Pat, (01)
Peter has asked us not to start new threads that break the
continuity of the discussion. So I'm continuing the old thread. (02)
PC
> There is in my mind a vast difference between a " top-down, monolithic,
> detailed, universal ontology of everything" and a " perfect top-level
> ontology". Perhaps John could supply examples of these two different
> things that have actually been proposed by someone. I don't recall any. (03)
People have proposed so many different things that it's impossible
to give any simple description or classification of all of them. (04)
But people since Aristotle have been searching for a complete and
coherent ontology of everything. Kant is the most famous one who
claimed to have a complete upper level that replaces Aristotle. (05)
The largest modern attempt was Cyc, which started as a single monolithic
ontology in 1984, but it was reorganized as a modular collection of
microtheories in the 1990s. The top-level hierarchy is still there,
but Lenat says that most of the detailed axioms have been pushed down
to the lower levels. (06)
PC (07)
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