Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:55:56 -0500, Jefferson Wilson
<jeffwilson63@...> wrote:

>>  Again, you're thinking in complicated and obfuscated mathematical
>> jargon.
>
> No I'm thinking about what is needed to convey information.
No, you're not. I can convey information in ways that are utterly outside
your "needed" theory, just by drawing word symbols in an arrangement that
I invent as I see fit.

> If you have another definition, feel free to define it.
Yes: a connection is some kind graphical mark that is used indicate some
kind of semantic or syntactic link between two symbols in a written
language, which connection may be more or less defined by the rules of
that specific writing system, and may more or less be constrained by the
type of connection in writing systems that allow and define more than one
type of connection. It is, in short, a graphical object, not a
mathematical construct. It's a definition which does not require a degree
in higher mathematics to understand (nor indeed much of a familiarity with
linguistic theory), and I would have thought it was a definition which is
immediately and instinctively apparent to any nonspecialised reader.

>> Most people do not conlang based on the axioms of information theory.
>> I  don't see why we should be con-scripting based on the axioms of map
>> theory.
>
> We AREN'T con-scripting.  We're THEORIZING ABOUT conscripting. If you
> can't see how map theory applies to conscripting theory I pity you.
We are indeed theorizing. I feel that what you're doing is more akin to
theorizing about theorizing about conscripting. A second-order or meta
theorizing, I'd argue, and in terms of specialized mathematical theory
rather than terms of linguistics. I don't *care* what Spazinsky's Reverse
Superinflation Theory says about the number of n-thoganal polyspaces
containable within a left handed screwdriver, if I can quickly and
trivially draw a doodle that operates outside that theory.



Paul

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