On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 01:07:23AM -0500, Pat Hayes wrote:
> > > What might be nice (but possibly impossible) is to agree on some
> >> frame of reference or common definitions of the terms used in this
> >> thread and others. Without such, I fear this community will be
> >> doomed to argue the very basic tenets of ontology without arriving
> >> at consensus.
> >
> >I whole-heartedly agree. The thing is, the frame of reference in
> >which those terms are defined is settled and fixed, namely,
> >mathematical logic. There should be no issue of their meanings in a
> >mature community devoted to ontological engineering. Knowledge of
> >basic mathematical logic -- minimally: formal languages, model
> >theory, proof theory -- is as fundamental to ontological engineering
> >as the calculus is to electrical engineering, and no one can be
> >considered a serious practitioner of the discipline without it.
>
> I agree. But on a lighter note, (01)
I was not light? You think me a dour scold? I am hurt... (02)
> while mathematical logic as a whole is a huge body of scholarship,
> some of it very abstruse and requiring graduate-level study, I think
> that the basics of the topic - enough to follow the terminology used
> in these discussions, at any rate - can be summarized fairly
> compactly, expressed in reasonably clear non- (or maybe slightly-)
> -mathematical language, and grokked fairly easily. (03)
I strongly agree, though from my own experience teaching these subjects
the "fairly easily" applies to people who have a reasonably strong
background in mathematics. Starting from scratch, with little pure
mathematics in one's background I would say it takes about a year of
regular study to master the fundamentals. (04)
I would end with a joke, but I am much too dour. >:-\ (05)
-chris (06)
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