I like Denning’s new definition for computation, information representations. I believe that it tends to the greater relationship that the mind shares with computing outside of a technology. I believe this touches on what we have learned this semester the most. When I signed up for my first semester of classes in CCT I was not aware of how much they would parallel. Even in 505, the technology my group is looking at the iPod and we talk about extended cognition. So yes, things have become clearer and this big picture of what communication, culture and technology is started developing.  To me, CCT not only focuses on methods and means, but what lies behind those methods and means. We ask multiple questions, not only How are we doing this? But also: Why are we doing this? Can we improve our process? What are other people doing?

Other thoughts:

Simon takes a different approach with the idea that symbols rely on the environment to determine their meaning. Symbols have to be physical real world things “…fabricated of glass and metal (computers) or flesh and blood (brains)” (p.22) This follows his ideas on computing; where computer parts are unreliable and we have to compensate for that by organizing the different (unreliable) parts in a way that works for us. Also, each function only becomes relevant once is it applied to the whole system. I think I understand what Simon is saying, but I am not sure it is something I groove to.

In the Wegner reading he says, “The radical notion that interactive systems are more powerful problem-solving engines than algorithms is the basis for a new paradigm for computing technology built around the unifying concept of interaction”

Can an interactive system be considered an algorithm with interruption and adjustment included? There is still the idea of going through a process of categorizing, but instead of waiting for the outcome to be produced from an algorithm, there is an opportunity to adjust that process to receive a different outcome… maybe?

References:

Denning, Peter (2010) “What Is Computation?” Originally published in Ubiquity (ACM)

Simon, Herbert (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Excerpt.

Wegner, Peter (1997)  “Why Interaction Is More Powerful Than Algorithms.” Communications of the ACM 40, no. 5: 80–91.

In his video and throughout his readings, Alan Kay explains how user interface design is much more than making friendly interfaces or aesthetically pleasing designs for the computer screen like we see today. We take for granted the fact that user interface draw from the very roots of cognitive distribution and meaning making. In Microelectronics and Personal Computer Kay talks about two basic approaches to personal computing: “The first one which is analogous to musical improvisation, is exploratory: effects are caused in order to see what they are like and errors are tracked down, understood and fixed. The second, which resembles musical composition, calls for a great deal more of planning, generality, and structure.” This applies to Kay’s idea of utilizing doing, images, and symbols to build and learn. Lauren and I wanted to put Kay’s thoughts into a different lane. How can this was of thinking be used when talking about natural sciences, more specifically environmental science or zooarchaeology?

E.O. Wilson, the father of biogeography says in Letters to a Young Scientist, “Everyone sometimes daydreams like a scientist at one level or another … fantasies are the fountainhead of all creative thinking. The images evoked are at first vague. They may shift in form and fade in and out. They grow a bit firmer when sketched as diagrams on pads of paper, and they take on life as real examples are sought and found.” Dr. Wilson’s book goes on to say that all discoveries are first fantasies and in many ways these fantasies are very visual and the process of making these fantasies is the foundation for new science. In this respect, the future of coding or designing in digital spaces is a new frontier for creative thinking. In simulations, there is also the making process that can lead to new questions and discovery. Today, the affordances of free and open access 3D modeling software is changing the realm of discovery and exploration in science. It allows for the creation of something that one can then look at from many different angles and in making comes method through both process and completion.

Lauren

For example, I experimented within several 3D modeling software programs including 123D Design and MeshMixer. In the process of making a 3D model of a sea anemone, questions arose about the structure and anatomy of the species itself. A 2­D image of a white sea anemone provided the basis for the creation. In the first trial of making the anemone (Image 1), the 3D object was turned and I noticed that my concept of the anemone still existed in a 2­D space because I only edited the piece on a flat plane.

In the second trial (Image 2), I had to use my imagination and begin seeing the 2­D photo as if it was in a 3D.

Finally, the finished version (Image 3) attempted to look like the photograph from a front flat view but then take into consideration how the sizing of each arm would be spaced from each other and how some sections were anatomically different than others.

The playful nature I had to adopt for this creation aided in my own understanding of the potential anatomy of the sea anemone. I had to edit and reedit the piece to make sure it was physically possible but also resembled the picture I was given. In this context, we see making as method for I began asking new and complex questions about both the anatomy of the animal as well as the affordances of the software program. While this was just a personal experiment exploring software programs, I learned a lot about how my visual and spacial brain operated. I think that this is an exercise that could be beneficial for the development of “non­normal science” education. If ecologists and technologist are looking for a paradigm shift, it could be of their interest to allow more making and fantasy into curriculums and methods. Making instead of just seeing an image of the anemone caused me to ask more internal questions about how this animal might eat, grow, and breathe. The future of 3D modeling can combine the use of fantasy and new making in 123d Design and Meshmixer with the use of other softwares like 123d Catch that would copy and recreate exact dimensions of objects.

Carson

While I was at VCU I worked in the Virtual Curation Lab. There we would scan, replicate and print any kind of artifact we could get our hands on. This included some faunal remains. I did lots of work with 3D modeling at zooarchaeology. I preferred working with animal remains, because I felt like not only was I learning about the process of 3D modeling, I was also forced to learn the osteology of different north american animals. Sometimes I would print out the different structures and paint them to look like real bone (I will bring some stuff I have in) to be used in small exhibits around campus. Other times I would play around and try to create a frankenstein like 3D model of whatever animal I was working on, by taking bones from other similar animals (or the same species)  to try and create a full skeleton. Then I would sometimes think about what this animal would look like if it was real. For example, once I almost put together a whole raccoon skeleton by filling in with opossum bones where stuff was missing. I named it “Raccopossum” and kind of pictured an all grey raccoon with a long opossum tail. Also doing this it forced me to ask myself questions like, Would Raccopossum be a marsupial? Would it be able to stand on its hind legs at times like Raccoons can? Well obviously it would be a good climber… and so on. I do not think this symbiotic process would not have occurred without the availability of 3D modeling.  

References:

Kay, Alan C. “Microelectronics and the Personal Computer.” Scientific American 237, no. 3 (September 1977): 230-44.

Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, “Personal Dynamic Media” (1977), excerpt from The New Media Reader, ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Originally published in Computer10(3):31–41, March 1977.

Alan Kay’s original paper on the Dynabook concept: “A Personal Computer for Children of all Ages.” Palo Alto, Xerox PARC, 1972).

Wilson, Edward O. Letters to a Young Scientist. New York: Liveright Corporation, a Division of W.W. Norton, 2013.

Computing as a Symbolic Process:

I found Mahoney’s point about computation as a symbolic process very interesting. He states “Computation is about rewriting strings of symbols [and]… The symbols and their combinations express representations of the world” (p.129). Like we went over last week, this is very apparent in programming languages. The symbols Mahoney refers to are probably functions, variables, for loops and other commands within programming languages. This idea carries into Conery’s article. Conery talks about the need for agents in computing, “clearly there must be some structure to the computation, otherwise one could claim any connection of random symbols a constituted state” (p.815). There needs to be reason and order for there to be an output. I believe that the fact that there needs to be these things to create an output, makes this process symbolic.

J.A.R.V.I.S:

J.A.R.V.I.S Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, created by Tony Stark (aka Iron Man, aka Robert Downey Jr.), is an operating system with the ability to complete complex tasks and communicate using context.

I am not 100% sure if this is what Engelbart, Sutherland, Licklider or Bush had in mind at the time for HCI, but I don’t think this concept would seem too out of reach for them. J.A.R.V.I.S is the ultimate memex, not only can Tony Stark store all of his “memory” but he can also communicate with J.A.R.V.I.S to access these memories at a rapid pace. J.A.R.V.I.S also fulfills some of Licklider’s Man-Computer Symbiosis ideas. There is a developed partnership and relationship between Tony Stark and J.A.R.V.I.S where they problem solve together. Obviously J.A.R.V.I.S is a fictional operating system…that I know of… but the functions presented do not seem unattainable.

Random thought:

Would Google’s function “Did you mean…” be an example of a kind of Man-Computer Symbiosis?

References:

Bush, Vannevar (1945)  “As We May Think,” Atlantic.

Conery, S. John (2002) “Computation Is Symbol Manipulation.” The Computer Journal 55, no.7. p.814-816.

Engelbart, “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework.” First published, 1962. As reprinted in The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, 93–108. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.

Ivan Sutherland,(1963) “Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System”.

J. C. R. Licklider, (1960)”Man-Computer Symbiosis”.

J. C. R. Licklider, (1986) “The Computer as Communication Device”.

Mahoney, Michael S. (2005) “The Histories of Computing(s).” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 30, no. 2 p.119–35.

The Game of Life is a program created by John Conway back in the 1970s ish… In this program, cells can live or die depending on binary, true/false statements. In Conway’s code each cell had neighbors. The number of neighbors each cell possessed during one sequence determined if that cell would live, die, or reproduce in the next sequence. The program would repeat itself (recursion) until there were only still life clusters of cells left. These were cells who had the correct amount of neighbors to live, but not the correct amount to reproduce.

(Sorry for this poor explanation… here is a gif to make up for it)

via GIPHY

(jk… here is an image)

The Game of Life has been re-created a countless number of times using various programming languages. I believe this is because it is such a straight forward visual example of what programming does. Everything is apparent, an abstraction of an abstraction if you will…

After working with Python for a few hours, I gained the confidence to try and create my own game of life via python. However, the software did not get along with my computer. So I had to stick to JavaScript. Below are a few frames from my game of life program. Instead of using squares to represent the cells, I used lines to show how the code can be manipulated.

Here is a link to the Game of Life Wikipedia page for general info.

Okay so the gif does not show up on the blog post, but the link works if you want to check it out…

Even with the introduction video and the introduction Dr. Irvine wrote for us, I found the concept of Information Theory difficult to grasp. Until… I got to the Denning and Bell essay, The Information Paradox, and everything started to make sense.

In Denning and Bell’s essay they say “Computing without reference to meaning works for communication channels but not for computation in general” (p.476). Then they go on to talk about how people who pay to play Word of Warcraft do not pay for the physical computing, but for the story that the computer generates. So the gamer is only on the meaning side?

This made me think about the art work I make in p5.js. I start by creating a program. I take bits that don’t mean anything on their own and put them together in a code like this:

Then, when I run this program I get an image like this:

In this case, am I on both sides of the spectrum? Or does this not count because I already have knowledge that when I put these bits together they are going to command the computer to do something specific?

Other Random Thought I Had:

My high school librarian once bet the senior class she would be able to guess a word of our (the senior class) choice out of the whole Oxford English Dictionary in less than 20 guesses. The catch was, that every word she guessed wrong we would have to say “before” or “after” depending on whether or not the word we chose was before or after the word she guessed. With every word she guessed her odds grew while the selection of words shrunk. This reminded me of Shannon’s use of bits. Asking simple Yes/No questions until you arrived at the correct answer. The librarian won the bet, it only took her about 11 tries before she got the word. It was “graduation” so not very clever on our part.

References:

James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. (New York, NY: Pantheon, 2011).

Martin Irvine, “Introduction to the Technical Theory of Information“.

Peter Denning and Tim Bell, “The Information Paradox.” From American Scientist, 100, Nov-Dec. 2012.

Ronald E. Day, “The ‘Conduit Metaphor’ and the Nature and Politics of Information Studies.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51, no. 9 (2000): 805-811.

Carson Collier

As most of you probably do not know, it is illegal to curse in the commonwealth of Virginia. If caught and found guilty, there is up to a $250 fine for each profanity used. As you can imagine, this law is not enforced very often. Until you take a visit to Virginia Beach and see the signs attached to street lamps all over the boardwalk. (Image 1)

Image 1
vabeach.com

Looking at the sign as a whole, we can apply it to some different models. With Saussure’s dyadic model there is a Signified and a Signifier, and the relationship these share creates a sign. “A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified…” (Chandler, p. 15). In this case the signified would be the actual sign and the signifier would be the indication that you are in a ‘no cursing zone’.

In Peirce’s Model there is the representamen, an interpretant and an object. The representamen is the physical sign itself. The interpretant is that this is a no cursing zone. The object is that the combination of the physical sign and the indication of a “no cursing zone” evoke a feeling of ‘warning’ or ‘no’.

NOW…

Let us look at the different aspects of the sign. First, we see a big red ‘no’ symbol (Image 2). This aspect of the sign is iconic, it is commonly known to indicate some kind of warning. This indication of a warning is almost instant and you know to look for what the warning is referring to.

Image 2
Wikipedia.Com 

After our brain processes the ‘warning’ or ‘no’ aspect of the sign, we see a sequence of characters meant to convey profanity. What I find interesting about this, is that any sequence of characters can covey ‘profanity’. This particular order does not have a different meaning then something like this:

$#@&*!!

Or this:

S**T

Does this idea fall under a different set of rules?

Fun Fact
According to www.vabeach.com the fines associated with this law brought it over $6,000 worth of profit for the city. 

References:

Chandler, D. (2007) Semiotics: The Basics. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

Irvine, M. “Introduction to Meaning Systems and Cognitive Semiotics“.

Semiotic Elements and Classes of Signs

What is language?

Language is a kind of meaning system used for communication and expression. Language can be expressed three different ways, through speech, writing, or signs. Language is something that is unique to humans. The main question linguists have about language is “Where did it come from?” Was it developed by human cognition because of the development of culture? Or, Is the ability for language already wired in the Homo sapiens brain?  [1]

What is “a language?”

The essential features that enable a language to be “a language” include sounds, words and sentences. An example of “a language” could be French, English, Chinese or Hindi. Each one of the languages listed has a specific structure that has to be learned in order to communicate in that language effectively. I took French courses throughout high school and college. In these courses I had to learn the correct structure of a French sentence vs the English structure I was comfortable with. For example, in English I could say “Jane is wearing a red bathing suit” this translates to “Jane porte un maillot de bain rouge” in French. If I were to take this sentence word for word and translate it back to English, I would get “Jane is wearing a bathing suit red.” This is cool because these rules can be recorded, documented and tested. However, when it comes to the idea of language as a meaning system, it is much harder to record, document or test. [2]

In this case the chicken is symbolic thought and the egg is material culture. In Mind and Matter: Cognitive Archaeology and External Symbolic Storage Renfrew implies that we are living in a world that we have created, “without artefacts, material goods, many forms of thought simply could not have been developed” (p.2). This is backed up by Donald’s thoughts from Social Brain Matters. Donald believes that “culture is not secondary” and that culture forms the mind before the mind forms culture. On the other hand, in The Archaeology of Mind: It’s Not What You Think, Barrett argues that the human conscious has not “evolved as a product of mental representations, but by a means of what I will refer to as an embodied empathy” (p.6). Barrett also goes on the critique the inconsistent meanings for the term ’symbolic’.

In order to evaluate these contradictory ideas, I think we have to look further back. Wong’s article The Morning of the Modern Mind: Symbolic Culture gives evidence that the human behavior (cognitive behavior) had emerged much earlier than initially thought, “modern human behavior emerged over a long period in a process more aptly described as evolution than revolution” (p.91).

This leads me to my main questions (some are a stretch):

Do we need to come to a collective agreement about the term ‘symbolic’ and what it consist of in order to move on in the field of cognition? Or does this debate fuel further inquiries into the origin of human cognition?

Where is the line between instinct and intentional/learned behavior? Does early tool making count as instinct or learned? What about organized hunting? Other species hunt in groups, is it the lack of weapons that draw this ‘instinct’ line?

When Barrett talks about human consciousness evolving by a means of embodied empathy, is he referring to evolution in a linear sense? There are multiple studies/theories out that claim dogs are empathetic creatures as well. Does this notion that other species could evolve to be cognitive thinkers? Or, regarding Barrett, is this not possible due to the lack of “cultural networks” within other species communities? And this is not evolution in a linear sense, but in a nonlinear, more arbitrary sense?

http://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/967735/Sophisticated/

References:

Barrett, J.C., “The Archaeology of Mind: It’s Not What You Think.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23, no. 01 (2013): 1-17.

Donald, M. “Evolutionary Origins of the Social Brain,” from Social Brain Matters: Stances on the Neurobiology of Social Cognition, ed. Oscar Vilarroya, et al. Amsterdam: Rodophi, 2007.

Renfrew, C. “Mind and Matter: Cognitive Archaeology and External Symbolic Storage.” In Cognition and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Symbolic Storage, edited by Colin Renfrew, 1-6. Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1999.

Wong, K. “The Morning of the Modern Mind: Symbolic Culture.” Scientific American 292, no. 6 (June 2005): 86-95.

During undergrad I took an ‘Anthropological Theories’ class. One of the PowerPoint slides was dedicated to semiotics, and my professor spent a solid five minutes trying to explain this concept to the class. Back then it was a very difficult concept to grasp. And…

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130714192405/spongebob/images/7/79/Muchmuchmuchlater.jpg

… nothing has changed.

With that, I present some of the notes I jotted down while reading for this week:

Martin Irvine, “The Grammar of Meaning Making: Signs, Symbolic Cognition, and Semiotics”

“We will not seek to follow or establish a doctrine, but develop the best and clearest tools for thought and models for meaning processes that we can assemble from an interrelated knowledge base across many disciplines” (p.1)

• My biggest issue: We are trying to create the testable models to measure meaning processes, but wouldn’t the process of coming up with a testable model be a meaning process itself? How does this work?

“However close we can get to describing the neuro-bio-cognitive bases of the symbolic faculties, we will also need to recognize that “meanings aren’t in our heads.”” (p. 12)

• This reminded me of agency, the idea humans act independently, but only within in the social constructs of the community. That being said, I ask: Do these meanings come from our surroundings and are then produced in our heads? Is there always an outside factor triggering our thoughts? If this is true, and we are not always aware of said ‘outside factors’ are hiding in the unobservable interfaces of the human mind?

Martin Irvine, “Semiotics, Symbolic Cognition, and Technology: A Reader of Keys Texts” 

“Now spoken sounds are symbols of mental experiences, and written marks are symbols of spoken sounds.” (p. 2)

• Honestly, I just think this is very nice, you go Aristotle!

“…something only becomes a sign when interpreted as such in a system of correlations understood by someone in a community sign-users acting intersubjectively as cognitive agents.” (p. 15)

• So according to Peirce a sign has to be understood by a community. Are there limits to what a community can be? How many agents are needed for a community? For instance, if I come up with something arbitrary, like a nickname for my computer, would that count as a sign if I am the only one aware of the nickname? Or is it not the actual nickname itself that is the sign, but the concept of nicknames within a community?

https://i.imgflip.com/11inrg.jpg