Posted by dorayme on 02/21/07 00:11

In article <slrnetmv6t.63d.spamspam@bowser.marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam@spam.eggs> wrote:

> On 2007-02-20, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > In article
> ><1171973546.077490.239830@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Andy Dingley" <dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 20 Feb, 01:50, dorayme <doraymeRidT...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> [...]
> >> > "only the signified conveys real meaning"? What?
> >>
> >> Yes. That's what we define it to mean. We invent these new term-usages
> >> and we define them as "expression of" and "thing expressed". Thus far
> >> I don't see much scope for bollockspeakery. Signifiers don't have
> >> meaning, they just point to the thing that does carry the meaning.
> >
> > This is just false. They point to no such thing. There is no such
> > thing. It is an illusion you are chasing, a ghost. There is no
> > "thing" that carries the meaning in most cases. The closest you
> > will ever get to a thing being "meant" is a proper name and the
> > thing named. And even then, the name does not mean the object.
> > But at this point, I better stop, no?
>
> If you want, but you make the case well.
>
> Continental philosophobabble or not though, the authoring tool idea does
> sound interesting.
>
> I'm not sure how it would work. ...


No one is sure how these things should work. My point has been
that no help can be expected from certain quarters (mainly
cumbersome obscure linguistic theories). If website making is to
retain an ability to express information and style to accommodate
all the important varying criteria without railroading the
process into something that severely stifles creativity, then we
are going to have to solve problems of a very much bigger order
of magnitude than is supposed by the naively idealistic. The
problem is a deep one to do with machines understanding meaning.

AI has been in its "infancy" for a long time now and for very
good reason. We have little idea about the operating system of
the animal brain, we have some knowledge of the hardware but only
in a rudimentary way - the truth being that we never will be able
to describe the hardware properly without the descriptions being
informed by a better theory about the overall "operating system".

It is not that there is no operating system, there is, imo at
least. And a spectacularly sophisticated one. It is that
something as complex as the human brain in particular, that took
countless millions of years to develop, is not likely to be
simple to understand. There was no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates with
the plans and intentions and the implementation codes.

I do not doubt that a WYSIWIG that combines a practical
collection of all the best that is in Dreamweaver, Freeway and
what have you is going to be useful or time saving. I just think
that given all the different things folk want to publish, there
will be for quite some time a need for a lot of specific user
hand holding controls.

Let me put it simply, if not accurately: the user will still need
to tell the machine that this or that is a paragraph or group of
paras.

While I am at it, have you noticed how every few days if not
every day on this ng, someone will ask how to automate this or
that? There are sometimes nice replies, sometimes pie in the sky
ones. All sorts of handy little tricks and tips and helpers are
offered. The best we will do for a while is to have whole
collections of specialist programs that do simple things well. To
learn how to use them and use judgement. I am pessimistic that
one program can coordinate all these things, can take over the
"judgement" part for the foreseeable future.

--
dorayme

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