[Sigia-l] Data, information, knowledge, wisdom

[Scott Nelson]

On Jun 30.2005, at 18:38, Ted Han wrote:

> This is not true.  The meaning of linguistic symbols are arrived at
> via convention (not explicitly so for common language, but that is the
> case for techincal terms).  If there really was nobody around who used
> that date format, it would quite literally have lost all meaning.

In the United States, 12/05/05 would (according to convention) be  
read as December 5th, 2005 - a date in the future

In Canada (Yay for my 138th birthday today!) it would (according to  
convention) be read as May 12, 2005.

In this relatively simple case, the establishment of context serves  
to transform a series of meaningless number into a "date." This is a  
simple example only, and in many cases "context" is not enough in and  
of itself to do so.

In any case, without the human concept of language & script (as  
defined here) the numbers mean nothing, and would require decades of  
anthropological study to comprehend.

Hieroglyphics were once thought to be decoration; similar study  
revealed them to be a rich language, and greatly transformed our  
understanding of an entire culture.
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com