Semiotics of Computing: Filling the Gap Between Humanity and Mechanical Inhumanity

Abstract

This chapter aims to overview the frontier of application of semiotics to computing and discuss its signification, milieu, and future. Such an overview of the semiotics of computing suggests future paths that could form a research domain under the name of computational semiotics. Research in this domain could reveal the advantages and disadvantages of human signs in comparison to mechanical signs, so that machines could be designed better to support human semiosis. At the same time, such comparison could also provide better understanding of the nature of signs and sign systems as an epistemological tool.Before overviewing the current train of thought on this topic, I first examine the signification of the semiotics of computing. The marriage of computing and semiotics would bring signification to both fields, as shown intuitively in Fig. 44.1 and also as explained in the following two subsections. Formalization of Semiotics Through ComputingThe purpose of semiotics, in general, is to explain signs and sign systems and describe their general characteristics and structure, and thus, to establish a methodology for their explanation. Underlying these considerations is the question of the meaning of meaning, or how signs convey meaning. The object of semiotic analysis has traditionally been sign systems for human interpretation: natural language, text, communication, code, symbolic systems, sign language, and various art forms.This means that such semiotic studies must be conducted without a clearly delineated separation between the sign system to be analyzed and that used for its study.

On thresholds: signs, symbols and significance

“…Computational semiotics as proposed by Nadin (2011) offers other polysemiotic possibilities. Tanaka-Ishii (2015, p. 982) suggests that since “computing is a mechanical interpretive process, it is explicit, well formed, and rigorous. In fact, computing is the only existing large-scale case of semiosis with an explicit, fully characterized interpreter external to the human interpretive system.…”