropping.

Wikipedia is about describing human knowledge, not about establishing new fields and doing original research.

No matter how important and interesting it may be.

If you work in that area, it can't be that difficult to explain its relevance to me.

There are some approaches to the application of semiotics to the field of HCI, right. But AI and knowledge representation - I don't know... Can you provide some literature?

So I never wanted to be destructive, and I want only the best for Wikipedia's readers - I guess they do not want an unsubstantiated claims here. Some things here might be correct, but looking at the stuff I know about, I do not see anything that is correct or substantial. So the minimum I have to demand from you is to correct the stuff I know about.

Looking forward to your explanations, --zeno 23:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: Excuse my English, I am not a native speaker.