General Semantics: human engineering and humanology, pseudoscience or ontology

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Azamat Abdoullaev

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Sep 9, 2021, 1:41:39 PM9/9/21
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If general semantics is a part of ontology/metaphysical philosophy, new human engineering or pseudoscience, as neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) 
General semantics is concerned with how events translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own responses, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. It can serve as an antidote to certain kinds of delusional thought patterns in which necessarily incomplete and possibly warped mental constructs are projected onto the world and treated as reality itself. 
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.

Alex Shkotin

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Sep 10, 2021, 3:59:02 AM9/10/21
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чт, 9 сент. 2021 г. в 20:41, Azamat Abdoullaev <ontop...@gmail.com>:
If general semantics is a part of ontology/metaphysical philosophy, new human engineering or pseudoscience, as neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) 
General semantics is concerned with how events translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own responses, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. It can serve as an antidote to certain kinds of delusional thought patterns in which necessarily incomplete and possibly warped mental constructs are projected onto the world and treated as reality itself. 
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.

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Azamat Abdoullaev

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Sep 10, 2021, 5:36:48 AM9/10/21
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GS was designed as a good case of transdisciplinary research, finally degenerated to semantics as the study of language meaning and some pseudoscientific practices, as NLP.
It could interrelate reality, cognition and language, as a complement to general ontology.
GS has solid premises, as determinism, holism, abstracting and non-Aristotelianism.
It sorts out the issue of sumulacra, modeling and simulation, when we easily mix-up a map or data structure with its territory or real meaning.
"In general semantics, it is always possible to give a description of empirical facts, but such descriptions remain just that—descriptions—which necessarily leave out many aspects of the objective, microscopic, and submicroscopic events they describe. According to general semantics, language, natural or otherwise (including the language called 'mathematics') can be used to describe the taste of an orange, but one cannot give the taste of the orange using language alone. According to general semantics, the content of all knowledge is structure, so that language (in general) and science and mathematics (in particular) can provide people with a structural 'map' of empirical facts, but there can be no 'identity', only structural similarity, between the language (map) and the empirical facts as lived through and observed by people as humans-in-environments (including doctrinal and linguistic environments)".

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Avril Styrman

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Sep 10, 2021, 5:39:46 AM9/10/21
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Can anyone give an understandable definition of "semantics".


Cheers,

Avril

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David Eddy

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:04:51 AM9/10/21
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Avril -


On Sep 10, 2021, at 5:39 AM, Avril Styrman <avril....@gmail.com> wrote:

Can anyone give an understandable definition of "semantics”.

Excellent point.


To best of my imprecise experience, there are (at least):

1/ - semantics, linquistics

2/ - semantics, mathematics


It is my belief that #2 is the predominant assumption in discussions about the SemanticWeb “stack.”

Again… to best of my knowledge, there are no / minimal #1 in SemWeb.

I did see Sir Tim Berners-Lee in person state that his initial intent for what is now labeled “Semantic Web” (aka SemWeb) was “linked data” … but that was deemed too bland & the sexy “SemanticWeb” was the MARKETING label chosen.

SemWeb does a good job with linking / connecting data.  

It does NOT address the semantic meaning facet.


Please to point me in right direction to settle this debate.

- David

Philip Jackson

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:11:03 AM9/10/21
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How about: "semantics" means meaning. 

Or, from WordNet 2.1:

The noun semantics has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
                                     
1. semantics -- (the study of language meaning)

Cheers,

PCJ

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Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] General Semantics: human engineering and humanology, pseudoscience or ontology
 

David Eddy

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:20:47 AM9/10/21
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Philip -


On Sep 10, 2021, at 7:11 AM, Philip Jackson <philipcj...@hotmail.com> wrote:

The noun semantics has 1 sense

No annotation as to which dictionary you’re using.  I have some edition of Oxford, with varioius English.


I have a HUGH problem with “1 sense”…  A term [1] with a single sense is essentially statistically irrelevant in my book.


I’ll counter with the perfectly good term “cc” with 298 meanings in 2006 & 465 today.



Excellent example of the core challenge… is Azamat using “NLP” to mean “natural language process” (the dominant usage on this forum) or “neural linguistic programming?"

- David


[1] term={word, phrase, acronym, abbreviation, string of character(s), initialism…}

Alex Shkotin

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:32:12 AM9/10/21
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Hi PCJ,

I count on m-w https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics
with seven items of sense:-)

Alex

пт, 10 сент. 2021 г. в 14:11, Philip Jackson <philipcj...@hotmail.com>:
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Philip Jackson

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:39:16 AM9/10/21
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David,

I quoted WordNet 2.1, which again says:

"The noun semantics has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
                                     
1. semantics -- (the study of language meaning)"

WordNet is, in effect, a dictionary.

As Alex Shkotin noted separately, Webster's dictionary gives more senses, at:


However, I was responding to Avril Styrman's request for an understandable definition of semantics. So, I started with a simple,  recursive definition:

"semantics" means meaning.

Philip


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Alex Shkotin

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:41:22 AM9/10/21
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Avril,

to get a definition you should specify which one
image.png
:-)

Alex

пт, 10 сент. 2021 г. в 12:39, Avril Styrman <avril....@gmail.com>:
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Philip Jackson

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Sep 10, 2021, 7:48:42 AM9/10/21
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P.S. WordNet 3.1 gives two definitions:

Noun

  • S: (n) semantics (the study of language meaning)
  • S: (n) semantics (the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text) "a petty argument about semantics"
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Ferenc Kovacs

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Sep 10, 2021, 8:20:57 AM9/10/21
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A very insightful British linguist has come out with a new paradigm with respect to semantics. In his DEED paradigm he claims that the terminology in formal, descriptive grammar shouéd be superseeded by an "interpretive" grammar meaning that any utterance in a given natural language shall be undestood both as a description and as an explanation. This is a reference to a plausible model where the speaker is never acting on his own, he must have a counterpart. When listening and reading we begin with Description and proceed to Explanation.When speaking andr writing we begin with Explanation and proceed to Description (DEED). The point is to generate a description that matches the explanation in the minds of both parties, which is of course is omly  tentatively true amd hypothetical only.. https://www.davidcrystal.com/Files/BooksAndArticles/-4142.pdf . Now as far as "the content of all knowledge is structure" it should be appreciated that if there is "content" to "knowledge", most of them come in pairs of abstract words such as form and content, quality and quantity, structure and function, abstract and concrete and generic and specific, etc. in addition ot the concepts of space-time all highly often used in the descriptive nowledge of various sciences and understangings.
Crystal's duality is highly relevant in interpreting meaning as such and one cansay that thre is no sense in a single word, no meaning is possible withour involving a second part, which in case of the simplest form calls for a simple clause of the SP form. In semantically analysing statements and proposiitons - with a view of an interpretive grammar - the fina product shall not be a truth or logical value, because the origins of natual languages do not render such a balony. Instead, you will arrive to rge semantic primitives of object, property and relation that many conceive as the counterparts of nouns, adjectives and verbs as content words. Of course, this idea calls for further details ro be exposed that may not be appropriate this time.
Ferenc Kovacs . 
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Nadin, Mihai

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Sep 10, 2021, 2:14:21 PM9/10/21
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Dear and respected colleagues,

As long as you are captive to the language/linguistics based definition you will move in circles. Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics are semiotically defined (in respect any form of representation: words, images, mathematical symbolism, sounds, etc.). Meaning, in my view (I will not force upon you any of my texts on the matter), is a matter of pragmatics: words, or other representations have meaning in respect to what we do with them. Frege distinguished between Sinn (sense) and Bedeutung (meaning).

 

Indeed, what the linguistic based definition says it that we share an understanding (usually formalized in dictionaries or encyclopaedia). But this shared understanding is NOT the meaning: how do I use the integral sign (derived from a sign for summation) for some purpose (calculate the volume of a geometric figure, for example) is the meaning of the integral sign (or any other signs/words/images…

 

Why do we continue to move in circles (quoting authors and articles) instead of realizing that the syntax machine called computer has no semantics (regardless of how you want to define it).

Best wishes.

 

PS The meaning of SARS-CoV-2 is what we do to avoid getting sick. Not what various individuals understand this representation to be, or what they think the virus is.

 

Mihai Nadin

www.nadin.ws

  

 

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Can anyone give an understandable definition of "semantics".

Syntax_Semantic_Pragmatic.jpg

Alex Shkotin

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Sep 11, 2021, 4:26:40 AM9/11/21
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Dear Mihai,

There is no circle here just different meanings. For example, for GS we have "a doctrine and educational discipline intended to improve habits of response of human beings to their environment and one another especially by training in the more critical use of words and other symbols" [1]

Alex

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/general%20semantics




пт, 10 сент. 2021 г. в 21:14, Nadin, Mihai <na...@utdallas.edu>:
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Avril Styrman

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Sep 11, 2021, 4:26:44 AM9/11/21
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Thanks Mihail and all who commented.

It seems that in many cases, the meaning of a thing can be genuinely understood only via an understandable ontology. For instance, a system of temporal logic can be understood by mapping it to or founding it on an understandable ontology of time. A system of physics can be understood when its mathematics formalizes an understandable ontology. Then again, the basic ontology must be characterizable by common sense concepts. 



Cheers,

Avril

Alex Shkotin

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Sep 11, 2021, 4:41:02 AM9/11/21
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Avril,

You know as much I love dictionaries:-) Please look here [1] and here [2].
What about formal ontology? The term they do not have;-) but we are working for:-)

Alex

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ontology
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physics

сб, 11 сент. 2021 г. в 11:26, Avril Styrman <avril....@gmail.com>:
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