Re: Non-linear / full-2d writing systems?

On Thu, 5 May 2005 18:24:05 -0700, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:

>Language, as I'm sure you'll know, is not defined by its medium but by
>certain capabilities - generativity et al - that set it apart from
>what are merely codes or closed-class symbols (like morse code & bee
>dancing resepctively).
Not necessarily. Generativity and the use of arbitrary signs have been
reported by apes, for instance.


>> Your point sounds as if there were communication systems that are much more
>> powerful than speech (or language, as I'm used to call it with my
>> linguistical background).
>
>For certain things, yes; though that's a question of the expected
>utility. Obviously speech will be most powerful for communicating
>things that start out as audio; I don't see it having any other
>property, however, that makes it plausibly *more* powerful than say
>sign or full-2d (even N-d) writing sytesms, and I can see several that
>*could* work the other way, so yes, I think writing can be more
>powerful for certain not uncommon situations.
>
>> Mathematical codes, musical codes, pictures can only represent certain kinds
>> of information.
>
>Hardly, as they're all equivalent at an extremely basic level (viz. CS
>proofs of tree - array convertability).
I only understand half of it, but this sounds as if you were claiming that
for instance this discussion could as well be expressed in musical notes.
How could that be (apart from inventing an artificial script that uses
musical notes for letters)?

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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