Re: [ontolog-forum] Wittgenstein and the pictures

[FERENC KOVACS <f.kovacs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

IMHO a shift in paradigm is needed. Of the three basic categories, objects, propertiesand relations, objects and properties are clearly mainly derived from visual input, the perfection of which is subject to exposure. All what you get is data, and what you tend to foreget about is that we need instructions or operations on such data. Those data are processed and tagged by verbal mnemonics and may be retrieved later as if of being a holograph nature to allow others to reconstruct the original visual stimuli.

 

Now relations are operations if you follow the computer paradigm, a very useful analogy. by leaving the visual products, you leave the static or stationary representations and get closer to reality, where everything is in motion. Instead of using the traditional relations based on space and time, and the falsity of casuality, you could have operations of the mind that are reflected and articulated in informal logic. Formal logic and syllogism are a bore, apart from being very useful for certain purposes, but is a very narrow slice of reality to be modelled by ontologies.

 

Things are a lot simlpler than you think. As far as data structures are concerned, you either have a list or an array. In grammar, you either have a label (heading and title) or a message. Most names of things are already collected into various nomenclatures (classifications) that are the tresults of some mental operations I have already given examples of.

 

All what matters in thinking is the result. Some words show that there are three concepts related to one word, such as abstarction, interpretation, etc. where each of these words has the indication of a realtion , the verb itself (in noun form), the product or the object of such a relation or operation (still the word abstraction) and the quality or property of the same e.g. abstraction as opposed to tangibles. You can have a go with a nmer of other words like those in the example, translation and many ther wordsfollow similar treble nature of meaning. 
 

Kindest regards,

 

 

Ferenc Kovacs

alias Frank

Genezistan

"Starting all over"

+44 77 70654068 (Vodafone)
www.firkasz.com and http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FerencKovacs

 

 

----- Original Message ----
From: Len Yabloko <lenya@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, 5 August, 2008 8:51:30 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Wittgenstein and the pictures

Sean,

Thank you for "putting a finger" on the problem. I could n't put any better myself. I think Wittgenstein would also be happy with it.

SB> There remains a difficult problem of relating pattern recognition to
>classification (i.e. I have no idea what the answer is). If there were a
>fixed set of distinct patterns, then there would be no problem (and, for
>example, machine vision would have been solved long ago). However, that
>would also imply that there are a fixed set of "forms of life".

I have an idea what the answer might be: classification "forms of life" at the top combined with "pattern recognition" within each form using "set of distinct patterns" that belong to that particular form. The problem is then:  keeping patterns inside each form consistent with its classification. I think that later problem is less difficult than former.


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Sean Barker [mailto:sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2008 12:28 PM
>To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Wittgenstein and the pictures
>
> The way I was taught Wittgenstein was that the Philosophical Investigations
>were a repudiation of Tractatus, and particularly of the idea that language
><b>pictures</b> the world, to replace it by the idea that language is what
>we use to talk to each other and is founded on the "forms of life" we engage
>in. The opening section of Investigations contrasts a passage where St
>Augustine describes learning the names of  things he naturally recognises
>with a story about buying five red apples. In the latter - which is not
>about Natural Language Processing, what ever Pat Hayes says - he explicitly
>denies the need for pictures in the head. The remainder of the
>Investigations can been seen as a series of therapies aimed to wean us off
>the "pictures in the head" model of language.
>
> IMO the "pictures in the head" theory has its roots in Plato's theory of
>forms. >From the information processing view, its paradigmatic algorithm is
>is pattern recognition, in which a signal produces a response in a matched
>filter (the pattern recogniser) which fires when the convolution of signal
>and filter crosses a pre-set threshold. The temptation of "pictures in the
>head" arises from the way our brain presents patterns ready-recognised to
>our conscious, so that when I look out of my window at an arrangement of
>red, white and black, I see a house, with no need for further deliberate
>investigation.
>
> In contrast, the paradigmatic algorithm for language is classification. I
>have a collection of arbitrary symbols (words) whose forms in no way relate
>to their usage - so "Kangaroo" might equally mean "Go Away" as naming a
>hopping animal. In using a language to name something, I use classification
>criteria that choose between alternative categories (and their names). For
>example, I would use the term "bird" of an animal which had feathers and
>walked on two legs.
>
> There remains a difficult problem of relating pattern recognition to
>classification (i.e. I have no idea what the answer is). If there were a
>fixed set of distinct patterns, then there would be no problem (and, for
>example, machine vision would have been solved long ago). However, that
>would also imply that there are a fixed set of "forms of life". The problem
>of industrial data exchange is that local organizations evolve their own
>vocabularies  according to their peculiar business processes, so that
>information sharing between companies is treacherous. The differences in
>systems of military ranks between services and countries also exhibits the
>same problem. (And, by implication, ontologies based on general language
>usage provide a poor guide to the problems of developing ontologies precise
>enough interoperation between professional organizations.)
>
> I note in this forum a recurring argument between on one hand the "one
>upper ontology"/"finite set of basic concepts" school and the "no single
>ontology" school. That is, in terms of the above, the "pattern recognition"
>and the "classification" schools of meaning. Since ontology languages seem
>oriented to supporting classification, it seems the former are confused.
>
>Sean Barker
>Bristol
>




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