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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology similarity and accurate communication

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:18:03 -0500
Message-id: <47D7051B.1030400@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Pat,    (01)

That is an excellent question:    (02)

PC> I believe that I understood every word you said (955 of them
 > in the note, including the previous quotes) in exactly the sense
 > you intended it. And some of it was not just the basic vocabulary.
 > Is that hard to believe?  How could I do it without a mental model
 > very similar to yours?    (03)

I am sure that you understood those words in one of the senses you
might find in a good dictionary, say the OED or MW 3rd unabridged.
But I doubt that you had resolved each one down to the detailed
microsense (in Cruse's terminology) that I had intended.    (04)

If you note, those dictionary entries (OED or MW) are not stated in
a formal language, and if you translated them to any version of logic,
you would get an extremely loose axiomatization.  It would be neutral
on almost all the major issues we have been discussing in this forum,
including 3D vs. 4D representations, continuants vs. occurrents, etc.    (05)

That is a position I have been advocating for years:  a very loosely
axiomatized terminology with very few details, and all the detailed
axioms in the specialized, task-dependent modules.    (06)

That is the level of axiomatization that would ignore the subtle
distinctions about hearts or kidneys in the words of a physician,
a nurse, and a typical patient.    (07)

If that is what you are advocating, then we are indeed in close
agreement.    (08)

John    (09)


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