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Re: [ontolog-forum] Axiomatic ontology

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:54:07 -0500
Message-id: <1C4BA784-7E53-4996-B3B1-26FFD5D21B62@xxxxxxx>

On Sep 28, 2008, at 1:34 AM, Rob Freeman wrote:

Rick,

Thanks for the link to other work which relates Category Theory and
geometric physics. I'll check it out. Good to have independent
verification.

As I say, the actual solution using a geometric approach, whether in
physics, maths, or semantics, is not what interests me the most. What
I find interesting is that in all these domains of knowledge people
seem to be moving away from axiomatic/logical formulations, towards
formulation in terms of geometries, distortable continua, where
qualities in the system are not specified ab initio but as
distortions/mappings of something fundamentally indeterminate.

Which is not to say modeling semantics in terms of Category Theoretic
style "mappings" might not be useful, perhaps comparable to the move
from Newtonian to relativistic physics.

Or maybe to the move towards visual abstraction made by the Cubists in the 1920s, or to the rejection of tonality by the Second Viennese School, or even the Great Vowel Shift. When one looks at these things - and so many others -  with a truly Open Mind, one is struck by the essentially indeterminately geometric nature of Change which underlies them all, and transcends - or perhaps one should say, undermines - the narrow left-brain restrictions of mere logic. What we need here is a Holistic Universal Post-Quantum Topologo-Topos anti-Theory of Everything and Beyond!  Then, maybe, we will be able to get some serious ontology work done. 

Pat



Best of all would be an approach which offers some underlying
explanation for this indeterminacy. That's why I like what Vitiello
talks about as "many-body theory". Vitiello talks about this as
"many-body theory" in physics, but more generally what we are talking
about would be the power of assemblies. Which gets us back to what
Chris Anderson was characterizing as the anti-Theory of Everything
"Google" approach to understanding the world: by directly assembling
data in different ways.

-Rob

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 1:02 AM, Rick Murphy <rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rob Freeman wrote:
Rick: Thanks for those Category Theory/semantics refs. Great! I hadn't
come across Goguen's work. You haven't seen anything relating Category
Theory with geometric theories in physics have you?

Actually, I think I have seen that and I think you can find an active
dialog on those things here ... http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/

Rick

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