John, (01)
I was responding to a poster by stating that although that poster's model
of intangible societal objects as complex mental processes by many people
could correspond to various aspects of reality, a model accepting such
intangibles as objects in their own right is useful. (02)
I agree that Pierce's theory of signs, marks, tokens, and types is a
good basis. But i suggest that an ontology of more specific classes of
those types is useful. These different classes (including conceptual
works, games (not the events which are performances of the games, nor
equipment used by people to play the games), agreements, accounts, and
laws) should be ontologized to define their properties, relations, and
rules inter-relating such types of things. (03)
FWIW, Cycorp has spent staff decades creating such an ontology. It might
be useful for anyone considering ontologizing in this area to look at
what the open-source Open Cyc ontology provides in this area, and maybe
the more detailed Research Cyc. (04)
On Mon, July 11, 2011 1:26, John F. Sowa said:
> Doug,
>
> I don't disagree with that.
>
> DF
>> The intangibles that we are discussing are mental artifacts which are
>> shared by multiple people. Any causation is due to mental activity
>> which "causes" the thinker to do something, not do something, or accept
>> or question some information. (05)
> But the point I was trying to make is that Peirce's theory of signs
> gives you a vocabulary with a well-organized ontology that addresses
> and relates all the issues discussed in this thread. (06)
At a very general level, yes. But more specific rules and properties
can be defined for various subclasses of societal intangible, which
are too specific to apply to more generic Pierce classes which you
discuss. (07)
> The term 'mental artifact' doesn't have any of that structure. (08)
Agreed. I argued that it is not a very useful model for discussing
intangibles. (09)
> With a sign, you have two physical aspects: a mark that can be
> interpreted in an open-ended number of ways, and a token, which is
> a mark that has been interpreted as an instance of some type.
>
> Then the sign type belongs to the same category as any mathematical
> structure. It can be discussed objectively in the same way as a
> dodecahedron, a bit pattern from any source, any kind of language,
> or a specification of some kind of virtual reality.
>
> But a sign can also be analyzed in terms of how it is perceived
> and interpreted by any species, not just human. You can analyze
> a sign from any cognitive point of view you prefer -- linguistic,
> psychological, neurophysiological, or psychoanalytic. (010)
> But with the category 'mental artifact' you're dumped into the
> psychological pot, and you don't have any of the other options. (011)
This is one reason that i was suggesting another model. (012)
> DF
>> By Occam's Razor, it is useful to consider such intangibles to exist. (013)
> Yes, of course. But there is a lot more than mere existence. (014)
Yes, but that is a necessary first step in defining more properties. (015)
> When you say that a contract is a sign, you have a complete ontology
> that lets you talk about the sign type as intangible, or you can talk
> about a mark or a token as physical. If you wish, you can consider
> that intangible thing as a mental entity, but you can also analyze
> it as objectively as any mathematical structure. (016)
Of course, a contract has many properties and rules which a generic
sign does not necessarily have. The relations between the sign and
its marks and tokens would be as described by Pierce, but those relations
don't tell everything about contracts. (017)
-- doug f (018)
> DF
>> Even if the process model were able to easily explain everything
>> about intangible objects... (019)
> The ontology of signs also covers the process methods -- the term
> semiosis is the process of interpreting signs, normally by creating
> more signs that are implied by or associated with the previous sign. (020)
> When I recommend semiotics, I mean Peirce's version. Many articles
> about semiotics are written by people who don't know logic. Some
> of them have a specialty in other fields, such as neuroscience or
> linguistics -- that means that they at least have some discipline
> to fall back on. But many things called semiotics have a high
> fluff quotient.
>
> And by the way, if you want a second opinion about Peirce's work
> and its relevance to contemporary issues, see Pietarinen's site:
>
> http://www.helsinki.fi/~pietarin/
>
> John
>
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=============================================================
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (022)
"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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