Chris
You're trying to apply the terminology of English grammar
to mKR, and it doesn't fit. Let me try to give you an
intuitive sense of the mKR terminology. Also, you could
read Rand's "Intro. to Objectivist Epistemology" for a lot
more detail.
"attribute" is a static property of a single existent.
If the existent is a person, this would correspond to
an English adjective. If the existent is an action,
the attribute would correspond to an English adverb.
Attributes do not change form for any reason -- the
same word is used in all contexts. For example,
"happy" is always used -- never "happiness"
"action" is a dynamic property of a single entity.
It is a concept of change -- usually in both space
and time. I idealize an action as having a beginning
and ending, and a space-time extent in between.
The optional prepositional phrases that apply to
actions (and commands and methods) are
out action products
of action domains
with action characteristics
od action direct objects
from action initial characteristics
to action final characteristics
Actions don't change form for any reason.
"walk" is always used -- never "walks", "walked", "walking".
Some Spanish-English comparisons that stick in my mind are
Yo tengo hambre/sed/sueno/frio.
I am hungry/thirsty/tired/cold.
Dick McCullough
Ayn Rand do speak od mKR done;
mKE do enhance od Real Intelligence done;
knowledge := man do identify od existent done;
knowledge haspart proposition list;
http://mKRmKE.org/
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Thing and Class
> On Sat, 13 Sep 2008, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
>> Chris
>>
>> mKE, the program which implements mKR, enhances intelligence
>> by assisting a human in creating/updating/searching knowledge
>> bases.
>>
>> mKR is integrating syntax and semantics without ambiguity.
>>
>> John has happy; implies that "happy" is an attribute.
>
> But "happy" is not an attribute (unless you are using the word
> "attribute" idiosyncratically); it is an adjective. Intuitively, it
> *expresses* an attribute. But you have no semantics, so there's no
> telling what you have in mind by an attribute with any precision.
>
>> I do walk done; implies that "walk" is an action
>
> "walk" a verb. And what is an action?
>
>> "done" is useful because "walk" may be followed
>> by many optional prepositional phrases.
>
> I'm not sure why that makes it particularly useful. You can achieve all
> the same effects in any of several more standard ways. Have you studied
> other KR languages to see how similar things are done?
>
>> P.S.
>> Spanish, and several other non-English languages,
>> use "has" for attributes instead of "is".
>
> I'm not certain what you mean by saying they use "has" for attributes,
> but I'm guessing you mean that they use it for the *attribution* of
> properties to individuals. That is so, but they do not use it *instead
> of* "is". Spanish works pretty much like English here in the use of the
> so-called "is" of attribution -- "John is happy" is translated as "John
> es feliz", "es", of course, being the third person conjugation of "ser",
> "to be". However, as in English (and most western languages), one can
> use "has" to attribute a property to an individual by using an
> adjectival nominalization, that is, the nominal form of an adjective.
> Thus, in English, we can say (somewhat awkwardly) "John has happiness".
> And in Spanish (I think -- very rusty here), "John tiene felicidad".
> But the grammar of these two forms of attribution is quite different and
> the use of "has" for attribution is rather stilted and uncommon. There
> is a fairly extensive body of literature on this and related topics in
> linguistics and logic that I can point you to if you are interested.
>
>> "done" is used in many modern programming languages.
>
> So I've heard. ;-)
>
> -chris
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> 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
>
>
>