Barry, (01)
I'd like to believe this is true, but, I am not quite sure it is. (02)
I was at an conference a few years back with some engineers doing the safety
critical work (including simulation) for the Paris Metro - and what
intrigued me that there were more concerned that the model of what they were
going to implement had an easy to check structure than a close match to
reality. I suppose as they were going to impose this reality, they felt a
simpler structure was safer. (03)
I agree there is a stronger argument when you are trying to model natural
structures - but even here I suspect the civil engineers building the
nuclear power station use Newtonian rather than quantum mechanics. (04)
The engineering question is how useful is to understand the underlying
reality. And I think we are still waiting for a good argument. (05)
Chris (06)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Smith, Barry
> Sent: 13 June 2007 16:39
> To: [ontolog-forum] ; sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx; Kathryn Blackmond Laskey;
> [ontolog-forum] ; Conklin, Don
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Two ontologies that are inconsistent but both
> needed
>
> I hope that we all agree that in major, critical, domains, such as
> medicine or nuclear power generation a good strategy for creating
> useful models is to seek to find out what the underlying reality is like.
> BS
>
> At 09:18 AM 6/13/2007, Kathryn Blackmond Laskey wrote:
> >A briefer quote from George Box: "All models are wrong, but some are
> useful."
> >
> >K
> >
> >At 9:38 AM -0500 6/13/07, John F. Sowa wrote:
> > >That is certainly true:
> > >
> > >>[KL] For the record, "logically correct solution that yields
> > >>mathematically precise answers" does not equate with "good." A
> > >>logically correct, mathematically precise answer can be AWFUL if it
> > >>is answers the wrong question. An imprecise answer from a system
> > >>riddled with inconsistency can be WONDERFUL if it is a close enough
> > >>approximation to the answer to the right question.
> > >
> > >A comment that has been attributed to Lord Kelvin:
> > >
> > > Better a rough answer to the right question
> > > than an exact answer to the wrong question.
> > >
> > >John Sowa
> >
> >
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> (07)
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