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various types of associative links. For the meaning of every lexeme there has to exist, in the memory, a node which has as its "patriarch" the term to be defined, here called a type. The definition of a type A foresees the employment, as its interpretants, of a series of other lexemes which are included as tokens. The configuration of the meaning of the lexeme is given by the multiplicity of its links with various tokens, each of which, however, becomes in turn a type B, that is, the patriarch of a new configuration which includes as tokens many other lexemes, some of which were also tokens of type A and which can include as token the same type A. A token such as grow can become the type of a new branch (or plane) which includes among its tokens many of those which go with plant (as, for example, air or water and, indeed, plant itself). Thus the ideal structure of a complete memory would form an enormous aggregation of planes, each consisting entirely of token nodes except for its "head node." |
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This model is based on a process of unlimited semiosis. From a sign which is taken as a type, it is possible to penetrate, from the center to the farthest periphery, the whole universe of cultural units, each of which can in turn become the center and create infinite peripheries. |
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A similar model can still receive a bidimensional graphic configuration when one part of it is examined (and it is understood that in its mechanical simulation, thanks to the limited number of tokens included, it may be possible to confer on it a structure which can be described). But actually no graph is in a position to represent it in all its complexity. It must appear as a sort of polydimensional network, equipped with topological properties, in which the distances covered are abbreviated or elongated and each term acquires proximity with others by means of shortcuts and immediate contacts, meanwhile remaining linked with all the others, according to continually changing relationships. |
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We can imagine all the cultural units as an enormous number of marbles contained in a box; by shaking the box we can form different connections and affinities among the marbles. This box would constitute an informational source provided with high entropy, and it would constitute the abstract model of semantic association in a free state. |
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But we should think of magnetized marbles which establish a system of attraction and repulsion, so that some are drawn to one another and others are not. A similar magnetization would reduce the possibility of interrelation. Still better, we could consider every cultural unit in this Global Semantic Universe as emitting given wavelengths which put it in tune with a limited (though possibly very large) number of other units. |
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