[Sigia-l] Findability is dead, Long live ummm... Meaning?

[Nuno Lopes]

Hi all, 

Livia Lebate wrote after Jesse:

>> Jesse James Garrett said:
>>: throughout human history, meaning has always been communicated
>>: through structure -- why should electronic media be any different?
>Precisely, it should not be different - Jesse stroke an important point
of
>conflict: structure *communicates* meaning, but it does not *attribute*
>meaning to the information.

I honestly have a hard time to validate both assertions. Sometimes my
perception is inclined to one, sometimes to the other. It all depends on
kind of structures we are talking about:

Take both these phrases for a moment:

1) "I offered red roses to my wife"
2) "I offered a red rose to my wife"

The structure of both phrases is slightly different nevertheless its
meaning is in my view substantially changed. So does structure
communicates meaning or not in this case? It is my perception that it
does but I can be wrong.

On the other side there is a group of philosophers that thinks that
Meaning does not exist, just experience. In this case does structure
communicates meaning (or is a channel of) or it just scopes and
stimulates experience?

Whatever the case, one thing remains as a granted need, interpretation.

Scientists in Computer Science and Mathematics have modeled
interpretation as a function mapping sets of artifacts. These sets are
often called by this people interpretation models (or Worlds, or UoD's)
and the function is called "interpreter". So we have:

X from World A, Y from World B, and I(X) ~ A

So here the question is: Is it the structure X and A that channels
meaning, or is the interpretation function that is the channel?

I believe that in this case it is the interpretation function.

So where do we stand? There is no _complete_ theory/awareness around
these problems things that I know of. My answer is that it depends on
the level of the rat's house we are (first flour, second flour, third
....).

Best regards,

Nuno Lopes