1998 Conference on Intelligent Systems and Semiotics [ISAS 98]
with
Special Session on
Computational Semiotics
Sept 14-17, 1998, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland USA
Session Chair: Burghard B.Rieger
by
Gerd Döben-Henisch
INM - Institute for New Media
Daimlerstr. 32
D-60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel: ++49-69-941963-10
Fax: ++49-69-941963-22
email: doeb@inm.de
URL: http://www.inm.de/kip/kip.html
Abstract
A formal theory which deals with the principal mechanisms inherent in adaptive semiotic agents is presented. These agents are members of a homogeneous population of similar agents and are capable of developing a language-like sign-system independent of human interactions. With the aid of this sign-system, the agents can understand each other, communicate states of the surrounding environment, and coordinate their behavior. An important factor of this sign-system is the body of the agent, which functions as a base sign and whose behavior patterns give rise to more elaborate forms of a language-like communication. A second important factor is the ability of the organism to distinguish between its body and other objects. Knowledge about its own internal states is utilized to project the probable internal states of other objects. This results in a working hypothesis about possible intentions and plans of the other object.
A mapping of the formal theory into a computational model is presented. The computational model is organized like an experimental laboratory, allowing the execution of controlled experiments with the various agents.
Although this theory only depicts a first generation of simple adaptive language learning agents, it claims to be compatible with the empirical data from developmental psychology, psychology of language, phonetics, as well as neurolinguistics.
From the point of view of philosophy of science and epistemology, this theory represents an attempt to reconstruct empirical theories as partial theories within the framework of an observer-based phenomenalistic (not phenomenological) theory. All statements within the theory about the agents are then equally statements about the person who is constructing these agents. Such a case is called a "reflexive closure", and empirical theories, which are in this way reflexively closed, are taken as philosophical theories. Within the common philosophical domain, semiotics is used here as a general framework-theory, within which the various special theories such as phonetics, psycholinguistics etc. are encompassed.