Exploratory Project for Bliss Symbols to Bridge Natural Languages
(Note: All documents such as about1.txt have been moved to the \docs sub-directory.)
After exploring a hierarchical system with a depth of up to 6 levels it was decided to attempt a two level system - in end effect. EVERY WORD OF THE VOCABULARY SHALL BE ACCESSIBLE WITH 2 Keyboard/Mouse Events (such as click). Never More. Never Less. If this works it will be SIMPLE.
While there are only two "hard" levels, there are actually at least 5 "soft", or visual levels beginning with the six major Groupings of the Highest Level Keys, henceforth referred to as SUPERKEYS. See the file ScreenCapture0831.pdf for a screen capture / first peek at the first peek from end of August, 2015.
Note that the Major Groupings are:
PEOPLE (the center of the Screen and in the same shape as the Bliss symbol for 'Man')
SCENES (to the right moving out, strongly involving PEOPLE in their various common activities)
ANIMATE (to the left of PEOPLE, moving outward involving Animals, Insects, and the animate things of our world
CONCEPTS far to the Right and gearing to the knowledgebase of a typical modern adult, Arithmetic, Physics..
WORLD to the far Left - The cold hard stuff of the Universe outside our direct experience such as Volcanoes..
LANGUAGE arcs over the entire screen providing the GLUE needed to express our thought
//There are some currently 95 Subgroupings total across these Six Major Groupings. Of these 95, 31 are ordered under PEOPLE.
LANGUAGE also includes a Grouping named KEYS which provides a useful list of the entire set of BASE SYMBOLS
WE THINK THERE IS A SIMPLE TRICK TO UNDERSTANDING THE INDEX SCHEME USED. We were all babies once! When a PERSON:BABY is born his/her world consists of the people he/she is dependent upon, Milk, and lots of loving care that involves such as POOP, PEE, and Soiled Diapers. This is a little "Earthy", perhaps but it is also the shared basis for the human experience! Accordingly Diapers, and the matters they contain, are at the very center of our screen, not just Right to Left, but also top to bottom.
As we mature, and our world grows and we leave our diapers we experience many things, we get to know parts of the home such as Doors, and the also very human matters of Food Preparation, we vist Zoos and learn of Animals... all moving outward from birth to the much more abstract CONCEPTS of Mathematics, or the Objects to be found in WORLD:universe...
Associated with each SUPERKEY is a Grouping of words. These words are organized by "SOFTABS" which are color indexed and serve as organizing Tabs.
NOTE: Most words belong to a grouping for what should be pretty apparent reasons of logic. HOWEVER some words, also visually marked, are there on the basis, not of logic, but of STRONG DIRECT ASSOCIATION. If the SUPERKEY is PEOPLE:SPORTS and the SOFTAB is RUGEBY the Thing "Wicket" may be found here, NOT for the reason that it is a "SPORT" (which it is not) but because the word "Wicket" is strongly associated with Rugby. Likewise some words are the logical OPPOSITE will also be included.
Many words, the majority of the words in my opinion, have found a clear SUPERKEY/SOFTKEY index position. We have not been afraid to duplicate a key multiple times.
To see the more current DISTRIBUTION of the words, please review the file: superkey_groupings_stats.txt in the Root Directory.
VERSION 0.1 NOTES!
Over 5,000 words have recently been categorized. The Categorization is ROUGH, and there are many levels of
refinement before the groupings will be anything like finalized for eventual publication!
The initial goal is to test the feasibility of a 2 Key system.
The SIX SUPERKEY GROUPINGS have not needed changes.
Note that the word groups such as Articles and Prepositions have been distributed into the LANGUAGE group.
Many Features such as "favorites" and more will just be missing, as they are unnecessary for the initial evaluations.
The Number of SUPERKEYS have expanded, and some have been modified over the last week. Perfectly distributed
Groupings would all have 60 Words... Realistic TARGET number of words is greater than 40 and less than 80 Some
groupings have less than the desired number of Words More than 20 Groupings have more than the desired number of
Words SOFTABS help organize the the Grouping Screens
The Groupings had to evolve naturally, but as they evolved a number of words otherwise categorized could easily better
fit in the new category.
Redundancies have been allowed, although they are 'wasteful', under certain circumstances.
Some words have simply not made sense to the author, or may have been misunderstood
Very Little effort has been spent organizing the words in their SUPERKEY groupings. Many refinements to come! The author, for
example, special color and shape modifications in mind for OPPOSITES.
A refinement to use closely associated words seems to be working, however, as things have evolved it is possible that words
already categorized may have not have been re-categorized in consistency with the new word.
IN SHORT, WE ARE AWARE THAT MANY TYPES OF ERRORS EXIST, early reviews should be done with the preliminary nature of version 0.1
in mind.
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VOCABULARY CONTROL - MASKING - CORE VALUES
EVERY Bliss Symbol has an integer value from 0..9 attached to it.
How has this number been set?
INITIALLY -
Word groupings (by SUPERKEYS) are naturally distributed from only 30 and so, to over 120.
It is recognized that more than 80 words makes selection difficult, and although buttons can be made smaller, organizations clearer, it is just easier to select from a group of 30 than from a group of 50 and so on.
The author until end of Sept 2015 has only used values from 0..5, with only a very few exceptions
Many groupings have had their words valued up or down from the system default value of 3, however most words are now set at 3.
NOTE! Those groupings with more than 100 have been rather carefully analyzed for words that:
1. words that have closely similar words that will due (eg Stomach)
2. are expected to be used only rarely, in very special circumstances (a particular type of fish)
3. words that are built on a base word and modified to become an action word... these words have often been set up to 5.
4. many words are compound words such as public_room, these words have been set to 5 because their existence is strictly a CONVENIENCE.
It is obviously, not logical that a compound word that is in large Group is set to 5, but a compound word in a small group is allowed.
HOWEVER, to get to a point where the largest groups fit into a single screen (no scolling (or magnifying glass) required)), has required that a considerable number of words be masked off in exactly such a way.
NOTE#1: A certain percent, likely 20%, of the words are rather arbitrarily grouped at this point. Some groupings of words could be moved to another SUPERKEY grouping, or perhaps two small SUPERKEY grouping can be combined and a new one started. We must not loose the BIG VIEW that such larger organizational changes are entirely possible. The author has now spent over 2 weeks on these issues, but easily another several weeks of effort can go into the organization at a mix of levels.
Personal note: Bliss Symbols are interestingly distributed. There are probably over 300 words for various types of FOOD. There is no word for Geometry, there is no Electron. However not only are there shellfish, but there are shellfish with and without claws!
NOTE#2: The eventual upper limit is 9. So the current convention of using 4 as the upper limit to be able constrain the screens to a set of less than 80 Words (not including SOFTABS) should work out rather nicely as the Groupings are rethought and adjusted based on the simple issues that are now in front of us with the FULL vocabulary as a starting point.
NOTE#3: There are some sets of words such as the days-of-the-week, and many colours that were simply duplicated. The author, in these situations simply picked one standard and masked off the remaining words consistent with the obvious need to reduce the word count overall.