Dear Paola, (01)
You are of course fully entitled to this point of view: (02)
> (I know some people would like to rescrict the conversation on
> this list to a single point of view) (03)
But I am sure the more productive lists on the Internet are those
that successfully concentrate on their core themes and objectives,
even if at the cost of sometimes appearing to apply some friendly
censorship. (04)
It also appears that too many who are interested in those core
themes are voting with their feet by choosing not to take part or
even listen further. (05)
But what characterizes those core themes? From the statements at
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologCharter, and at risk
of their dismissal as merely my own point of view, I venture to
abstract and project some of their features: (06)
1. The common ontological background is the extreme complexity of
our given world that is not always amenable to being captured by
sharable concepts. This is the area of the soft issues you like
raising, of infinities and and ineffabilities, and I must agree that
they are relevant and even foundational to our work. But I do
believe that most members of this list are fully aware of that
background, and of many of the myriad alternative and complementary
points of view that so easily lead to much fruitless verbosity. So
they are impatient to build further from there, in practical ways.
And, speaking for myself, it is most unclear to me how further
brainstorming on Eastern philosophies (for example) might contribute
to such practice. If onus there be in that matter, I do believe
this list as a whole is happy to leave it to other lists. (07)
2. Thus what is presently known as "ontology", as an engineering
exercise, sets itself the task of understanding the power of
verbalization and its conceptual constructs, despite their frequent
distortions of the truth and their impotence as complete tools. But
if they are aptly and correctly applied, we are sure, much more can
be attained by building on the successes of our symbolic
quasi-realities. (08)
3. But we're all in this together, so objectivity or sharability is
primary. The scientific worldview, and everyday commonsense in
general, of all kinds, represent the most promising bases of that
sharable kind that are available to us. And mysticisms and
infinities etc the least promising ones from that point of view.
(That's my pov, at least...) (09)
4. Practicality, given the urgency of the many problems confronting
humanity as well as the enormous scale of the still unexploited
opportunities doubtlessly still only implicit in complex reality,
demands collaborativeness. But collaboration in the extremely
distributed and varied world of the Internet is not a simple affair.
So a major task is to design and build conceptual edifices to enable
scalable teamwork and interoperability of social systems, the better
to optimize communication, promote the participation of everyone and
maximize humanity's constructive resources. (010)
5. It is surely true that present AI, logic and mathematical
methods are not necessarily up to all the information system
challenges, but they will not be transcended by a total disregarding
of their respective strengths. So let us rejoice in the amazing
resources along those lines that are available to us all on this
list! (011)
One of my favourite sayings is from Peter Medawar, Nobel prizewinner
and biologist: (012)
Theories are not displaced by facts, they are replaced by better
theories. (013)
So let's try to stick with practically-constructive theorizing
rather than indulging in already-familiar wistfulnesses with little
proven record of socially-enriching achievement above a certain
basic and rather obvious level. (014)
All my own crude and heavy pov still, but I suspect also largely
that of the majority on this list... (015)
Paola, you have much more experience of Eastern traditions and
cultures than I do, but where I live it is also easy to be very
aware of how those in other cultures are so readily infuriated by
what so often seems to be (and is...) Western ignorance, arrogance
and condescension. Undaunted however, I prefer to see our common
cultural melting-pot as yet another facet of globalization. And it
does indeed seem to me and many others, trying to look objectively,
that the non-chattering classes world-wide are very busy with
lustily embracing it as such too, with at least glimmers of
recognition of the multiple sources of our shared intellectual
heritage. (016)
Christopher (017)
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