David (Sless) warns me:
>
> BTW, unless you want to get caught in a quagmire, Donald, I wouldn't go
> near 'signifier' even with somebody else's barge pole, let alone my own.
Too late. I've already written about it and my new book ("Living with
Complexity". MIT Press, September 2010) has a chapter devoted to signifiers
and it plays a role throughout the book.
I am fully aware that the field of semiotics, among others, has owned and
abused all sorts of words over its lifetime, including sign, signal, and
signifier. I am aware that they will complain that I have abused their
concept. But that's life: Any existing word is already bound to have
existing meanings. Scientists deal with this all the time. "Work" to a
physicist has little to do with "work" by the lay person (to the phyisicst,
no work is required to hold a 50 Kg. weight, as long as it is motionless.
Tell that to the person holding the weight.). It's a bit like metpahor: you
can't escape it. (note the metahoric use of "escape" ans in run-away,
squirm, but not as in "avoid in the first place.")).
Table of Contents, and Chapter one available at:
http://www.jnd.org/books.html#608
Other chapters available by asking.
And if you use the search book on my website and type in "signifier" you
will find:
1. Don Norman's jnd.org / *Signifiers*, not
affordances<http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/signifiers_not_affordances.html>
Powerful clues arise from what I call social *signifiers*. A "*signifier*"
is some sort of indicator, some signal in the physical or social world that
can be *...*
*
*
*http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/signifiers_not_affordances.html*
2. Don Norman's jnd.org / Designing the
Infrastructure<http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/designing_the_infrastructure.html>
Some infrastructure serves as *signifiers*. The signs are deliberate, *
...* The Magpie nest is an unintentional *signifier*, for wherever the
nest is seen, *...*
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/designing_the_infrastructure.html
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