On Sun, 24 Dec 2023 at 13:10, David <[email protected]> wrote:I apologise for this late response, but all the hoopla over WiFi-7 seems to lose touch with two issues: the composition of the target market, and Shannon's famous equation describing the maximum bandwith of a noisy channel.
On 3/1/24 7:49 pm, Narelle Clark wrote:
From the November issue of the IEEE Communications Magazine there are some papers on 'Semantic Communication': "In contrast to the Shannon paradigm that focuses on correct reception of the transmitted packet regardless of its meaning, semantic communication is concerned with the issue of how to efficiently transmit and receive the desired meaning of the source content to the destination. By transmitting only the meaning or semantics of the source content, semantic communication holds the promise of making wireless networks significantly more energy-efficient, robust, and sustainable than ever before." Just what we need embedded in everything, huh? AI determining the "meaning" and summarising the lower layer communications for more efficient transmission. Discuss.
Isn't it depressing that such naive unworldiness can still be published, in *any* discipline.
There are categories of text that *can* be usefully treated in such a way, because the interpretative and values aspects are shared among utterers and readers (e.g. 'There are 15 widgets in that storage-bin'). The problem is with anyone being so daft as to think that a model that can be applied in such narrow contexts is generally applicable.
In a working paper recently, I needed to deal with this. The following is the long version (it's a working paper after all), so it lacks the necessary crispness:
> Text can be used in disciplined ways, which can be readily applied to structured data. For example, a data-item called Colour could be defined to permit a set of data-item-values that comprise, say 'red', 'green' and 'blue' (and/or 'rouge', 'vert' and 'bleu', etc.) - encoded for machine-readability according to the Unicode specification.
>> However, the original purpose of natural languages, and the ongoing practice, is not constrained in this way. In many languages, text has considerable diversity of grammar and spelling, and a great deal of semantic richness and hence ambiguity. It is also open to 'word-plays', such as pun (intentional ambiguity), metaphor and simile, and to irony (an intentionally false statement intended to be apparently so). The meaning of any given passage of text also depends on the surrounding text and multiple other elements of the context in which it was uttered.
>> Semiotics, the study of the use of symbolic communication, encompasses three segments (Morris, 1938):
> - Syntactics, concerned with the relations among signs, symbols and > any other form of data > - Semantics, concerned with the relations between data and real- > world things > - Pragmatics, concerned with the relations between data and people > who interpret data >> The structured data that IS has historically been concerned with is designed for efficiency, and this results in a focus on syntactic aspects, and on intentionally formalised and constrained semantics. The vast majority of text, on the other hand, evidences richness, flexibility of use, and context-dependence. Syntactics, including grammar and punctuation, provide some degree of structural framing, but considerable effort is required to interpret the content's semantics and pragmatics, and ambiguity is inherent.
...> Text is used as a primary basis for communication among humans. In a rationalistic approach to text, "it is assumed that each sentence in a natural language ... can be set into correspondence with one or more possible interpretations in a formal language ... for which the rules of reasoning are well-defined" (Winograd & Flores 1986, p.18). Those authors argue that, although this approach may be applicable in some circumstances, it fails in a great many others. Mention has already been made of ambiguities, diversity of grammar and spelling, playfulness in the use of natural language, and contextual dependence.
>> Beyond those issues, the propositions of hermeneutics are that the intention of the utterer is not directly conveyed to the reader, but rather that text is interpreted by the reader; and that the interpretation is based on that person's 'pre-understanding', such as their educational and cultural background and worldview (Gadamer 1976). In one of the clearer sentences in translations of Heidegger, "The foundation of any interpretation is an act of understanding, which is always accompanied by a state-of-mind ..." (Heidegger 1962, p.253).
>> In their discussion of computers and cognition, Winograd & Flores (1986 pp.111-114) instead adopt the term 'background' for the basis on which a human, or a computer, builds their/its interpretations. Because of the diversity among readers, any given passage is likely to be subject to multiple interpretations depending not only on the richness and ambiguities mentioned earlier, but also on the 'set' or 'mindset' of each human reader and/or the memory-states of each artefact that ingests it.
>> All text is subject to interpretation in ways other than that intended by its author. One example is the reading-in of sub-texts. Another is critique from the viewpoint of alternative value-sets, such as feminist readings of works written in male-dominated contexts, and post-colonialist perspectives on works originating in imperialist contexts. A further strong form of critical interpretation is 'deconstruction' in the sense of Derrida (1967), that is to say, the exploration of tensions and contradictions among the nominal and real intentions, and the various interpretations, of passages of text.
(Extract from 'The Authentication of Textual Assertions' (Aug 2023), at http://rogerclarke.com/ID/ATS.html ) -- Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected] T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.comXamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W. Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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