On Thu, July 7, 2011 19:38, Patrick Cassidy said:
> When do contracts exist?
> Pardon for the tangential post: There is one point in this discussion
> that I am curious about -
> do contracts (or other conceptual works) exist even if
> all tangible record of them (including the record in the creator's brain)
> disappear? This was mentioned in Doug F's post (below) (01)
This is a few steps past what i referred to. It really becomes a meta-
physical issue: "if all evidence of a non-tangible ceases to exist, does
the non-tangible cease to exist as well?" (02)
Merely destroying physical written instantiations of a textual conceptual
work does not mean that the work, or substantial parts of it may not be
re-instantiable from people's memory or other records. If a person knows
that s/he is under a contractual obligation, destroying documentation of
the obligation does not legally absolve the person of the obligation. (03)
> The formalism I use is that, they only exist as long as some tangible
> records of them exist. Then they cease to exist. If an identical idea,
> sentence, etc. is subsequently created, it may be essentially identical,
> but
> will be a different *instance* of (sentence/poem/invention), and this
> instance would have a different creator. (04)
How would one ever know that an identical conceptual work was created if
all knowledge and records of the previous work ceased to exist? (05)
> In the physical world, all electrons and other fundamental particles of a
> particular type have identical essential properties, but they are
> individuals that may cease to exist individually (by conversion to EM
> radiation on interaction, e.g. with antimatter). (06)
According to one model, the antimatter is merely the non-antimatter moving
backward in time. In such a case, the 4D "worm" of the particle bends in
to follow the anti-matter particle to where it came from. If it were
created along with its anti-particle, then the 4D worm turns again and
follows that matter particle forward in time. In this model, multiple
electrons at one instance in time might "actually" be "the same" particle. (07)
> Is this an issue that CYC has a formalism for? (08)
Cyc has a formalism for #$ConceptualWorks, which are intangible, and
instantiations of them in physical objects or events. It treats CWs as
having a starting time, but does not require them to have an ending time.
Cyc would permit a model (#$TheoryMicrotheory) to define the situation
which would result in an ending time for a CW. Cyc had no such model
in Cyc when i left the company over seven years ago. (09)
> I try to make my classes as unfuzzy as possible. (010)
This is useful for most purposes. Cyc generally does the same. But it
does find fuzzy classes useful for NLP stages. (011)
-- doug f (012)
> Pat
>
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA, Inc.
> 908-561-3416
> cell: 908-565-4053
> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of doug foxvog
>> Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 4:40 PM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Why most classifications are fuzzy
>>
>> On Thu, July 7, 2011 12:37, Mike Bennett said:
>>
>> > There is no problem describing financial products ontologically.
>> > Calipers are not a requirement. All financial products are
>> > contracts, and contracts are a real thing
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> > regardless of whether
>> > they consist of paper in a vault (as a few still do) or are
>> > maintained electronically.
>>
>> Here is where one has to be careful. A contract is an agreement which
>> is documented in certain ways. English consistently uses words with
>> multiple meanings. In the case of "conceptual works", English usually
>> uses the same word for the work and for physical instantiations of that
>> work. A contract, book, poem, or law maintains its existence whether
>> or
>> not written forms of them are maintained or destroyed. So yes, the
>> piece
>> of paper or electronic record can be called a "contract" -- but those
>> contracts are not the agreements to which people are bound; they are
>> documentary evidence of the existence of agreements.
>>
>> So i would maintain that the financial product is intangible.
>>
>> > If you don't think contracts are real, try breaking one :)
>> >
>> > The dimensions along which they are defined are, as you rightly
>> > suggest, where it gets interesting. One look at the ISO 10962
>> > Classification of Financial Instruments standard will show what a
>> > challenge it is to try and articificially shoe-horn the whole lot
>> > into one dimension - you simply can't.
>>
>> Of course.
>>
>> -- doug foxvog
>>
>> > Mike
>> >
>> > On 07/07/2011 16:21, David Eddy wrote:
>> >> John -
>> >>
>> >> On 2011-07-06, at 12:45 PM, John F. Sowa wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> And a warning: Unless you can find an immutable law of nature
>> >>> that creates a classification, don't expect it to be a solid
>> >>> foundation for a "standard ontology".
>> >> Agreed.
>> >>
>> >> My view of (imagined) reality has been largely financial services
>> >> (e.g. mutual funds, brokerage, banking,& various forms of
>> >> insurance). In my career, I have only worked directly for a single
>> >> firm that actually made a physical product (junk jewelry)...
>> >> otherwise everything has been paper pushing, describing various
>> >> facets of non-dimensional products.
>> >>
>> >> Quite naturally, since these industries are all conjured out of thin
>> >> air, there are no natural laws to impose organizational discipline.
>> >>
>> >> From what I've seen, "organization" is largely the last minute
>> panic
>> >> to make the next deadline. Does tend to leave a chaotic residue
>> >> which only gets worse over time.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Since this ontology interest has arisen, it has been rattling around
>> >> in the back of my mind if ontologies can be applied to things like
>> >> financial "products."
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Personally I vacillate between describing financial "products" as
>> >> either "non-dimensional" or "N-dimensional." In any case these
>> >> products are stuff that cannot be put on a scale& weighted or have
>> a
>> >> caliper applied to them. It's just information which as far as I
>> >> know we have no idea how to measure other than silly things like
>> >> "lines of code."
>> >>
>> >> ___________________
>> >> David Eddy
>> >> deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> >>
>> >>
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Mike Bennett
>> > Director
>> > Hypercube Ltd.
>> > 89 Worship Street
>> > London EC2A 2BF
>> > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7917 9522
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>> >
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>>
>> =============================================================
>> doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org
>>
>> "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.
>> =============================================================
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> (013)
=============================================================
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (014)
"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.
============================================================= (015)
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