47 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2023
  2. Jul 2022
    1. he um belt has two sides to it which are not separable in german they're the merkveld and the virgvelt the merkwelt is the umvelt considered 00:19:24 from the aspects of semiotics or signs or meaningful stimuli things to differentiations one might draw distinctions one might draw that are available to one the virgvelt is the same thing 00:19:37 considered under a different aspect which is the space of possible effective actions to draw a distinction is now to move in knowledge of that distinction 00:19:49 this notion of the virgvelt will will appear later in ecological psychology with the notion of affordance and and again a concept that follows totally nails long before it appears in the literature 00:20:02 so when you hear umwelt try not to think entirely visually but to recognize that we we're dealing here with a concept which must be understood as a sort of a stereoscopic fusion 00:20:14 of the idea of meaningful appearance meaningful showing up and capacity for action because of the difficulties in disciplining this view of this emerging 00:20:28 view of the subject you won't find it easy to interpret vulnerability in terms of personal experience he vacillates here and our vocabulary is still not great here but the umvelt has 00:20:40 this important character of being neither a theory of perception or theory of action in keeping with all embodied theories later perception and action are absolutely indistinguishable but we can characterize them in this 00:20:53 with this dual aspect manner so when you encounter sketches like this he's full of bold imaginative sketches in his work

      Uexkull decomposes the umwelt into two parts: 1. merkwelt (signs) 2. wirkwelt (effective action)

      An organism must decipher salience from its experiences and then take action that will increase its fitness based on the salience detected.

    2. you are probably somewhat unfamiliar with the term biosemiotics is not in widespread use um and but it represents a very very 00:00:17 important reference point when we come to theories of embodied cognition the founder of biosemiotics is typically held to be jacob von xcool 00:00:29 biosemiotics is a field within the broader domain of semiotics which considers the manner in which meaning arises through various forms of mediation such as signs indices indexes 00:00:42 symbols and the like

      Title: Introduction to Umwelt theory and Biosemiotics Author

  3. Jun 2022
    1. There's no inherent meaning in information. It's what we do with that information that matters.

      This is a profound statement that needs to be fully explored. This touches upon the theory of Charles Saunders Peirce and his Semiotics, as well as Jakob Von Uexkull and his Umwelt theory. Information becomes meaningful within an evolutionary framing of fitness.

  4. Mar 2021
    1. Lexical (semiotics) or content word, words referring to things, as opposed to having only grammatical meaning
    1. Semantics: deals with the formal properties and interrelation of signs and symbols, without regard to meaning.

      Is a branch (of a field/discipline) considered a hyponym?? 

    1. any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste.
  5. Jan 2021
    1. Die Arbeit von zwei US-Mikrobiologen könnte helfen, Antibiotika zu vermeiden. Denn sie haben entdeckt, wie Bakterien miteinander kommunizieren. Dafür erhalten sie den Paul-Ehrlich- und Ludwig-Darmstaedter-Preis.

      Hinweis auf Forschungen zur Kommunikation von Bakterien, heue 828.1.2021) auf der ersten Seite von tagesschau.de

    1. In its most commondefinition, a genre is a rhetorical action that istypified and socially recognized based on recurrentsituations; members of organizations use genresfor specific communicative and collaborativepurposes [6], [7]

      This might be translated following the approach of semiotic practices defined by Fontanille et.al.

  6. Oct 2020
  7. Jul 2020
    1. Words are not simple tools to be applied and used.

      To try to use words in life as uniform instruments with preconceived uses would be to use a jackhammer to repair a swiss watch.

      To repair a spider-web with one's fingers.

      Denial of atomistic picture of linguistic meaning. Real words, live words, don't work as singular referents.

      TS Eliot - words do not sit still.

  8. Jan 2019
  9. Oct 2018
  10. Aug 2018
    1. Significant variations of n-grams exist, for example smoothing (words that never show up in the corpus are modified to have non-zero probability)

      Seems like you need the probability of a frequency when estimating from data. You would obtain counts of word transitions, then estimate transition probabilities from this data, with uncertainty on the transition probability.

      Do you have different n-gram models per text?

    1. First, exam-ination of time representations in the more finalizedand structured stories in organizations (see Gabriel2000): for example, how time and temporality areused to convey a particular message, moral lesson orpresent a causal explanation that is both compellingand plausible.

      Future research direction: Language of time

      See: Zerubavel and semiotics

    1. Recognising ourselves as having evolved, and thus being the times of nature, allows for the humanly constituted aspects of time to become one expression among the others. Biologists have dispelled the idea that only humans experience time or organise their lives by it. Waiting and timing in nature presuppose knowledge of time and temporality, irrespective of their being symbolised, conceptualised, reckoned, or measured. Yet, once time is constituted symbolically, it is no longer reducible to the communication of organisms or physical signals; it is no longer a mere sensory datum. For a person to have a past and to recognise and know it entails a representational, symbolically based imagination. Endowed with it, people do not merely undergo their presents and pasts but they shape and reshape them. Symbolic meaning thus makes the past infinitely flexible. With objectified meaning we can not only look back, reflect, and contemplate but we can reinterpret, restructure, alter, and modify the past irrespective of whether this is done in the light of new knowledge in the present, to suit the present, or for purposes of legitimation.

      Still struggling a bit with this section but I think Adam is proposing that if we break down the barriers between understanding social time as symbolic and natural time as objective, that we can borrow methods of sensemaking from natural time and apply them to social time, it broadens our ways of knowing/understanding human temporal experience.

    2. More importantly non-symbolic expressions of reality are traditionally understood to be outside the disciplinary boundaries of the human social sciences. These reasons may explain the convention but they cannot justify it. We can accept that for us to be able to talk and think about time necessitates our putting it into words. If this is all that is being expressed, it is not very much; if it equates reality with the symbol, it goes too far. There is no need to deny that all humans formulate meanings symbolically or that this is a fundamentally social process. There is an urgent need, however, to appreciate that time is an aspect of nature, and that nature encompasses the symbolic universe of human society. Once we recognise ourselves as bearers of all the multiple times of nature, and once we allow for nature to include symbolic expression, the gulf between the symbolic knower and nature as an external (unknowable) object can be dispensed with. The mutually exclusive dichotomies of nature and culture, subject and object become irrelevant.

      This is pretty dense but I think Adam is arguing that "social time" can exist without symbols and that "natural time" can itself be symbolic. If this is true, then conceptualizing time can be more holistic and rely less on dichotomy.

    3. The idea that time is not separable from the meaning of time, that it always symbolises something that is socially formulated, is a more complex one to untangle.

      This is getting pretty dense. Wondering what connections to Zerubavel's work on semiotics and symbolism might be related to Adam's critique?

  11. Jul 2018
    1. Thus, people have historically relied on visual or auditory signals to estimate, determine, or track time. Initially, these time signals were derived from nature: theposition of the sun in the sky orthe sound of a rooster in the morning. Eventually, these time signals became technology-based. Many people now rely on displays, or signals, of time that derive from our world of pervasive devices: digital time displayed on a device screen, a notification sound from a calendar application.

      Curious why temporal semiotics (see Zerubavel) is not mentioned here.

    1. One of the foremost contributions of Saussure to semiology was his claim that indi- vidual signs are always part of larger systemic wholes and that the meaning of any particular sign is essentially a function of the way in which it is related to other signs within the same system of signification. Finding out the meaning of any particular sign thus is possible only within the context of the entire symbolic system within which it is anchored, since it is necessary to first examine its relations to other signs wit

      This points to another friction point for SBTF data and the crowdsourcing process.

      Sequences in social media timelines are often arbitrary per obscure user settings and unknown/uncontrollable algorithmic priorities. That affects data collection.

      There are also SBTF processes that cause workflow frictions because of a lack of sequence specificity in order of social coordination activities or a desire for order from the volunteers.

    2. Along similar lines, while the sequential order in which we arrange items is usually indicative of their relative priority to us, the essence of such a symbolic relationship is by no means unproblematic

      The sequence of events may be arbitrary and does not always signify importance.

    3. The degree of rigidity with which we schedule events is also indicative of their relative importance

      Rigidity also symbolizes importance, as does firmness and ever-availability.

      Is this because the use of the term "importance" is ambiguous or that context matters?

      As mentioned as an example: Ending a dinner date in one hour would seem rude but not for a lunch date.

    4. The degree of firmness and finality with which we schedule events is usually also indicative of their relative i

      Firmness/Finality also symbolizes importance and commitment.

      Is there a degree of difference here as compared to ever-availability which seem like different social contracts?

    5. Given the association of access to private time with intimacy, consider also the symbolic implications of ever-availability (Zerubavel 1981, p. 146). Admittedly becom- ing increasingly anachronistic with bureaucratization (Zerubavel 1981, pp. 153-166), the quality of being always accessible nevertheless remains a powerful symbol of a rapidly dying traditional social order and is still strongly cherished and admired within traditional domains of social life such a

      Ever-availability symbolizes loyalty, commitment and dedication.

      "... is strongly cherished and admired within traditional domains of social life ..."

      Is this sentiment still true for online availability?

    6. venings and weekends. Given our association of exclusivity with intimacy (Simmel 1950, pp. 126-132; Zerubavel 1982b, pp. 100-102), we usually attach particular significance to contacts that take place at times that are socially defined as more private. Since people are generally expected to be less accessi- ble during such time periods, contacts that do occur within them tend to acquire a special meaning (Zerubavel 1

      Timing seems to symbolize two different meanings:

      Importance and exclusivity on one hand. But the moment/time period in which the activity takes place (work vs private time; weekday vs weekend, day vs night, lunch vs dinner) also conveys special meaning.

    7. The negative connotations of long stretches of waiting time also become apparent once we examine the symbolic implications of the frequency at which social contacts occu

      Frequency of activity symbolizes social commitment.

      Quotes Durkheim as indicating that frequency can be a measure of "moral density" in relationships.

    8. Shorter waiting time entails greater speed, the symbolic implications of which become quite apparent when one considers urgency a

      Speed as a factor in symbolizing time.

      Slow >> lack of respect vs Fast >> priority, higher esteem

    9. Consider also the symbolic dimension of lead time (Hall 1959, p. 17). Essentially defining themselves as less accessible, the powerful and eminent usually also demand longer advance notice when being approached, occasionally making others wait longer before they can reach them for the mere sake of displaying the r

      How does the idea of "lead time" square with Mazmanian et al's paper on time as a commodity imbued with power?

    10. ard them. Being on time, on the other hand, is symboli- cally indicative of the respect we feel toward others, the extreme form of "ritual wait- ing" being an explicit symbolic display

      This is a distinctly Western-centric attitude. Not necessarily shared in other cultures.

    11. cance. Waiting, for example (which, given the modern utilitarian approach to time [Zerubavel 1981, pp. 54-59], is generally regarded as an ordeal), is normally associated with worthlessness, and making others wait is often regarded as a symbolic display of deg

      How does this idea of negative time stretch / waiting as insignificance apply to technology or the social coordination process?

      How does "slow technology" overcome this and retain a positive self-reflective value?

    12. The amount of time we are willing to devote to the various relations in which we are involved and organizations to which we belong clearly reflects the level of our commit- ment to each of them

      Could this account for how/why SBTF volunteers use personally situated time references to signal how long they can be available/devote to an activation?

      Is this a semiotic version of Reddy's temporal trajectory?

      Motive expressed through "duration" seems to be fairly well determined for Wikipedia editors, per Kittur/Kraut/Resnick chapters. I don't see why it wouldn't also apply to SBTF.

    13. While only few of us may have been formally sensitized to it, we all seem to be tacitly aware of the way in which the amount of time we allow an event or activity to last is symbolically associated with the degree of significance we attach

      The duration of a person's engagement in an activity serves as a symbol for its importance.

    14. Timing as a

      Could the multiple temporalities that symbolize importance account for a source of tension between always online volunteers and those who show up for random periods of time?

      Deployments have fixed time periods for data collection but no scheduling mechanisms for volunteers. Does this create a source of friction when there is no mechanism to signal social intent or meaning?

      How does this problem get reflected in Reddy's TRH model or Mazmanian's porous time idea?

      How can you manage social coordination of rhythms/horizons when there is no signal to convey intent/commitment?

      What part of the SBTF social coordination is spectral, mosaic, rhythmic and/or obligated? And when is it not?

    15. article, time clearly constitutes a quasi-linguistic nonverbal system of signification that deserves the full attention of students of symbolic communication. As we have seen, both individuals and societies use this "language" in their "speech," essentially manipulating various dimensions of temporality as virtual semiotic codes through which they manage to convey critical social messages without ha

      Semiotics codes that represent non-verbal social communication about time/temporality is not an explicit skill but something seemingly intuitive to both speaker and listener.

    16. In short, the "language of time" identified here is by no means a merely intellectual phenomenon invented by sociology. Not only are we all aware of its existence, we also use it quite actively in our own "speech."7 The manipulative use of temporality is quite evident not only at the macrosocial level of societal politics, but also at the microsocial level of interpersonal relations. We employ the language of time quite strategically in our every- day "speech" and, quite often, what appears on the surface as entirely spontaneous behavior may actually involve a deliberate manipulation of temporal circu

      The language of time incorporates "deliberate mainpulation of temporal circumstances."

      People use symbolic associations to convey special meanings to certain periods of time. Example provided is a late night phone call that hints at a desire for a closer, more intimate relationship.

    17. implies the virtual inseparability of semantics from syntactics, and, indeed, Saussure's followers are often quite appropriately called structuralists, as they view signs not so much in terms of their substantive "content" as in terms of the ways in which they are formally related to other signs (i.e., in terms of the structure of the symbolic system to which they belong). More specifically, they tend to focus particularly on the formal relation of opposition or contrast, because, "in any semiological system, whatever distin- guishes one sign from the oth

      What is the SBTF structure? What differentiates it?

      Do the temporal signs for data collection contrast/differ enough from the temporal signs for the crowd process to describe a single structure for digital humanitarian work?

      Data time = desire for real time information where units of data have their own time contexts (meta data, periods, timelines, qualitative representations/metaphors, etc.)

      Process time = acceptance that work time is always 24/7, urgent and feels like a step behind. The people who perform the process also have their own time contexts (personally situated time, trajectories, rhythms, horizons, etc.)

    18. Given our tendency to reify social reality (Berger and Luckmann 1967, pp. 89-92, 134-136), we often regard the association of particular "signifiers" with particular "signifieds" (Saussure 1959, p. 67) as inevitable. Such symbolic relations, however, are essentially conventional and, quite often, arbitrary (Durkheim 1965, pp. 261-265; Mead 1934, pp. 117-125; Peirce 1932, Vol. 2, pp. 165-169; Saussure 1959, pp. 67

      Time symbols have cultural contexts.

    19. Culture, according to semiotics, is a communicational system consisting of various messages conveyed by and to members through the use of certain codes (Leach 1976; Lvi-Strauss 196

      Definition of culture.

    20. ticulate them verbally. Examining the symbolic relations between the temporal and the social within the contexts of both interpersonal relations and societal politics will reveal an intricate semiotic system that seems to operate at both the microsocial and m

      Sociotemporal semiotics provide symbolic ways to communicate about interpersonal and societal concerns.

      The symbolic communication system appears to take place at either small scale human interaction ("microsocial") and structural/system ("macrosocial") levels

    21. Extending such endeavors to the domain of temporality, the present article attempts to develop a distinctively semiotic perspective on time. Aiming at laying out the rudi- mentary foundations of a semiotics of temporality, I shall examine the way people practically manipulate time as a virtual code through which they manage to convey many important social messages without having to a

      Time is a "virtual code" to convey social meaning

  12. Feb 2018
  13. Aug 2017
    1. The other consists in making a subject out of a predicate. Instead of saying, Opium puts people to sleep, you say it has dormitive virtue. This is an important proceeding in mathematics. For example, take all "symbolic" methods, in which operations are operated upon. This may be called subjectal abstractions.

      Peirce also calls this "hypostatic abstraction." Mathematical category theory applies this notion throughout - a functor is an operation on functions, etc.

  14. Mar 2017
    1. Likewise, there would be no strife in absolute separateness, since opponents can join battle only through a mediatory ground that makes this com-munication possible, thus providing the first con-dition necessary for their interchange of blows.

      When I argue with my cat, for instance, I am really just shouting at myself.

      I am considering this in the context of my elaboration on Willard--communication always dwells in a gray space, between allies and enemies. Sometimes your enemies recognize and understand your terms better than your nominal allies do, because they understand your goals as something to be stopped, while sometimes your allies are more interested in being a part of a movement than in what the movement's actually about.

  15. Sep 2016
    1. The main reason that sociologists of science feel that this perspective has not produced the needed encompassing citation theory, is the variety of behavioural characteristics underlying the citation patterns found in the literature. This is, however, the consequence of the semiotic inversion of the reference into the citation. This inversion is asymmetrical: whereas the references have very different characteristics (both textually and behaviourally), citations are all the same. The citation no longer betrays from what type of reference it was produced. This is why one should expect it to be difficult or even impossible to recreate this variety by citation analysis, unless one re-translates the citation to the reference, that is, as is done in reference analysis. This is also why it is impossible to exclusively link the sign citation to a specific behavioural characteristic with respect to citing.

      Key point with some useful pull quotes. It is the assymetry of the reference and citation and the decontextualisation that is at the core of mainly failures to develop useful theory. See also Leydesdorff on explanans vs explanadum