"Rob Freeman" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ... (01)
> On the topic. I recall Doug F. mentioned some weeks back that
> microtheories were largely dropped from Cyc: (02)
Not at all. It is the basic definition of terms in vocabulary
microtheories that was dropped. Rules relating to the terms
were maintained where they were. (03)
> Doug F, Feb. 2:
>
> 'This separation (04)
The separation referred to is of basic definitional assertions. (05)
> is something that Cyc worked on for years through its
> "microtheory" (context) system, but then (for reasons of philosophical
> purity) to a great extent discarded.' (06)
> I didn't want to be distracted by this at the time, but can you
> clarify Doug? What were the "reasons of philosophical purity" which
> caused Cyc to discard microtheories? Did they work, but get discarded
> because of the expectation there should be a single theory, or did
> they not work? If they didn't work, why didn't they work? (07)
Philosophers argued that if every X was always a Y, that this was true in
all possible worlds -- even those in which Ys and Xs don't exist.
Similarly, a relation with domain X and range Y would still be a relation
with the same domain and range in all possible worlds, including those in
which Xs and Ys don't exist. This meant that in a purely mathematical
context (timeless, massless, and agentless) that unicorns were still
mammals and legal contracts had to be between legal agents. (08)
Rules stated for funded projects and reasoning using such rules is always
carried out in narrowly defined microtheories. A project may have
multiple
contradictory theory microtheories which are used with the same data
microtheory in differing reasoning microtheories, to explore the
differences between different theories. (09)
-- doug foxvog (010)
> -Rob (011)
=============================================================
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (012)
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
============================================================= (013)
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