A képernyőmön se látszik semmi csak ez a kép, ami itt látható:

You might have come here from another blog (http://genezistan.wordpress.com/)  that I started and suspended lacking any response whatsoever to my offer to run a dialog. In that monolog meant to be dialog I made a reference to my earlier website of the same name (www.firkasz.com) which was hacked in November 2010. So I had to to rebuild the site, change content, etc. This is what you have got now.

I alsosuspended translation services, because i went back from England, although my details on the website of the Hungary embassy in London are still available. I have not posted anything about towards NLP yet, because I find people get mad at hearing this subject in such a varied context that they cannot figure out what it really means. No worries, we are getting there. So, welcome back, enjoy my voice and its echo which will have a lot of photos soon as illustrations to my ideas.

Is it because we are living in a remix culture?

http://h2obeta.law.harvard.edu/80835

In terms of perception serving as input to process all sensory information to make sense of what is happening, or „what the case is[1]” it is necessary to chunk or „digitalise” the environment into moving and non moving elements. As a result you have discrete and continuous signals, where discrete signals are identified as objects, continuous signals as representing movement or the change of discrete, non moving objects: Such change or movement is the function of human perception hence it is a relation between objects, i.e. a human and his environment. The size of this environment is perceived in human terms, in the bandwidth and range of human perception which relation is represented by various verbs, such as see hear, smell, etc. Such relations correspond to verbs and some of the relations are attributed to the objects themselves (properties), while such relations are either „created” by one or more objects in space time where objects are connected or related in may ways.Moving objects in space time as we can call our environment in a generic way calls for the capability of identification of objects. As we have a replica of the environment available for mental processing such mental representations tend to show the same properties as the actual physical objects with respect to the possible reaction of a human or an animal for that matter without even having a name or a tag to them. So the shear sight of the object will evoke the relations that are  not numerous, such as fight or flight, edible or not edible, etc. If later such objects are given a name the names themselves are likely to work similar ways.

Therefore with respect humans who need to eat, drink, etc. objects become objectives, whether in reality or in their mind, just as they become objectives for many mammals. An object can become an objective (apart from its attractive properties), if it can be recognised, localised and accessed, therefore it is the operand of a targeting activity which calls for precision to be successful. Viewing interactions in this simple model offers us a broad perspective to interpret human history as the development of targeting technologies and tools for the delivery of objects into the objectives at an ever increasing level of precision. The distance between a human and his environment, or the object in focus to target some other object to hit it or to match it is very wide in terms of the measurements of a human body, which was first used as a gauge for any measurement of extent.  Thus we have a mental operation projection/perception that results in an object with the property of being objective, something to be contacted or reached. In mental terms an objective is not difficult to contact as there is no distance that is not covered „instantly” in the mind, unless you are aware of the steps to be taken, or the verbal know-how of how to hit that objective. Obviously, such knowledge comes from experience, from trials and errors as in sports. It does not necessary involve calculations of distances and angles (triangulation), sometimes it is enough to have a notion of time and a sense of time passing „coded in the motor system[2]” to estimate the time it takes to get there. This is also knowledge, practised sufficiently to come near to automation as all the blind people can tell.  Consequently, while it is not a problem to give a name to an object that does not move, or that has constant properties, it is a problem to name motion or a change itself. In identifying a change you may have more than one object in sight, such as in case of the collision, disappearing or reappearing of objects in space where by default there are other objects related to the moving object in space time, otherwise you cannot notice change. Verbs by themselves are therefore words that express actions (relations) and state of affairs (properties) resulting from such actions. They have aspect to show how the verbs are related to time. Therefore a verb indicates a relation of change of an object where change may be induced by another object, and where the property or the state of an object is also changed that way. The most generic state (property) of an object is existence, hence an object may exist or may not, and a verb (relation) is needed to change the condition of that object from one state to another.  Thus we have the triple of an object, relation and property. An object is related to another object of a given property, which relation is change, and which results in the change of that property or even a new object, if such property was the quality of the object. Clearly, the issue is if the first object is a prime mover, or an object that in itself has the property of being capable to relate itself on its own to another object resulting in (causing) thereby a change in the property of that object. This has been debated for a long time in Philosophy, Theology and Physics. The outcome is still undecided, but that should not worry us, because what we are interested in is how all that is reflected in the mind.  In the mind we tend to have objects with properties that govern the affinity of such objects  in reality. In a simple ontology model LORP, we only work with three entities

Example:

Noun: analysis

Dictionary definition:

“A process of studying or examining something in detail in order to understand it or explain it, or a process of examining in detail in order to find out what it contains and also the process of examining someone’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviour as a way of understanding and dealing with their emotional or mental problem”

Analysis is the name of the operation to analyze, the result of which is an object, a document  or verbally formulated analysis, reflecting the mental operation, and a property of that operation in the forms of adjectives (participles) analyzing and analyzed and the noun itself (analysis).Analysis is seen in the definition as a process rather an act performed with an aim, namely to understand or to explain an object, including an act to examine an object to see what that contains, for example someone’s thoughts, feelings deemed to make up one’s behaviour.  So the meaning of the process is that it may be a number of acts over time or a prolonged act with an aim of understanding which involves seeing and examining an object assumed to be made up from part or containing some parts, presumable other objects. So the main components are then the operations to describe, to explain assuming a relation of objects being in containment. Note that description means documentation, possible by suing a natural language, while explanation is annotation attached to something so described or identified.  Now let us se the components further as thy are outlined in dictionaries.

Verb: examine:

to look at something carefully in order to find out about it or see what it is like

if a doctor examines you, they look carefully at your body to check if you are healthy

to study a subject or consider an idea or plan carefully

to ask someone questions in a legal trial, and

to give students an examination to test their knowledge

The senses listed above indicate similar steps where the objective is to gain knowledge about an object, to establish its properties, whether such an object is a physical object, a person or a body of knowledge, in other words a representation, such as an idea, a plan or a concept. Examination becomes an interrogation, a  dialog when the object examined is capable of answering questions, therefore this act may also be called as retrieval, a test or a query or search for the existence of information, or evidence in another object, a person or a computer.

Notice that in physical analysis you expect to start off from a whole object and decompose or disassemble it into its constituent parts in a manner that fits the purpose of such breakdown. The same exercise (analysis) done mentally is different however, because you use isolation and abstraction to derive properties of that object, properties that do not exist on their own, they cannot be added together to reunite in the original object. But despite their name property, they are not possessed as a separate object such as a property (article of possession). However, by applying another mental operation they can be turned into an object that again can have properties. But that object is still not a physical object, but a concept which is an object created or originated by humans, unlike many of the objects that are created by the forces of nature. Nevertheless concepts are documented, hence they are physical objects as well, whether they are words of a language, or a model, or a picture or any other kind of replica, etc. used for reproduction.

Content words (occurring five times or more) as tags in The Hub

Nouns (stand alone interpretation): e.g. communication, internet, reality, content, language, understanding, message, knowledge, analysis, syntax, illusions,

Dual duty (function): object, design, process, result, search, help (six ambiguous)

Adjectives: semantic, verbal, smart

Verbs: follow, think, see,Problems:

1. Ambiguity due to context (collocations) removed, or the reduction of phrases to a single word (no collocations)

2. Frequency is not the function of information value – see grammar words (the are most numerous).

3. Nouns are more numerous than verbs and adjectives. Nouns may not only be dual duty parts of speech, but may be used in adjective position in clusters.

4. It is assumed that content words such as nouns are objects, adjectives are properties and verbs are relations. But the relation between nouns and objects is not one-to-one.

5. Also, properties may be in other forms than adjectives, for instance a possessive structure or a proposition.

6. The relation to be interpreted as existing between verbs and relation is limited to verbs that are in the predicate role in a sentence or proposition.

Possible solutions:

1. Try to keep a cluster of words that represents or identifies a whole object – real (reference to an existing object) or non real (created by abstraction such as a concept composed of properties)
2. Try to identify messages and headings as separate semantic (and pragmatic) units. This analysis depends on your previous knowledge that can be represented as topic and comment (a proposition) for alignment purposes for a comparison of knowledge with that of other people. Topic would be a title or heading, comment would be a message attached to that topic (heading), either in one sentence or in a proposal as a subject and a predicate. But subject to your knowledge you may find that
   1. A title is too generic (multiple senses, or references) or too specific (has properties unknown to you)
   2. A message is not clear a) because of the composition (collocation), or because of the granularity and/or the under-specification of the verb
   3. Makes (external) references to other points that you are not familiar with
   4. Makes no sense (has no ontological commitment), does not exist, or is a metaphor, etc.
   5. Is a code, an acronym, an abbreviation, a foreign word, etc.

1. What is the Future of the Internet going to be like?

2. What is the Present of the Internet like?

3. Why drop syntax (analysis)?

4. Selecting the objects of verbal creation

7. The mental operations involved:

8. Organize the information (Do chunking, use Numbered Lists to enable referencing)

9. Generalising

10. The conclusions are

Titles 1,2,3 are questions, titles 4,5,6,9 are labels, titles 7,10 are ellipsis, title 8 is an imperative,

In case of questions you expect to get a reply in the passage in the form of an object named (label),which may have to be defined, hence should be a definition, if you do not know the definition (answer). In case of labels, again, you want to define the object labeled, which in the above cases verbs (gerund), non real, figurative objects. So you either convert them into messages by detailing the properties of them, or by adding a predicate signifying a property of that label (object), or making it a proposition (by using a verb) as to what to do (e.g. an imperative) with the subject (object).

In case of the ellipsis you expect some words to complete the ellipsis to make them either a label or a message. They could be lists, either that of objects (labels) or propositions (messages).

And finally an imperative is a message as it is complete (complemented) with a verb. Notice that the first words of God were also imperatives, in fact, all the imperatives are about becoming (creation), they are the Verb or the words that started off the whole Creation according to the Bible, and which is ever since in the process of becoming[4] something else, whether we want it or not, or sometimes in line with what we desire. 

Now what would best describe the content of that blog entry in terms of labels and messages that are themselves do not represent the whole text?

Is the structure given (the number of titles and the sentences to follow) good enough for the purpose of understanding? Is the structure the only possible one to convey the same message? Clearly, it is not.

Are the word clusters specific enough to make sense (normally a message makes sense, a label does not, unless it precisely identifies an object (it has a referent), preferably an existing and real one). So selecting the following phrases[5] from the text such as would not take us closer to the message of the entry, although it may be a list of messages as opposed to a single one. The more generic a message is, the shorter it becomes, so you would expect an “abstract phrase” to contain the messages identified in detail.

But if those clusters are selected as tags, clearly the answer you expect to get from the text should come to a “what” and a “who” question, meaning that what you are primarily interested in is a definition of such a cluster. This also means that the clusters selected are too generic for you and you want more specific information. To say that they are too generic is the same as to say that there are (may be) more than one referents labelled (tagged) with those clusters.Going back to the analysis of the clusters you can also identify the objects (signified by clusters) dealt with in the entry itself. The objects should be classed as real, existing objects and concepts. When the objects are so identified, they are usually found as the subjects of sentences.

But being too generic also means that the object/subject is too far away from you, as the resolution of objects is a function of distance from the place of observation. As we live in space time, which are mutually related and are often interchanged for identification purposes, the closer you are, the more specific you get, and vice versa, whether you measure the difference of positions of objects in terms of time or distance. And if you get rid of all the specific details that are available to human perception in his immediate environment (space time), then you get something I call the Divine Aspect to inspect the world from with all its subsequent fallacies.

[2] The tau gap

[3] Notice that in generation you need parents, in creation you need God(s)

[4] See Whitehead

[5] future of the internet, excellent authorities, architecture of the internet, complex system,

Content words (occurring five times or more) as tags in The Hub:

Nouns (stand alone interpretation): e.g. communication, internet, reality, content, language, understanding, message, knowledge, analysis, syntax, illusions,

Dual duty (function): object, design, process, result, search, help (six ambiguous)

Adjectives: semantic, verbal, smart

Verbs: follow, think, see,

Problems:

1. Ambiguity due to context (collocations) removed, or the reduction of phrases to a single word (no collocations)

2. Frequency is not the function of information value – see grammar words.

3. Nouns are more numerous than verbs and adjectives. Nouns may not only be dual duty parts of speech, but may be used in adjective position in clusters.

4. It is assumed that content words such as nouns are objects, adjectives are properties and verbs are relations. But the relation between nouns and objects is not one-to-one.

5. Also, properties may be in other forms than adjectives, for instance a possessive structure or a proposition.

6. The relation to be interpreted as existing between verbs and relation is limited to verbs that are in the predicate role in a sentence or proposition.

Possible solutions

1. Try to keep a cluster of words that represents or identifies a whole object – real (reference to an existing object) or non real (created by abstraction such as a concept composed of properties)
2. Try to identify messages and headings as separate semantic (and pragmatic) units. This analysis depends on your previous knowledge that can be represented as topic and comment (a proposition) for alignment purposes for a comparison of knowledge with that of other people. Topic would be a title or heading, comment would be a message attached to that topic (heading), either in one sentence or in a proposal as a subject and a predicate. But subject to your knowledge you may find that
   1. A title is too generic (multiple senses, or references) or too specific (has properties unknown to you)
   2. A message is not clear a) because of the composition (collocation), or because of the granularity and/or the underspecification of the verb
   3. Makes (external) references to other points that you are not familiar with
   4. Makes no sense (has no ontological commitment), does not exist, or is a metaphor, etc.
   5. Is a code, an acronym, an abbreviation, a foreign word, etc.

Let us see the titles first as titles are supposed to tell you what the subject (of a piece of writing, such as an entry or a passage) is or is about

Titles

1. What is the Future of the Internet going to be like?

2. What is the Present of the Internet like?

3. Why drop syntax (analysis)?

4. Selecting the objects of verbal creation

7. The mental operations involved:

8. Organize the information (Do chunking, use Numbered Lists to enable referencing)

9. Generalising

10. The conclusions are

Titles 1,2,3 are questions, titles 4,5,6,9 are labels, titles 7,10 are ellipsis, title 8 is an imperative,

In case of questions you expect to get a reply in the passage in the form of an object named (label),which may have to be defined, hence a definition, if you do not know the definition (answer).

In case of labels, again, you want to define the object labelled, which in the above cases verbs (gerund), non real, figurative objects. So you either convert them into messages by detailing the properties of them, or by adding a predicate signifying a property of that label (object), or making it a proposition (by using a verb) as to what to do (e.g. an imperative) with the subject (object).

In case of the ellipsis you expect some words to complete the ellipsis to make them either a label or a message. They could be lists, either that of objects (labels) or propositions (messages).

And finally an imperative is a message as it is complete with a verb.

Now what would best describe the content of that blog entry in terms of labels and messages that are themselves do not represent the whole text?

Is the structure given (the number of titles and the sentences to follow) good enough for the purpose of understanding? Is the structure the only possible one to convey the same message? Clearly, it is not.

Are the word clusters specific enough to make sense (normally a message makes sense, a label does not, unless it precisely identifies an object (it has a referent), preferably an existing and real one). So selecting the following phrases[1] from the text such as would not take us closer to the message of the entry, although it may be a list of messages as opposed to a single one. The more generic a message is, the shorter it becomes, so you would expect an “abstract phrase” to contain the messages identified in detail.

But if those clusters are selected as tags, clearly the answer you expect to get from the text should come to a what and a who question, meaning that what you are primarily interested in is a definition of such a cluster. This also means that the clusters selected are too generic for you and you want more specific information. To say that they are too generic is the same as to say that there are (may be) more than one referents labelled (tagged) with those clusters.

Going back to the analysis of the clusters you can also identify the objects (signified by clusters) dealt with in the entry itself. The objects should be classed as real, existing objects and concepts. When the objects are so identified, they are usually found as the subjects of sentences.

Neverthelss they remain part of one, the whole, that theythemselves have become when identified as objects.

The resolution of reality is derived from physical analysis resulting in various physical objects with qualities and quantities. But qualities (properties) and relations (operations or verbs) are abstractions and do not exist on their own. They are like the vapour state of water.

The resolution of such objects derived from thinking or abstraction results in properties and relations which do not have the same autonomy as objects. Therefore their number is likely to differ from time to time subject to the people who perform the mental operations (such as abstraction) and the willingness to distribute, share, accept and reinforce such properties as knowledge. But it is not usual to keep a count of such properties, only that of the objects. This is not appropriate, because if  an object is represented as a totality of properties, then the properties must also be counted and shown. If it is not done, you cannot align your knowledge with other people’s knowledge systematically.

Actually, set theory applied to concepts as members of sets shows a problem that may be clarified. In most representations of sets Venn diagrams are used showing a single object instead of a multiplicity of objects. This may be misleading, especially when you talk about sets once as a total of unknown quantity and once as a single unit (set). This is a  change of the subject in terms of the scale used, and it is not legitimate to call the two representations the same name. You either see something as a whole and ONE at the same time, or as a complex of  a multitude, in which case you had better give the total number of the constituents to equal the object (the set) as a whole, like on conversion of a digit in a numeral system. But obviously, there is an operation between the two ways of seeing a set – once as a name for a single unit, and once meaning a name that should show that it refers to members (other objects) and therefore it should be used with the name of the members in plural.

So the use of words like family once with a singular then with a plural form of verb illustrates the situation of a single word meaning plural and singular depending on context in the sentence refering to the reality of two kinds.

If it is still not clear then, please accept the following explanation. Objects are form and content, where form is also the name given to an object and content is its properties not detailed as yet here. An obejct is also quality and quantity, where its quantity is one, and its quality is usually a property that makes it different from any other objects. If the object is a word or a sign representing a concept, then this word as a unique identifier is its quality as it does that job for the object. Now as a default an object has the property of being a quantity of one, it is not possible that an object is not one or a whole, otherwise the object ceases to exist. By definition it cannot be more than one, or a fraction of one either. This means that an object is always complete, it is one, it is not a fraction or a part and it has no components or members. It cannot be a set, unless this set has one member in which case the set is the same as its member.

Now you can say that a set is a concept, an abstraction, just as numbers. But we are only dealing with objects that are represented by real numbers in the real world, so the concept of a set that is abstracted to display properties that are not real, not integer or irrational is useless. If a set contains more than one members, then it is not one object, but an object with a quality of plurality and a quantity of  the number of objects contained in or making up that quality. Normally it means a number plus an object combined, if the number of the members or the objects contained in is known. If it is not known, then it is an undefined, indeterminate noun with a very vague meaning. And it it has no content, i.e. it is an empty set, then it is fiction, has no grounding in reality, no ontological commitment whatsoever.

At least two resources written by excellent authorities, namely Sir Timothy Berners-Lee The Future of the World Wide Web,  and MIT Professor David Clark on The Future of the Internet are devoted to the subject. Both suggest that “the Web is by no means finished. The Web, and everything which happens on it, rest on two things: technological protocols, and social conventions. The technological protocols, like HTTP and HTML, determine how computers interact. Social conventions, such as the incentive to make links to valuable resources, or the rules of engagement in a social networking web site, are about how people like to, and are allowed to, interact.” (Sir Timothy Berners-Lee)

Professor David Clark also notes that the architecture of the Internet is based on a complex system of  objective technology coupled with subjective knowledge (another complex system) in order to store and retrieve physical and non-physical objects. Internet has moved from a research curiosity to a recognized organic component of the mainstream societies to demonstrate again that in this world everything is related to everything else. This interrelation between objects originally not created by humans and those created by humans is the subject of human inquiry into reality, a process of recreating or reproducing both a physical world and a virtual world that now have a potential to follow a common, synchronised and co-ordinated course of development. This potential is seen as a common path as either as a process of “the tussle”, or by others the metaphorical road leading to the Age of Aquarius.

While we have a GPS system to identify the geographical positions of objects over the Earth’ surface we also have the Internet Protocol (IP) to identify both the “virtual and the real” locations of man made smart objects connected and sometimes integrated, yet  scattered around over the same surface. Individuals moving about on the real surface of the Earth use a global navigation system for orientation, and those moving around in the real as well as virtual (computer hosted and created) space designed and implemented by man with the help of the Internet Protocol system orient themselves by using verbal communications.

Such verbal, natural and formal language communications reflect intelligence, the capability to try to flexibly adjust to the environment as well as a “how to type of knowledge” of doing that, or the capability (a know-how) to be smart. In this descriptive model of the human world it is not only the objects that are to be aware of their own self or ego and their choice of actions, but the human individuals as well in order to give the right response to the stimuli in the environment crying for help[i].

There is now an effort to establish the Internet Protocol as the network for the connection of  Smart Objects by providing coordinated marketing efforts looking beyond the original local use of general purpose computers. Smart objects are described as a special case of an object in a virtual environment that can describe its own possible interactions with other objects. The additional information provided by this concept enables far more general interaction schemes, and can greatly simplify the planner of an artificial intelligence agent. But we still owe the design of a system made up from the obvious capabilities of the human minds that are widely untapped as we are not knowledgeable enough in understanding how human mind works as opposed to locating regions of the brains that show electrical activity associated with behaviour.

Looking at it that way smart objects[ii] resemble smart minds, they display intelligence that is seen to be a bottleneck with respect to utilisation, so it needs to be enhanced. But the purpose to amplify intelligence or to enhance learning is focused on the development of smart objects as opposed to developing smart people, or educated human resources. Why? Maybe, because smart objects are meant to entertain people, whereas the knowledge enabling us to design such artefacts is a serious matter, it is the domain of social control via business and principles.

The Internet is designed on the basis of a core set of design principles, or tenets, that identify points in the architecture where there must be common understanding and agreement. The tenets of the original Internet architecture arose as a response to the technical, governmental, and societal environment of internetworking’s earliest days, but have remained central to the Internet as it has evolved. In light of the increasing integration of the Internet into the social, economic, and political aspects of our lives, it is worth revisiting the underlying tenets of what is becoming a central element of the world’s infrastructure. There are three key tenets that some authors believe should guide the evolution of the Internet in its next generation and beyond. They are: design for change, controlled transparency, and the centrality of the tussle space.

The Internet today is a huge system of storage facilities and media of communication processes where a lot of communication is going on all the time without sufficient understanding. Understanding may be seen as the result of efficient search with the result of either a match or a hit. Both hits and matches are needed, because hits are the result of comparing forms of objects with the conclusion that they are the same, while matches are the result of looking for content of objects with the conclusion that the properties of such objects are identical.

They are the two sides of the same story. You either know the name of an object and you may not know its properties, or you may know some properties of an object but you do not know its name. At least in a natural language, or in the domain where your verbal knowledge is not complete. Reality created with the help of natural languages is not real in the sense as experience gained through your senses is, it needs to be vetted against evidence, facts and the findings of other people to establish the Ontological commitment of any verbal creation, the verbal version of a virtual reality. We simply cannot afford not to check the use of words, languages, etc. for reality, for existence. We need to know if we mean something real, existing, or we mean fiction, anything ungrounded in reality, a product of human creativity and fantasy, or a linguistic bravado, but nothing to build or plan/design the future of this world on. Just think of  words that are acronyms, or metaphors, or just pure poetry, etc. all created in order to emphasize form and to aid memory as opposed to content, the subject of semantics and pragmatics, the real space for tussle in this century. And the first victim to fall in the battle seems to be Syntax and the integrity of verbal forms (i.e. unambiguous, unique words, etc.).

Language learning starts without using any syntax but concatenation of words. Syntax is required to reduce the uncertainty about what separate words are next to follow any word uttered or written down. In other words it is a way of reducing the freedom or the number of possible actions to take with words. Therefore using statistics and calculating probabilities of what (word) comes next has been introduced in the relevant fields of applied linguistics.

But alas, natural language use is not just a list of meaningful words assigned to follow the rules of Syntax. Indeed, Syntax is used to reduce the number of possibilities of words to follow each other before you get a terminator symbol (full stop, question mark, etc.) But using a natural language is just one modality of communication, a wider process of performing mental operations on “whole ideas” chunked for processing them in larger units, such as sentences and propositions. And syntax analysis without reference to reality, i.e. without checking if a language is used for a serious purpose in communication does not really help us any more in understanding the internet. This is not the case with semantic analysis, though.

Semantic analysis is not dedicated to either of those forms, single words or sentences but to the discovery and the identification of content in the form of content words as we assume that thinking is more closely related to thinking in pictures of chunks of reality as related to content words, than in syntactical units.

Therefore there are two approaches to explore communication, just as the analysis of the result of the search operation, namely either analysing a form already produced, or assembling a form to be produced from the most simple elements of semantic content.

The first approach is semantic analysis, performed for instance for translation purposes, and the second is language generation, again for translation purposes. The constituents of this exercise should be the same – you cannot look for something that is not there, not existing. Therefore the idea is to start with the constituents that we use to make up a message, and if they are properly used, their analysis should take us back to discovering the non verbal antecedents of communication, the most simple elements of the semantic content. This is the same operation as with search where you can only find something that exists, that has been put somewhere for you to find. Thus for any search to be effective and efficient, you must design a physical storage system to match later search requirements. And the system describing such a physical system cannot be less real, “less existing” even though the descriptive system, the model is a product of mental operations.  

Selecting the objects of relation is also called selecting an application area of intent made explicit by communication. Selection means sorting and identifying a specific item from a multiplicity of generic items (e.g. an individual from a class) to suit a specific purpose (such as search). In this process we

Follow the inquiry/teaching algorithm, i.e.

1. Start from known and simple
2. Use examples. Examples: emails, blogs, web pages, websites, etc.
   1. Are you familiar with Emails? With web pages?
   2. What are their components? (How many?)
   3. What are their form and content?
   4. What are their constituent data fields? Sender (from), title (subject) date (received).
   5. Are they sorted on one or more keys?
   6. How is an email tagged/compressed? (Subject Lines)
   7. How is it extended? (Links)
   8. How is it structured inside? (sentences, passages, lists, Numbered Lists)
   9. How is it rated in terms of difficulty/performance?
   10. How do these compare to blogs or web pages? What functionalities are offered by a blog type of medium?

1. What is difficulty?

Difficulty is a measure of time it takes to understand something, or what somebody means for or wants from you. Understanding goes from known to unknown, from simple to complex/complicated. It is a also a measure of our capability to recall and mobilise our past experience and knowledge to understand anything new or not known yet. On this road we, or our knowledge may be rated as basic, intermediate, advanced, and expert (this is a case of measuring intangibles. See for example how language (oral communication) skills in the EU  are assessed.)

2. What is understanding?

Understanding as documented in dictionaries has several senses (contexts) to be identified in a list. They include:

1. to know what someone or something means

What should be replaced by either an object or a subject.

2. to know what something spoken or written in a particular language means

Then you get content in a message or a heading  form (NL) in one of two modalities

3. to know how or why something happens, or what effect or influence something has

That is further specified by identifying it as a message (with a verb) and giving details of how and why something is done or what it entails

4. to know how someone feels or why someone does something, as a result of experience or by imagining what it must be like to be them

That is further elaborated by recognising emotions or other motivation for acting in a specific manner, including empathy, or shifting the aspect of communication (person)

5. to believe that something is true because you have heard or read it somewhere

Besides giving the above description, it is also explained whether you accept such content and on what basis

6. to recognize that a word or phrase is missing in a sentence and that you have to imagine that it is there

And also explaining that any such communication may be incomplete and has to be completed for the communication to make sense on the basis of some assumptions, deemed to be reasonable and justified, and usually made rationally. Nevertheless we may have illusions as to be explained later below.

1. Who should control “what”, and “how to” communicate?

Remember, that the burden of communication is on the communicator not the recipient[iv]. You as a communicator need to design the vehicle to use or the medium to deliver a message effectively. Apart from the technicalities and technologies you have mental operations on hand, and just as an example some more details of the process follow below.

• Selection – to select the length and structure of text to fit the frame, use reasonably short paragraphs. You may also call it formation based on sorting the available means to make them fit for the purpose (to match the intent).
• Specification – specifically in emails you must use:
  • Subject Lines – all emails need a well articulated and relevant Subject Line. The issue is whether to change it as the subject is changed.
  • Links – they are used to divert from the current word (line, page, etc.) to jump to something quoted, or to be quoted through pointers. The issue whether to use the website or a generic or a specific name (reference) to fork to. Forking to a link is certainly a change, not just in space, but in scale – you may choose to change your focus and bring another object in.

They (i.e. the links) are still just a part of giving details of the form to be used for communication.

“Ease of use changes behaviour”. Without links you will not be able to do reality checks, or see work that has been done. It is rare that any message or title is not possible to be linked to something else similarly important. Exceptions occur as this is a matter of decision, but they are still exceptions. Remember that everything is interconnected with everything else. Links (hypertext references) are tools to make such interconnections explicit and help you go on when you are stuck with your doubts.

 Simple lists represent a flow of thoughts that may or may not be logical or organised. Bulleted lists are a bit more informative or rational, but they do NOT convey priority by the sender other than the order of reading. The recipient invariably starts at the top assuming this is in fact the top priority. If you force yourself to use numbered lists, then you must organize your thoughts beforehand and thus you structure and prioritize your content accordingly.

We normally use Short Paragraphs with rare exceptions. Shorter paragraphs with strong subject sentences greatly increase reading comprehension as speed readers tend to read the first sentence of a paragraph and use that to make a decision if they should bother reading the rest. Shorter paragraphs means more of your message is consumed regardless of the topic you are addressing. Some people give new names all the time to the subject they cover, they create acronyms, they use abbreviation or even ellipsis. Some of them are called Nickel words[v]. They are especially annoying in mobile texting. To repeat the main message here:

“The burden of communication is on the communicator, not the recipient.”

While it is possible to write in tongues, for example by reducing verbal messages to a series of digits, the phenomenon of speaking in humanly unintelligible utterances of a machine language language is a level of  simplification that needs to be avoided. This

approach to represent knowledge by the simplest components possible (0,1) needlessly reduces comprehension. We should not oversimplify our view of the world, instead we should present a model that is as simple as possible and no simpler. Just like in Physics, Genetics, etc.

If you must use an idiosyncratic word, or if you assume that your audience needs an explanation of “meaning”, be courteous and guide him or her to the next step (a link).

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Our sensory organs work within limits called the human dimension. This dimension we experience as reality and compare and share our individual experience in that human dimension. But not all our sensory organs are symmetric, we can receive visual input, but cannot produce visual output. Besides, the sensations or perceptions we use in communication may confuse us into perceiving things that don’t exist and not perceiving things that do exist.

Therefore we need to have a reality check, especially to vet verbal communication with non-verbal communication, or words against deeds, if you like.

Thus we have optical illusions where we cannot decide if A and B are the same colour, or are they different colours? So we know those visual communication limitations that make us see things that aren’t there or make us not see things that are there.

The explanation for such a discrepancy is in our mental state. For example narrowing focus or being under stress cause us to overlook things, or disclose them our sight.

Just like the optical illusion, in every mode of communication there is the opportunity for illusions of communication to occur which can often lead to miscommunication.

Such verbal, auditory illusions include a tendency of speakers to overestimate their effectiveness. We are confident that we are effective even if the information is ambiguous or unclear. Listeners are not always interested in checking everything heard for reality, they just skim the text for content (content words, or tags). But if they are, you have the choice between using a footnote or inserting a hypertext feature.

The conclusions are:

1. Speakers are not understood as much as they think they are (less than ½ the time).
2. Listeners are confident in understanding speakers
3. Listeners do not understand as much as they think they do (less than ½ the time).
4. Listeners are as confident when they are understanding correctly as when they misunderstand.
5. Observers (not involved in the exchange) are more likely to identify potential misunderstandings.

Where emotion and volition interplay with reason the likelihood of misunderstanding is higher. Think of wishful thinking or the “closed ears” to the words of someone hated. Also, people that are anxious or depressed are more likely to incorrectly process ambiguous situations as threatening. And do not forget that children are credulous, because they have tremendous confidence in what you say, because they have no choice.

Written communication can be even more prone to illusions, hence miscommunication.  Ambiguity in verbal communications is even more detrimental to miscommunication in written forms. Communication that takes place in written form is devoid of the context of interpersonal communication, hence the chances for asking questions or seeking explanation, original intent, body language and inflexion that come with communication in person.  Furthermore, most written communication tends to be viewed as more formal, less redundant in other words.

We see things that aren’t there, we don’t see things that are.  We think we hear things, clearly, but don’t. If we want communicate better, what can we do? Probably we should not treat our listeners as children. We should also be serious and not degrade communication to making surprises and entertainment through excitement. Next, we should audit our own communication related ideas including cognition, language and logic.

We may be good at communicating, but are still not immune from these illusions of communication.  We would discuss a topic, come to a conclusion, reach an agreement, and then write it down.  We found that only by using multiple avenues of communication (white boards, verbal, in-person meetings, and written summaries), did we actually agree on what we were trying to communicate.

The burden of communication falls on the communicator. Therefore some usual primary reactions in a dialogue may fail. Note that if you repeat something louder that may not help the listener, because his/her the problem may not be audibility, hence louder repetition is not a solution. But it is, when you try to imitate what you hear.

1. Assume only ½ of what is communicated is understood. (Be realistic, this world is interested in excitement and entertainment)
2. Repeat important communication points multiple times in different ways. (Be persistent)
3. If something can be interpreted in multiple ways, clarify the original intent. (Be honest about your agenda)
4. Don’t be ambiguous, be specific. (Be open and clear)
5. Have the recipient repeat what is understood. (Check for delivery)

Have the recipient state assumptions that are made. (Check for willingness to listen on). Well, what do you think?

[ii] Smart objects are the link between the virtual world and the real. A smart object “knows” about itself — where and how it was made, what it is for, who owns it and how they use it, what other objects in the world are like it — and about its environment. Smart objects can report on their exact location and current state (full or empty, new or depleted, recently used or not).  

[iii] Verbal creation is rephrasing, paraphrasing or translating one expression into another one with the assumption that the new version would be more understandable. It is similar to providing synonyms which are words that can be used in lieau of another without violating the essence of the original meaning. But synonyms do modulate meaning, especially when they refer to a different chunk of reality, in which case they should not be used as synonyms. Neither is the term paraphrasing, rephrasing or translating applicable, because they have different referents or denotata. In this case you have the operation name-giving at work, creating a name for the first time for a chunk of reality. The difference is subtle but paramount.

[iv] The burden of communication is on the communicator is typically discssed in business communication, because time is money. Where everything works fine, there is no communication at all, where there is a chaos, communication is permanent. http://www.schipul.com/en/helpfiles/v/129 http://tim-stanley.com/post/Communication-Illusions.aspx

[v] Doug urged lawyers to use nickel words, one-syllable words that are simple and direct. Every word won’t be a nickel word but we should use them when we can. As they teach in journalism school, “never use a 10-cent word when a nickel word will do.”