Re: Emergent Semantics

> We can envision data structures, e.g. trees and graphs, which contain
recursive substructures, e.g. subtrees and subgraphs, such that each
substructure can be adorned with semantic content. We can refer to this
content which adorns structures and substructures as *emergent semantics*.

Sure, you can refer to it as pickled cucumbers too, but it is not helpful
to do so. Similarly, to refer to a bunch of data structures as 'emergent
semantics' tells me nothing about those data structures, and the vast
majority of times any set of data or knowledge structures will not likely
be regarded as 'emergent semantics' by anyone.  But that misses the point.

The real question is to tease out characteristics and aspects of what
people mean when they talk about emergent semantics, or emergent phenomenon
of any sort, e.g. consciousness is often cited as an example.   The idea of
the whole being greater than the parts seems highly relevant.  Google
'emergent semantics' and see what you get. This is one hit:
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-39940-9_1311

*Emergent semantics* refers to a set of principles and techniques analyzing
the evolution of decentralized semantic structures in large scale
distributed information systems. Emergent semantics approaches model the
semantics of a distributed system as an ensemble of relationships between
syntactic structures. They consider both the representation of semantics
and the discovery of the proper interpretation of symbols as the result of
a self-organizing process performed by distributed agents exchanging
symbols and having utilities dependent on the proper interpretation of the
symbols. This is a complex systems perspective on the problem of dealing
with semantics.

Good luck!


On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 6:44 PM Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Semantic Web Interest Group,
>
> Artificial Intelligence Knowledge Representation Community Group,
>
>
>
> Greetings. I would like to broach, for discussion, emergence and emergent
> semantics.
>
>
>
> We can envision data structures, e.g. trees and graphs, which contain
> recursive substructures, e.g. subtrees and subgraphs, such that each
> substructure can be adorned with semantic content. We can refer to this
> content which adorns structures and substructures as *emergent semantics*.
>
>
>
> An example scenario is that of natural language where sentences are
> comprised of lexemes and where sentences are thought to have more semantic
> content than the sum of the semantic content of the lexemes. Another
> example is that of narratives, comprised of events, where narratives are
> thought to have more semantic content than the sum of the semantic content
> of the events which comprise a fabula.
>
>
>
> In the example of natural language, we can envision lexeme data structures
> as being adorned with semantics (collections of triples, quads or predicate
> calculus expressions) which indicate the meanings of the lexemes. We can
> envision phrases, containing and comprised of the lexemes, as being adorned
> with semantic content. We can envision sentences, containing phrases and
> lexemes, as being similarly adorned. Paragraphs, comprised of sentences,
> may, too, be adorned with emergent semantics—and so on.
>
>
>
> In the example of narratives, we can envision event data structures as
> being adorned with semantics which indicate the events’ meanings/contents.
> We can envision graphs of interrelated events as being adorned with
> emergent semantic content. We can envision graphs containing subgraphs of
> interrelated events – each structure and substructure adorned with emergent
> semantics.
>
>
>
> Is there any interest here in emergent semantics? Could anybody recommend
> any hyperlinks or publications?
>
>
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Adam Sobieski
>
>
>


-- 

Michael Uschold
   Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts
   http://www.semanticarts.com
   LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaeluschold
   Skype, Twitter: UscholdM