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S. I. Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action has been one of the course's handbooks for a memorable number of years already, but the manner in which it has been used has changed somewhat over the years. Although the basic concern of the book is with «informal» semantics (not the formal brand of semantics concerned with, e.g. the computation of truth-value), i.e. the «symbolic» way in which utterances are used to convey meaning, it also raises the more cognitive issue of how language affects human thought and conditions behaviour, and addresses the resulting «ethical» question of how language should be used to achieve cooperation and understanding rather than confrontation and conflict. These questions (though viewed in a somewhat «optimistic» perspective) give the book additional value as one of the pioneering works in «critical linguistics», a discipline which was to develop only much later.

"[...] Mazzagatti calls this new data structure the Triadic Continuum, in honor of the theories and writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the least well-known scientific geniuses of the late 19th century. Peirce, who is recognized as the father of pragmatism, is also known for his work in semiotics, the study of thought signs. Using Peirce's theoretical writings on how thought signs are organized into the structure of the human brain, Mazzagatti extrapolated a computer data structure that is self organizing - in other words, a data structure that naturally organizes new data by either building on the existing data sequences or adding to the structure as new data are introduced"

I quote: "Mazzagatti continued research into how Peirce's sign theory could be adapted to create a logical structure composed of signs that could be used in computers. Using Peirce's theoretical writings on how thought signs are organized into the structure of the human brain, Mazzagatti extrapolated a computer data structure that is self organizing - in other words, a data structure that naturally organizes new data by either building on the existing data sequences or adding to the structure as new data are introduced. "

How do chess players make decisions? How do they avoid the combinatorial explosion? How do we go from rooks and knights to abstract thought? What is abstract thought like? These are some of the questions involving the Capyblanca project. The name, of course, is a blend between José Raoul Capablanca, and Hofstadter's original Copycat Project implemented by Melanie Mitchell, which brought us so many ideas. Well, after almost 5 years, we have a proof-of-concept in the form of a running program, and we are GPL'ing the code, so interested readers might take it to new directions which we cannot foresee.

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may make Earth's oceans more acidic faster than previously thought-unbalancing ecosystems in the process, a new study says

Perhaps this is a meme worth exploring more generally but I thought others might be interested in my story, partly because it illustrates how funding drives scientists, and partly because it shows how the combination of opportunism and serendipity can make for successful bedfellows.

Vannevar Bush's 1945 article, "As We May Think," has been much celebrated as a central inspiration for the development of hypertext and the World Wide Web. Less attention, however, has been paid to Bush's motivation for imagining a new generation of information technologies; it was his hope that more powerful tools, by automating the routine aspects of information processing, would leave researchers and other professionals more time for creative thought. But now, more than sixty years later, it seems clear that the opposite has happened, that the use of the new technologies has contributed to an accelerated mode of working and living that leaves us less to think, not more. In this talk I will explore how this state of affairs has come about and what we can do about it.

Grockit is about questioning together. To this end, we are developing an online learning game where people can teach each other. Our organization is about the space where learning and technology meet. By combining our years of experience as teachers and developers, we are creating a place where learners can meet other learners. You can read more about our thoughts on learning and technology in our blog. You can also learn more about how we live and work at Grockit.

iLeonardo is an impressive site for those interested in research. It's a social utility that connects people and their notebooks which are collections of information from the Web. iLeonardo combines search methodologies, social bookmarks and social networks to produce relevant search results and ranking determined by people - not bots or publishers.The name of the service is obviously an homage to the legendary renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci, who was famous for his notebook collection of research information, thoughts and ideas. ILeonardo and its notebook collection technology strives to help the Leonardo's of the digital age. see: http://mashable.com/2008/09/01/research-tools/

MindCanvas is a research service to help companies gather insights about customers' thoughts & feelings. We use Game-like Elicitation Methods (GEMs) to let online users participate in answering the complex questions that you face in designing a product or service.

We are witnessing the rise of a new kind of web: contextual. You might not have heard or thought about it much yet, but you are already using it today. Search remains the killer app on the web, but context is quickly become a viable contender. Why? Because context is what happens instead of search.

As it tracks and analyzes thought and actions across the world, the Global Power Barometer (GPB) frequently catches sight of issues that will impact global politics. These are the issues that likely will move the icons in coming weeks. We'll share our peeks at the future as they pass certain momentum thresholds. In future days we'll categorize the "Emerging Issues" and provide snippets about the progress of significant trends.

It is now recognised that the developed world is struggling to meet its carbon-reduction targets, while emissions by China and India have soared. Meanwhile, signs suggest that the climate is even more sensitive to atmospheric CO2 levels than was previously thought.

Biophysical economics is characterized by a wide range of analysts from diverse fields who use basic ecological and thermodynamic principles to analyze the economic process. The history of biophysical thought is traced from the 18th-century Physiocrats to current empirical research, with emphasis on those individuals who contributed to the development of biophysical economic theory. Attention is also given to a critique of the neoclassical theory of natural resources from a biophysical perspective, and how recent empirical biophysical research highlights areas of neoclassical theory which could be improved by a more realistic and systematic treatment of natural resources.

Have you been over hearing people talk about microformats and thought to yourself "what are those?" In this post I provide a quick introduction, and discuss the various ways that microformats are changing the Web.

I was listening to Melvyn Bragg's radio program, In Our Time , this morning on my iPod. The topic was Albert Camus. In discussing his novel, The Stranger, one of the distinguished panellists felt that Camus was suggesting that meaning is not pre-inscribed in the world around us and we are continuously seeking meaning in an inherently meaningless world. I almost toppled off the step machine. Do we live in an inherently meaningless world? On first thought I think the answer is yes. The onus is on us to make sense of our world. By the way, Melvyn's podcast is a joy. I particularly like its eclectic nature. Today it's Camus, last week The Four Humours, and before that we had The Sassanian Empire, Discovery of Oxygen, Mutation and The Fibonacci Series.

How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think

MindCanvas is a online research service to gather insights about your customers' thoughts & feelings. Online surveys require users to complete boring html forms. You can use our Game-like Elicitation Methods (GEMs) to gather user feedback. At the end of the study, you can use our Visual Analysis Engine to order rich visualizations of your data.

10 Pillars of Knowledge is a systematic map of human knowledge. It presents, at a glance, the structure of knowledge and the meaningful relations among the main fields. Human knowledge is composed of 10 pillars: Foundations, Supernatural, Matter and Energy, Space and Earth, Non-Human Organisms, Body and Mind, Society, Thought and Art, Technology, History

The mission of Sputnik Observatory is to be the world's foremost institute dedicated to the study of contemporary culture. Sputnik Observatory manifests this commitment by documenting, archiving and disseminating the ideas that are shaping the arts, sciences and technology. Central to Sputnik Observatory's mission is the encouragement of an ever deeper understanding and enjoyment of life-long learning that aims to support the advancement of modern thought in society.

Natural languages are easy to learn by infants, they can express any thought that any adult might ever conceive, and they accommodate the limitations of human breathing rates and short-term memory. The first property implies a finite vocabulary, the second implies infinite extensibility, and the third implies a small upper bound on the length of phrases. Together, they imply that most words in a natural language will have an open-ended number of senses - ambiguity is inevitable.To achieve a comparable level of flexibility with formal ontologies, this paper proposes an organization with a dynamically evolving collection of formal theories, systematic mappings to formal concept types and informal lexicons of natural language terms, and a modularity that allows independent distributed development and extension of all resources, formal and informal.