I have only just discovered this site and am already in awe of what it aims to achieve. I fully admit that it may be only the current limit of my understanding causing my questions, but there are some points I would like to raise. I do not, as yet, understand the semiotic implementation of the language, it’s grammar and lexical structure is almost completely opaque to me so far. So I want to firstly say that it must be completely open to be usable. It would be a wonderful proof of it’s efficacy if already I could communicate to you, a thought or an idea, a problem or an emotion using the graphical notation of this language in such a way that you could reasonably understand the intent of my communication without the recourse to traditional forms of language. It’s a high expectation definitely but if the language could become this open and so robust as to allow it, it’s propensity to further our comprehension of complex issues would be a very tangible and applicable thing to practice.

I am very interested in how we can use symbols and a graphical interface to tackle ideas and concepts that are often too abstract and/or complex to be sufficiently handled by our current use of language, or where by, in the least discourse on such matters could be more efficient and accurate.

At the heart of such a system you need to first overcome the inherited artefacts of our current linguistic system. As an initial step towards this end I would like to propose that the visual marks used to encode information always describe the type of meaning they carry. I will below use the cannon of words to elaborate this point but maintain the hope and aspiration that we could at times dispense with the need for them. I believe when we communicate something there is always an implicit value pertaining to type of information attached, though frequently we are not aware ourselves of this. Type of information falls into two distinct categories :

Empirical / quantitative / truth / proved / paradigm / scientific
Observation / opinion / emotion / anthropic

These express the basic blocks of value that can be used within a communication schematic, this division between human subjective driven opinions and emotions, as opposed to empirical and objective data, is what seems to be the thing most lacking in our current communication model. It is perhaps the biggest cause of misrepresentation and sender-encode / receiver-decode errors that we currently experience at all scales of human to human communication. I think that any new form of language’s potential greatest contribution could be a way to resolve the conflicts of inherent subjectivity in thought against rational reasoning, with any given problem and allow us to resolve these conflicts in thinking into agreed actions. Here principles and imperatives such as NETS can they be used as at test for the ‘acceptability’ of the outcome?

I have just noticed your use of color as a tool for encoding what would seem to be very similar to these concepts -> http://daily.yworlds.com/files/2012/07/color_scale_03.png This is great, the application of the brown and green scale to statement blocks of information (as opposed to relationship blocks) succinctly and immediately draws the distinction between the two types of information and their value that we intend to assert in a statement. I am captivated by what you are doing and convinced of the importance it could have in furthering mutual understanding in the future as it develops over time.

Alan,
My initial assessment is that mastering emerging complexity in systems thinking world is returning the locus of control to the autopoietic identity and narrative of person as an observer consciously understanding that every utterance is just ‘a’ observation in the flow of attaining mutual satisfaction in a world of others. The fundamental “observer error” you point to that there is no absolutes is the first step in a “speaker/presenter/communicator” accepting the responsibility of the permanence of “uncertainty as a continuous clearing for learning” and having a new ethical fundament that empowers “hearers” to participate in a triadic enfolding experience of new discourse where the “imaginational seeds” of autopoietic artistic sculpturing arises and in the simplicity of our deep rooted humanness in wholeness, maturity and transcendence of absolutes.
Mushin

Hi Mushin:

We are about to launch our new web site and I think some of the current site was affected by some code changes.
We hope to have the new site up and running June 1. Soren Brier is a wonderful example of another person reaching many of the same conclusions we have through an independent process. We are talking with him and encourage everyone to read through Cybersemiotics. Thanks for posting and we’ll see if others respond. Alan