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A tag cloud is a list of words in different sizes and colors, with or without a sense of depth (3D), meant to represent the statistical importance of keywords mentioned in a particular document base (a blog, a website, twitter,…). It serves as an indicator of the relative importance of the use of certain ideas in the document base at hand. It is a bottom-up, very fuzzy method for the synthesis of knowledge from an arbitrarily big aggregate of (text) data. Because it rests entirely on statistics, very often there is absolutely no relationships between the keywords of a tag cloud. Worse even, if they existed (by pure chance), there is absolutely no way of finding out about the meaning of those relationships.

On the other hand, ontologies propose a top-down approach to the same problem. They require first that some expert, or committee of experts, agree on a common description of a particular domain. Given an ontology, it is possible to map a document base to the concepts it describes: every concept would act as a filter to retrieve documents that match it. The clear advantage of this method is that it is possible to use the semantics expressed in the ontology to search for a specific combination of concepts. A tag cloud rendition of an ontology would, however, carry two major drawbacks with it:

1. you need an ontology per domain you wish to search for, hence ontology-based navigation is always going to be extremely specific;
2. no semantic value added is generated (note that there is indeed a minor semantic value added in the statistical tag cloud, albeit of a purely quantitative nature)

An IEML tag cloud would combine the advantages of both approaches, while overcoming their limitations: it would generate significant semantic value added through the discovery of the underlying conceptual network of a given document base; and it would allow for navigating in semantics. As for the statistical tag cloud, the conceptual network thus discovered would remain quantitative in nature to a certain degree. Indeed the salience of the semantic relationships is going to vary depending on the precise contents of the document base, as is going to be necessary to reflect in the rendition of the resulting tag cloud.

Another pending issue as far as rendition of an IEML-based tag cloud goes is deciding upon the relative positioning of concepts on the user’s display, in 2D and/or 3D.

As a computer programmer, I was always fascinated by the expressive power of languages, not only programming languages, but languages in general. My daily practice lets me tackle the incredible processing power of computers, but the raw material here, the meaning behind the calculations, is generally about very mundane things. I then resort to natural languages to relate to humans, and to literature to delight in art. Then I am long intrigued by the weird symbols of other languages, “magical languages” like astrology, the Ji-jing or the Tarot. Perhaps they shouldn’t really be called languages, maybe rather “symbolic systems”, but because of the combinatorics they rely on as a tool for divination for example, they tend to be used as languages. I was often struck by the complex network of ideas that arose from the contemplation of an astrological theme or a set of Tarot cards, when I got the adequate grammar to interpret them. Most importantly, such systems, when put to good use, have the power to “make you smarter”. That is why divination is really about revelation, rather than just a way to know about one’s future. A good Tarot or Ji-jing practitioner lets you explore the hidden parts of your mind, and lets you make connections with dimensions of your existence that you weren’t aware of, or were too shy or too anxious to take into account. This process of interpretation and re-appropriation of meaning can be extremelly helpful in daily life and is really to be considered as a way to resurect a very ancient and long tradition of wisdom.

IEML also stems from a thorough understanding of the history of thought. It shares many traits with traditional symbolic systems, in particular with the Ji-jing. It is however very original and unique in many ways:

• it is the first of its kind to incorporate the western tradition of thought: some of its basic building blocks (the Sign-Beign-Thing triad) relate to a mostly western mindset and its basic interpretation/dictionary, as authored by its inventor, maps clearly to a host of notions and concepts that stem from 20th century human sciences;
• it does, too, relate to other traditions from around the world and puts them all “on an equal footing”;
• it doesn’t imply a unique, orthodox interpretation;
• it is meant to be thoroughly computable;

These features make IEML a particularly interesting tool to assist in the understanding of today’s challenges in our global world. That’s quite fortunate you should say, because that’s what it’s been meant for. But its original (and true) purpose is to serve scientific needs. What I’m proposing here is to use it as a tool to interpret one’s personal, daily concerns, just as astrology or the Tarot. It’s a game of course and, just as the other systems, will rely on chance to create the symbols meant to be interpreted. But it could also be a very good learning tool for all of us interested in this fascinating technology.