On 4/28/09, Richard H. McCullough <rhm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> Here is a very simple example to illustrate what I mean.
> My reference for "formal semantics" is the IKL specification document.
>
> Consider the English sentence, "Fido is a dog."
> [The mKR translation is "Fido isu dog;" ]
> The "real symantics" of English [and mKR] tell us that
> a "dog" is a domesticated carnivious mammal, Canis familiaris
> "Fido" is the dog identified by Napa, CA animal control license # 1234. (01)
are you coining a term "symantics" to clarify that what you mean by semantics
may not match other people's expectations? (02)
>
> The IKL translation of this sentence is
> (and (isu_rel Fido dog) (dog Fido) (individual Fido) (property dog))
> The "possible semantics" of IKL tell us that
> "dog" is a member of the set of all possible property names.
> "Fido" is a member of the set of all possible individual names.
> "Fido" is an individual which has the property "dog". (03)
Dick,
I don't want to be argumentative, but I do want to understand.
I may not always agree with you, but I value your writing enough to read it,
and think about what you are saying. (04)
I searched the IKL Guid to understand your IKL translation, at:
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes/IKL/GUIDE/GUIDE.html (05)
but you use terms that aren't in the guide, so the definition
of those forms, obviously must be elsewhere. (06)
Could you provide some help in understanding your IKL translation? (07)
(and (isu_rel Fido dog) (dog Fido) (individual Fido) (property dog)) (08)
I expect that your statement is a logical formula which is true. (09)
I assume that "and" is the standard logical connective yielding true when
all the forms within it are true and false otherwise. (010)
I will assume that all the forms inside the "and" are also formulas. (011)
The first formula is "(isu_rel Fido dog)"
I think you said earlier that "isu_rel" is a way of linking an
instance to a class.
I assume that "isa" or "instance" has the same meaning. The link that you
are stating exists I assume will mean that if there are statements that are
true for every instance of the class, then they will be known to be true of
the instance marked in this explicit linking formula.
So specifically, anything known to be true of all instances of the
class "dog" is also true about "Fido" as an instance of dog.
the class "dog" has at least one extension, and Fido is a way of referring
to that extension uniquely. (is uniqueness guaranteed?)
you have given us two intensional definitions for "Fido" and for "dog". (012)
looking forward, the next formula is "(dog Fido)"
I'm not sure what the point of this formula is, since "(isu_rel Fido dog)"
already says that Fido is an extension of dog. I would have guessed that
it meant that there is a group/set/class/type named "dog" and "Fido" meets
the criterion to be considered to be an element/member/instance/expression
for "dog". But this is exactly what I mean by saying "Fido" is in the extension
of "dog". So you will have to clarify, as I am confused. Looking ahead, you
say that "Fido" is an individual which has the property "dog", so you have some
idea of a an individual having a property that I don't know yet.
Do only individuals have a property ? How is a property different
than a monadic
predicate? and of course, how is that different from the extension idea? (013)
The third formula is "(individual Fido)", you have said that this means
"Fido" is a member of the set of all possible individual names. I'm
guessing the
relevant part of that statement must be "individual" rather than "name" since
I would have said each word in the entire formula was a name, but you didn't
so either you are assuming that each word is a name, and not mentioning it,
or you mean something special by saying "individual". (014)
The fourth and last formula is "(property dog)" which you said meant that
"dog" is a member of the set of all possible property names. Again, why you
said this instead of saying (isu_rel dog property), I don't know. are properties
and predicates the same thing in your mind? I don't see them as the same. (015)
By my thought, a predicate is part of a formula, expressing a linking
relationship.
John Sowa talks about relationships and concepts, and I think of predicates
as being relationships used in a logical formula. (016)
Does my intution about all of this make sense to some of the grey beards here? (017)
Anyway, I note that your original statement is what the Cyc folks call a GAF,
i.e. a Ground Atomic Formula. There are no variables in it, it is not
an existential
formula, ("ThereExists") nor a universal formula ("ForAll"), so it
just states one
fact about the universe, presumably for all time, and always true. (018)
Do you state somewhere else in your computer system that the unique names
assumption must be known to be true? I can imagine a cat named Fido, and
If you had your statement in a knowledge base/logical theory then I couldn't
talk about my cat named Fido in your system, because I assume in your
system that you have dog and cat as disjoint collections. I know the
Cyc folks use
microtheories to allow both of Fido-the-cat and Fido-the-dog to exist at the
same time. Maybe that is what you were trying to do with your context ideas. (019)
Also how do you handle the fact that Bob's-dog-named-Fido and
Bill's-dog-named-Fido
may or may not be the same dog? I can imagine that if Bob and Bill
were brothers,
they would both consider the dog-named-Fido as their own, hence having two names
for the same dog. But it is just as possible that there are two dogs.
How do you handle
this? (020)
JK (021)
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