[Sigia-l] IA and semiotics

[Ruth Kaufman]

I'll give this a shot--

> From: Arjun Sabharwal <arjun.sabharwal at baker.edu>

>  This is an interesting topic, but unless a new definition of
>  semiotics is to be proposed, one must consider that this
>  discipline has been created to study the process of
>  communication via signs between a producer (the one who
>  sends) and a perceiver (the one who receives, analyzes, and
>  interprets).

Semiotics is not limited to communication between a sign producer and a 
sign perceiver. Semiosis (the transformation of one sign into another) 
can happen with or without perception. For example, the presence of 
pahoehoe (a type of rock formation that results from a cooled lava 
flow, found in Hawaii) is a sign that there was, in fact, a lava flow. 
This is true whether or not anyone is around to perceive it. This lack 
of need for perception for a sign to be a sign is more prevalent for 
dicentic signs (such as indexes -- unabstracted, material indications 
that something exists that tend to be void of any deeper meaning) than 
for rhematic signs or arguments. Arguments do require perception 
because they're more abstract, and it's we humans who do the 
abstracting (maybe some animals too). Rhematic signs tend to be about 
the essence of something, which is very difficult to get your arms 
around unless you perceive it through a more abstract lens -- in other 
words, it's hard to perceive some of the most basic rhematic signs 
without the benefit of further semiosis, which brings the signs into 
our world of thinking, if you will.

Tying this to cyberspace, here's an example: a server has a glitch and 
a page is not accessible for a second (no perception required for this 
to be a sign of an event affecting the server). A user gets an error 
message (a pretty straightfoward indexical sign where perception does 
matter). The error screen is visually stark and almost abrasive in tone 
(a rhematic sign that, through further semiosis speaks volumes --->). 
The user is disappointed in the organization that created such a mess 
and abandons their task.


> Otherwise, there is also a related field
>  called semiology, which is the study of signs -- at least to
>  my understanding -- used in a communication process, and
>  perhaps SEMANTICS.  I was also thinking of proxemics, which
>  has been in practice to study the use of space in power
>  structures, but it would require a re-definition if it were
>  to be applied to cyberspace.

And there's also phenomenology, which lets us contemplate the thingness 
of a thing and de-emphasizes psychology as a major contributing factor 
to the notion of reality (www.phenomenologycenter.org/phenom.htm), and 
rhizomatics, which I think of as the organic unfolding or development 
of things and events. This is relevant to the architects of cyberspace 
because we're all here creating systems and frameworks (e.g., 
controlled vocabularies, systems of wayfinding cues, etc.) and 
prescribing user experience. In reality, we can only dictate so much of 
how an experience will actually transpire and what the value and 
meaning of the frameworks will ultimately be, as they're used.

That's enough theory for today :-)

Cheers,
Ruth