From: Stephen Smoliar Subject: RE: MILITARY INFORMATION SYSTEMS (LONG Date: Fri, 05 Jul 91 07:50:41 SST In article <1991Jul3.220219.9804@milton.u.washington.edu> ullmer@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Brygg Ullmer) writes:> >In <1991Jul2.073232.18314@milton.u.washington.edu> >ISSSSM%NUSVM@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Stephen Smoliar) writes: > >> For better or worse, the lion's >>share of our communication is achieved through text. (If God had wanted us >>to >>communicate without text, He would have evolved our brains differently!) If >>we >>become too engaged in trying to translated everything into buttons, knobs, >>and >>levers, we may run the danger of having a different widget for every sentence >>we might utter . . . meaning that our repertoire of widgets would be, for all >>intents and purposes, impossible to manage. > >I will respond only to that portion of your message which deals with the >human perception of text. I think an appropriate analogy lies in the >growing science of scientific visualization for mathematical data. Simply >because pre-computer age mathematicians did not have the tools to visualize >multi-dimensional numeric arrays does not mean that modern visualizations >of such data are inappropriate; similarly, a past absence of the means >to transcend text in our intercommunications, information exchange, and >message passing should not in any manner, perhaps even in any context, >limit us to textual exchange in the future. Abandoning text >to graphical representations need not mean a simple re-representation with >buttons, knobs, and entities with mechanical heritage; one of the powers of >virtual reality is our ability to transcend physical practicality in our >representations, and raise our communications to levels beyond "real world" >relation. One of the reasons I used the word "communication" in my original article was that I did not want the word "text" to be confused with the phrase "WRITTEN text." Rather, I was referring to our use of natural language; and my reference to "the lion's share" was based on the fact that we still go around in the world talking to each other. I certainly agree that there are many ways in which characters recorded on paper may be transcended by more powerful representations now within our technological grasp; but I would find any attempt to transcend my knocking on your door to ASK if I could borrow a cup of sugar (formulating my request in some natural language we both share) to be a bit far-fetched. Personally, I think Matthew Chalmers has established a healthy attitude. We should not be out to TRANSCEND the use of either text or paper in our virtual realities. Rather, we should make sure text and paper can fit into those environments when we need them, allowing us to make smooth transitions to more amenable representations as they become available. =============================================================================== Stephen W. Smoliar Institute of Systems Science National University of Singapore Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge SINGAPORE 0511 BITNET: ISSSSM@NUSVM "He was of Lord Essex's opinion, 'rather to go an hundred miles to speak with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town.'"--Boswell on Johnson