Sociograms, Semantic Networks, and Mystical Networks
Sociograms are a subset of network diagrams that show the relationship between people in social situations, such as who is friendly with whom, with no such ordering. Any node can be connected to any other node. Because of this, the resulting diagrams look more like webs than trees. In these network diagrams, the thickness of lines connecting nodes and the relative distance between them often convey information about relationships. Similarly, in semantic network diagrams, the items depicted are usually words and the connections between them denote similarity in meaning.
In 1668, John Wilkins proposed an artificial language, complete with dictionary, grammar, and phonetic system. This diagram maps prepositions that relate to location. Where each proposition sits in relation to the central circle gives information about its meaning. So, within is within the circle and under is under the inner circle. Physical closeness shows closeness in meaning: upwards anddownwards are close to each other because they both mean something about vertical location. Some of the ways that Wilkins represented semantic concepts though their relationships are still used today, 350 years later, in language processing for artificial intelligence.
Kabbalah is a Jewish mystical tradition dating back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Kabbalist tradition involves four planes of being and ten luminous emanations known as sefirot. The order and the interconnections of the sefirotare an important element of the belief structure. Kabbalists chose a tree-like diagram to represent their system. This diagram, drawn in 1864 and inspired from earlier versions of mystical trees, is called Ilan ha-Gadol, which means ‘The Great Tree’. Though it was called a ‘tree’, it is technically a more general network diagram because any node can connect to any other node, which can’t happen in a tree diagram.
