Two Way Language for Technology: Augmenting with Actions
10/28/2022 11:06 PM MST
philosophy, programming
Actions – Temporal version of a concept Super-Action – A collection of actions Envelope – The range of time the action or super-action occurs over
Actions occur over a time range contained within an envelope. Super-actions are collections of actions contained within an envelope as well. The actions contained within may typically be a sequence, but could also be simultaneous events, which start at the same time.
For example in the sentence, “I decided to move to Oklahoma”:
I is a form, “decided” is an action, “to” is a logical connective, the second “to” is also a logical connective, and finally Oklahoma is another form.
However, “decided to move” constitutes a super-action; a grouped sequence of actions which becomes a unique action in and of itself (entailing other contextual details.)
As a reminder, a concept (previously described here: https://epitaph128.github.io/posts/two_way_language_tech/) is similar to a super-action, in that it describes a collection of forms with their expected stances and qualities.
Next, a formula can be used to connect Source and Target actions, along with any after-effects or scope-narrowing language.
The basic formula is such: {A} x {B} y
{A} and {B} are two sets of objects, described using forms, stances, qualities, and concepts. These may be established, and likely are, by previous statements. The letter ‘x’ is an action or super-action which connects the set {A} to {B}, such as in the example “Bob hits Clark on the head.” Bob and Clark refer to two previously described entities, and “hits” is the action. Finally, ‘y’ in this case is a scope-narrowing usage: “on the head” which adds specificity to the action.
A basic action can be augmented with locational or temporal information as such:
[z] ( {A} x {B} y ) [z1, z2]
The ‘z’ values in [] are optional temporal indicative phrases. For example in the sentence “At five o’clock Mark arrived at the garage.” In this case “At five o’clock” indicates when Mark arrived at the garage, and “at the garage” indicates where Mark arrived. However, the first ‘z’ (the temporal one) in this case is optional, and only z1 is present.
In the sentence: “Two people whisper to each other at night under a street lamp.”
Two is a logical connective, people is a form, whisper is an action, to is a logical connective, each is a logical connective, other is a form, at night is z1 (a temporal specifier) and “under a street lamp” is z2 (a locational specifier.)
You may note that in the examples using descriptive language each word conveniently fits a class described previously. However, the z values are typically a collection of words instead, which makes things (from a compiler standpoint) not nearly as elegant. However, you may also note that, for example “at night” is composed of a logical connective and a form. “At” logically establishes “night” as the time the action occurred.
Obviously a lot more work needs to be done to allow for all acceptable English input.