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Semiotic Triangle
concrete object
[concrete] Sign external classific.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1867):
A sign is a [concrete] object (sign object)
which, for somebody, stands for something (concrete or abstract).
He distinguished three kinds of signs:
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Index
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sign objects with a causal connection (effective coupling) to their meaning.
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Eg. smoke means fire; symptoms mean deseases
-> ^signals in system theory as indexical signs
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Icon
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sign objects with resemblance to their meaning (in certain aspects).
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The examples in the literature are
pictures (from naturalist over expressionist to impressionist?),
pictogram (may require learning to recognize correctly)
- They mean what they look like.
In order to point out the relevance for computation,
I would like to add:
Analog representation is iconic
- Here one quantity (abstract, or of a certain physical quality)
is represented by another quantity (of a chosen physical quality).
Non-Effective Coupling
A physical model is an icon for the modeled system
- Here parts of the system (above a certain level) are represented
by (qualitatively different) parts of the model,
and behavior of the system are represented
by (qualitatively different) behavior of the model.
But beware:
Conceptual models are not signs
because not being physical they are not representation.
Instead they require representation themselves,
typically by model diagrams, ie. by symbolic icons.
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Symbol
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sign objects that are arbitarily related with their meaning
- this relation is established by (private or public) convention.
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All signs for
abstract concepts, and letters/syllables, must be symbolic.
Any form of digital representation
- Here a quantity (abstract or of some physical quality)
is represented by a numeral, ie. a string of digits.
Scripts of natural languages
Programming languages
Symbolic notation of maths, logic, etc.
- cf ethymology of symbols
Sign languages - eg. ASL
Traffic signs
Diagrams:
spatial information
(Venn diagrams,
Carroll's bilateral diagrams/trilateral diagrams,
Peirce's existential graphs),
associative networks
(Hesse diagrams,
Semantic networks,
Conceptual graphs,
E/R diagrams,
class diagrams, ...),
system diagrams
(Statecharts, flow charts,
Petri-net [diagrams],
control block diagrams,
connectionist network [diagrams],
dataflow diagrams,
sequence diagrams, ...)
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