Semiotics & The Q

Meaning is in the world.
Influencing meaning is in the organism.

Unedited Draft – Do Not Quote or Distribute

Mapping the Q to Semiotics.

Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols, and signification. Semiotics is about how meaning is created and not what it is. It does this by representing the smallest unit of meaning.

The Q is about responsiveness and how it is repurposed to influence or grasp the dynamic sense of a situation. It does this by representing the smallest unit of context.*

Beginning with the smallest semiotic units: signifier and signified. Together they make a Sign; the smallest unit of meaning. Signifier can pertain to any level of perception. Signs include things such as, stopsign, hunger or drawing.

In semiotics, signified is the concept that a signifier refers to.

Quadranyms have a head-word, called the topic-name and can be generally considered the signifier. The four dimensions can be generally considered the signified; an orientation able to be shared. However, they are specifically about representing the responses that orient so to target signification.

In the Q, the signified is the trajectory of dynamics that the signifier responds with. This idea relates to the semiotic idea, umwelt.

Umwelt; the world as it is experienced by a particular organism.

The Q is about adaption and how an organism responds to its environment.

In the Q, the signified is found when the dynamical context aligns with the situational context. With this alignment, the organism is able to gather resources in a particular orientational dynamic.

In semiotics, there are 3 basic relation types between signifier and signified.

Symbols are arbitrary signs that people must learn like words or the peace sign. Indexes are signs people can figure out through causal relationships like, food odors mean cooking. Icons are signs that people can recognize like, stick figures resemble people.

1. Symbol: IF SIGNIFIER stopsign THEN SIGNIFIED; a traffic sign requiring a motorist to stop before continuing.
2. Index: IF SIGNIFIER hungry THEN SIGNIFIED; a desire, craving, or need for food; feeling pain caused by not eating.
3. Icon: IF SIGNIFIER circle THEN SIGNIFIED; human face, planet, eyeball or bullseye of dart board and so on.

Semiotic relation types rendered in the Q framework:

A dynamic sense of Symbols.

  • ∀(x) word(x) → [Inference(respond) ⊇ Reference(symbol)(x)].

A dynamic sense of Indices:

  • ∀(x) eat(x) → [Sate(hungry) ⊇ Starve(food)(x)].

A dynamic sense of Icons:

  • ∀(x) drawing(x) → [Same(recognize) ⊇ Difference(resemble)(x)].

The units above are only orientations. A topic-name can have several quadranyms. Which quadranym depends on how it significantly aligns with the situational context; truth conditions as they are in the world.

Denotation & Connotation:

In the Q, signification is about repurposed experiences producing metaphorical dynamics. From the beginning the dynamical context is essentially a connotation. The Distinction between denotations and connotations is about process. Also, the difference between how the model deals with processing concepts and how users relate to concepts as either denotation or connotation is an important distinction.

  • Subjective_connotation → Objective_denotation

Consider a snowflake. It is a real thing that has different connotations such as, an icon for uniqueness or a symbol for fragility. How connotation is different from a denotation involves many parameters in the Q.

Denotation: the most basic meaning of a sign, e.g., the word “snowflake” signifies the individual ice crystals of snow.

A Q-unit represents a cycle, from the topic-name to the dynamical context back to the topic-name. It is a feedback cycle that closes the loop on a situation to denote what is virtually experienced. The process depends on resources available to the system. To get to the denotation as specified by the programing system user may require corrections. Q-units basically aim to share an experiential expression with another. Although, it may be false. To intend a specific denotation “correctly” requires a reciprocal causation between the dynamical context and the situational context.

  • Snowflake intending ice crystal intending snowflake <cycle> find added properties for the situation.

Connotation: signs that are used as signifiers for a secondary meaning, e.g., the word “snowflake” signifies uniqueness.

For a connotation, the same process happens except that the intended goal is anchored on another motivated-dynamical-context. Connotation is a secondary motivational context. Every quadranym is essentially a connotation. The subjective state is the connotative sense that anchors for any denotation. The objective sense is how the anchor becomes specified to intend the word being used to describe a condition.

  • Snowflake intending ice crystal intending uniqueness intending snowflake <cycle> back to primary motivation.

Metonymy: a kind of connotation where the part signifies the whole.

  • All quadranym Subject/Objective relations are based on source and target relations and can be analyzed and specified.

Paradigmatic relations: where signs get meaning from their association with other signs.

  • This represents the basic relation type for all Quadranyms and Polynyms.

Syntagmatic relations: where signs get meaning from their sequential order, e.g., grammar or a sequence of a procedure.

  • Although quadranyms are formally rendered as paradigmatic relations, procedural scripts specify their use in a sequence.

Myths: a combination of paradigms and syntagms that make up a familiar story with elaborate cultural associations.

  • Quadranyms have source and target relations. These relations happen between subjective and objective roles and also between quadranyms where the quadranyms in use assume either a subjective or objective role. The formal concerns Q dimensions the latter polynym dimensions.

Codes: a combination of semiotic systems, a supersystem, that function as general maps of meaning, belief systems about oneself and others, which imply views and attitudes about how the world is and/or ought to be. Codes are where semiotics and social structure and values connect.

  • This relates to the Q concept, The Orientation of Interactivity. And, is modeled in the Q using units, scripts and layers.

Ideology: works largely by creating forms of commonsense. It also involve codes that reinforce or are congruent with structures of power.

  • The idea of structural power has many parameters. Ideology relates to Meta-dimensional roles; paradigmatic units for organizing term relations. In semiotics, it relates to social structures that influence but their influence is not as positive as it seems. In the Q, this relates to the dynamical context going unchecked by the situational context. The result are rationalizing modules if not balanced by the situational context; the only real source for truth as it might be in the world.

The most important take away:

Semiotics = smallest unit of meaning.
Quadranym = the smallest unit of context.

We mean context as influencing meaning. This requires a temporal & spatial structure. The quadranym represents the spatial structure with its modes, expansive and reductive. And, it represents temporal structure with its states, subjective and objective. The subjective state always represents temporal beginnings. We explain the paradigm in the next section.

Model Page: Umwelt & The Deictic Center
  • Ask yourself what time it is, the answer is always now no matter where you are. Conversely, the answer being, “always here“ no matter what time it is, doesn’t really work. It conflates the explanatory powers of time and space. Being always in the same location is not generally but fundamentally impossible. We transition time in terms of space and not the other way around. The point being, nowness remains central to any transition.

A model of Paradigmatic Semiosis for Time & Space.

Umwelt is an organisms particular relation with the environment.

The Q models this relationship with two different cycles of semiosis.

  • The cycles are about the organism’s response to signs.
  • An organism finds signification through these cycles.
  1. FROM expansive TO reductive cycle (environment_function)
  2. FROM subjective TO objective cycle (organism_argument)
  1. The environment provides spatial orientation; length, location, direction, action.
  2. The organism provides temporal orientation; how much time? how much energy?

According to the Q semiotic paradigm:

  1. The expanse/reductive cycle is primarily a spatial semiosis,
  2. Subjective/objective cycle is primarily a temporal semiosis.

A way to think about the idea is as follows:

Think of an orbit, a circle trace that cycles in space. It begins at a particular point and goes around to the same point, one cycle.

At the center is the point of perception i.e, the invariant to any variable.

Orient for Space: Since the starting point is arbitrary, the point is a potential point; any place in the orbits path is a point.

  • The variable place begins the cycle. This is the orientation of spatial sense.
  • Close the loop: Expansive_From_Potential → Reductive_To_Actual

Orient for time: Since the starting point is chosen, the point is an actual point; the actual event as being that point in the cycle.

  • The variable time ends the cycle. This is the orientation of temporal sense.
  • Close the loop: Subjective_From_Actual → Objective_To_Potential

If loop closes quickly then distance is close, slowly then distance is far.

Consider this exchange:

  1. Question: How far’s the next town?
  2. Answer: It’s an hour away.

With this, the model’s semiotic approach can be illustrated. To realize that a town is an hour away from any occurrent location depends on spatial and temporal semiosis. They virtually develop on the same continuum where they become distinct only after nowness actualizes the potentials of location. The temporal-center proves the actual-state of being or umwelt, from which any potential action becomes spatial relations of locations and necessarily includes, temporal relations of past and future events.

  • Mode: ER = General Spatial Semiosis.
  • State: SO = General Temporal Semiosis.
  • Mode: space; the location of points i.e., Potential_out → Actual_in
  • State: time; the length of cycles i.e., Actual_begin → Potential_end

Central Perspective of Time: The subjective state of the Q-unit provides the central perspective of a topic itself in-so-far as being an episode of the topic. e.g. present acts as the central perspective of the topic time, while, event acts as the discourse to attend such matters as the possible occurrences of events in time and implicates trace and goals.

  • (∀x) time(x) ⟹ [Future(present) ⊇ Past(event)(x)]

Central Perspective of Space: The subjective state of the Q-unit provides the central perspective of a topic itself in-so-far as being an episode of the topic. e.g. emptiness may act as the central perspective of the topic space, while, between acts as the discourse to attend such matters as the possible locations of objects in space and implicates locomotion and pathways.

  • (∀x) space(x) ⟹ [infinite(void) ⊇ finite(between)(x)]

Finally, quadranyms are like a kind of ‘deixis’. The spatial/temporal scheme for quadranyms is not about deictic content such as, here, there, beyond or before, now, then. Rather, spatial/temporal elements are an ontological matter of being-in-time and acting-in-space to which temporal cycles and spatial factors take form. Consider the space topic example, void acts as its ‘deictic center’ while between acts as the ‘deictic discourse’. That is, void acts as the constant perspective while, between becomes the variable discourse attending locations of objects. The Q-unit provides a central perspective for a topic itself in-so-far as being an episodic framework of the topic.

  • (∀x) deixis(x) ⟹ [Time(person) ⊇ Place(discourse)(x)]

A Deixis Topic: The topic follows the Q axiom. The activity initiates in the mode_time. It centers on the state_person. Activity is measured in the mode_place. Its potential condition is attended in the state_discourse.

  • Expansive Mode: Time = continuous_develop_perceive_potential.
  • Reductive Mode: Place = discrete_activity_envelop_measure_actual.
  • Objective State: Discourse = becoming_develop_condition_potential.
  • Subjective State: Person =  being_envelop_center_actual.

Q Gadgets: Social relations connect on paradigmatic units, units that are essentially gadgets built on instinctive responses of individuals. Temporal & spatial sense becomes an orientational gadget, to equivocate between trajectories of other gadgets, to satisfy the task of describing conditions.

  • Meaning is in the world while influencing meaning is in the organism.
  • The attempt is a prototypical view of human semiosis as being a dynamic of shared orientation that entails the orientational actions of the individual.

*(In word-sensibility theory (Q), a unit of context contributes to a Dynamical Context. It can be described as a sensation that fits a situation dynamically. The context becomes changed by the meaning in the situation. The situation is a truth condition while the dynamical context acts as an analog. It is used to increase one’s responsiveness to a situation but may produce paths to false conclusions.)

© 2000-2006 buildintuit.com All Rights Reserved