How sociofoil technologies can give you a lift in the linguistic vehicle of thought
Fisher, W. P., Jr. (2023). How sociofoil technologies can give you a lift in the linguistic vehicle of thought. In N. Durakbasa & M. G. Gençyilmaz (Eds.), Towards Industry 5.0: Selected papers from ISPR2022 (pp. xix-xliii). Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-24457-5
Posted: 18 Jan 2024
Date Written: 2023
Abstract
Mathematical and scientific language is an extension of everyday language that feeds back into it and becomes an essential part of daily life in the measurement of time, temperature, mass, length, etc. Language is said by philosophers to be the vehicle of thought: we think only in signs. Language is complexity, simplified. It semiotically integrates discontinuous levels of meaning without reducing them to a uniformity dictated by one of them alone. Thus, unrealistic conceptual ideals; standardized phonemes, alphabets, vocabularies, and grammars; and unique local circumstances each are brought to bear simultaneously in systems, metasystems, and paradigms. Being born into and educated within systems of pre-existing words and ideas absorbs us into complex semiotic flows of meaning. Language lifts the burden of initiating communication. Because we do not have to invent our own signs and symbols, and neither do we have to translate between personal sign systems, language provides a labor-saving economy of thought. The metaphors of reduced labor, lifted burdens, and vehicular transportation suggest an approach to modelling, estimating, measuring, managing, and enhancing the value of linguistic and metrological standards. Key to this approach is the adoption of a specifically metrological perspective on quantification, one that focuses on the objective reproducibility and repeatability of unit quantities that persist in their properties independent of the samples measured and the particular instrument used to measure. Measurement models of this kind enable the testing of hypotheses concerning the kinds of stable representations needed to achieve language’s labor-saving value and economy as the vehicle of thought. When these hypotheses are not falsified, measurement representations capable of multilevel, complex flows in streamlined communication system are obtained. In the absence of these hypothesis tests, or when these hypotheses are falsified, in contrast, the meaning of merely numeric representations remains dependent on strictly local circumstances and are not comparable across them, leaving the vehicle of thought stalled in turbulent traffic. A mechanical conception of how language can provide an economical lift in the vehicle of thought is described; an organic conception is reserved for development at a later time. The current approach focuses on ways in which sociodynamic forces may be harnessed by a sociofoil mechanism providing lift in a manner analogous to the way aerofoils and hydrofoils similarly harness aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces to reduce drag and improve efficiency.
Keywords: measurement; Rasch; production research; metrology; science; foils; hydrodynamics; aerodynamics; sociodynamics; hydrofoils; aerofoils; sociofoils; wings; lift; thrust; drag; weight; natural laws; system dynamics; Newton's Third Law; Bernoulli Principle; Coanda Effect; Newton's Second Law; physics; l
JEL Classification: A12, A13, B40, B52, C02, C18, C73, C81, C83 E01, E14, E16, E66, J24, P10, Q01, Q56
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation