Mobile Sequencers (original) (raw)

2024, Mobile Sequencers

The article is an attempt to contribute to explorations of a common origin for language and planned-collaborative action. It gives ‘semantics of change’ the central stage in the synthesis, from its history and recordkeeping to its development, its syntax, delivery and reception, including substratal aspects. It is suggested that to arrive at a common core, linguistic semantics must be understood as studying through syntax mobile agent’s representing, tracking and coping with change and no change. Semantics of actions can be conceived the same way, but through plans instead of syntax. The key point is the following: Sequencing itself, of words and action sequences, brings in more structural interpretation to the sequence than which is immediately evident from the sequents themselves. Mobile sequencers can be understood as subjects structuring reporting, understanding and keeping track of change and no change. The idea invites rethinking of the notion of category, both in language and in planning. Linguist’s search for explaining the gaps in possible structures, and offlineness of lan- guage, and computer scientist’s search for possible plan landscape, and onlineness of action, are leveraged by the synthesis for open exploration. It leaves very little room for analogies and instrumental thinking, such as language being an infinite gift, or computer being the ultimate human tool. Nothing is infinite if modern physics is right, not even the computer’s name- recursive representations, which is commonly—and misleadingly—compared with human’s value-recursive representations. This has implications for the synthesis. Understanding understanding change by mobile agents is suggested to be about human extended practice, not extended-human practice. That’s why linguistics is as important as computer science in the synthesis. It must rely on representational history of acts, thoughts and expressions, personal and public, crosscutting overtness and covertness of these phenom- ena. It has implication for anthropology in the extended practice, which is covered briefly.