Semiotics of constructed complex systems
Christopher A. Landauer, Kirstie L. Bellman · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1996
The scope of this paper is limited to software and other constructed complex systems mediated or integrated by software. Our research program studies foundational issues that we believe will help us develop a theoretically sound approach to constructing complex systems. There have really been only two theoretical approaches that have helped us understand and develop computational systems: mathematics and linguistics. We show how semiotics can also play a role, whether we think of it as part of these other theories or as subsuming one or both of them. We describe our notion of {open_quotes}computational semiotics{close_quotes}, which we define to be the study of computational methods of dealing with symbols, show how such a theory might be formed, and describe what we might get from it in terms of more interesting use of symbols by computing systems. This research was supported in part by the Federal Highway Administration`s Office of Advanced Research and by the Advanced Research Projects Agency`s Software and Intelligent Systems Technology Office.