ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] statement transformation

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Duane Nickull <dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 09:50:25 -0700
Message-id: <C2844AE1.F7C3%dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Waclaw:    (01)

I am going to take a guess.  Someone please correct us all if I am wrong ;-)    (02)

There are 3 aspects of the proposition.    (03)

1. evaluating the statement "Joe doesn't believe in astrology"
2. evaluating the statement "Joe believes in astrology"
3. evaluating the set of statement.    (04)

1 and 2 are not the issue, but 3 can only be evaluated if the propositional
logic is known for the set.    (05)

If it is evaluated as a Conjunction (p ^ q) it is possible for both 1 and 2
to be true at the same time.  This means that they are not exclusively true
of false.    (06)

If it is evaluated as a Disjunction, then it is not possible for both to be
true at the same time.  Disjuntion would literally mean "Joe can believe in
astrology" OR "Joe cannot believe in astrology" but he cannot have it both
ways at the same time (sorry for introducing temporal aspects here).    (07)

Someone please correct if this is errant as I wouldn't want to mislead
anyone.    (08)

Duane    (09)



 <Waclaw.Marcin.Kusnierczyk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:    (010)

> John,
> 
> In your KR book, you discuss transformations of the following natural
> language statement:
> 
> Joe said, "I don't believe in astrology, but they say that it works even
> if you don't believe in it."
> 
> You arrive at
> 
> Joe believes [p AND ~p]
> 
> at which step you announce a contradiction in the context of Joe's
> beliefs.  (The previous step was
> 
> Joe believes
>   [Joe doesn't believe [astrology works]
>    and Joe believes [astrology works]]
> 
> It may be my imperfect command of English, but it seems to me that the
> original sentence does not assert that Joe believes that astrology works
> (or that he believes he does).  He is explicit in that he does not, and
> he also says that it is said that non-belief does not prevent astrology
> from working;  but this does not imply that Joe believes that tihs
> saying is correct, and thus that he nevertheless, contradictorily to
> what he says, believes that astrology works.
> 
> I think the problem comes from the induction from 'they say' interpreted
> as 'it is commonly accepted in the community' to 'they say' interpreted
> as 'every person agrees'.
> 
> Would you agree?
> 
> vQ
>     (011)

-- 
************************************************************
Sr. Technical Evangelist - Adobe Systems, Inc.             *
Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee      *
Blog: http://technoracle.blogspot.com                      *
My Music: http://www.mix2r.com/audio/by/artist/22ndcentury *
My Band: http://www.myspace.com/22ndcentury                *
************************************************************    (012)


_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (013)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>