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

> You may have a deadline - but, alas, an impossible project
> won't even make Sai's suggested end of September deadline.
> 	:=(
I suggest not surrendering to the assertions of others, but using them only
as additional hypothetical data. The merit in pursing a non-linear language
might come from as much from failures as successes - or degrees of success.
Moreover, don't let armchair "science" (a.k.a hypotheses) displace actual
attempts & tests.

> Actually, what this makes me think of is that Remi's row&col
> example was just a different, direct-conversion format for
> nested parenthesis.
While I like Remi's row&col example and can perceive that 2D/3D/4D ideograms
might be able to convey relationships otherwise difficult, I believe that
whatever the system, there will still be a translation from the image/though
to the ideogram(s). Sure, I can imagine a 4D image meaning "my screaming
harpy-esque mother", but there's a translation once it passes from being a
pure image. If I need pass that image on to another, then a whole set of
standardizations cause more translation.

> Which is why it is so strange to me to have it be portrayed
> as the communication itself, and suggestions for something
> else therefore appearing like a desire for telepathy by contrast.
It shouldn't be strange. As a species, we show a long continuing history of
taking the description (whether written word, spoken word, sculpture or
mental image) to be the same as the object, event, or experience.

> For that matter, it might serve as a test of competing
> theories of thought. If a system accurately mirrors the
> theory, then the one that is more accurate should also be the
> one with higher comprehension, retention,
> quick-comprehension, etc. rates, and be more robust against a
> game of Telephone.
This I can get behind, which it is why I'm eager to see the results of the
"competition". I had hoped to make my own contribution, but alas I've not
yet found a free CAD that will allow me to create, rotate and morph my own
"ideograms".

> No, no, no! I'm very serious. We're living
> in a 4D universe (space and time) and the
> concepts we handle with our mind are also
> 4D. So to be able to record thought, you
> need a 4D medium.
Thank you. I too live in a 4D world, and my "images" morph across time. As
far as my mental images, I believe that they "move" forward and back in time
just as they do in the other 3 dimensions: mentally seeing my deceased
father is neither more nor less real to me than mentally unfolding & folding
a tesseract, though the connotations/associations and subtleties are much
denser for my image of my father.

To me, the argument of linear vs. non-linear, besides suffering differing
definitions of those terms as much as from differing defs of 2D/3D/4D, is
one of density of information recorded via a medium and transferred to
another mind.

> Sounds like a topic heading to me...
Mysticism? Here? I refer you to the plethora of minute-by-minute posts on
www.beliefnet.com.

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