Hi John, (01)
JS> The puzzles you're discussing are examples of what Wittgenstein called a
> philosopher's disease. Normal human beings deal with them correctly
> without worrying about them. For representing them in a computer, it's
> necessary to find a consistent way of representing them so that the result
> that normal people arrive at without thinking will be the one that the
> computer also derives. (02)
This may be a good characterisation of linguistic competence, but cannot be
totally right for data-intensive operational business systems. Normal people
do not manage to produce consistent data models for these - not even experts
do.
In this case, the problem is better characterised as the standard trade-off
between science and engineering. Ontology engineering needs to take what is
useful from philosophy and leave what it not. Taking it all indiscriminately
may well result in something similar to Wittgenstein's philosopher's
disease, however taking nothing will perpetuate the problems. (03)
Chris (04)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: 10 July 2011 06:57
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] intangibles (was RE: Why most classifications
> are fuzzy)
>
> Chris, Azamat, and Cory,
>
> The puzzles you're discussing are examples of what Wittgenstein called a
> philosopher's disease. Normal human beings deal with them correctly
> without worrying about them. For representing them in a computer, it's
> necessary to find a consistent way of representing them so that the result
> that normal people arrive at without thinking will be the one that the
> computer also derives.
>
> CP
> > But I was asking for an explanation how something intangible (more
> > accurately, 'abstract') could have these tangible (more accurately,
> > 'concrete') effects. As I understand it, there is no scientific
> > evidence of intangible/abstract things having a causal effect on
> > tangible/concrete things.
>
> All of mathematics consists of signs. The sign types are abstract
information,
> which is intangible. But the sign tokens are physical marks on paper, in
> physical artifacts, or in physical activations of neurons in somebody's
brain.
> Those things can definitely have causal effects.
>
> A contract can be "a gentleman's agreement", whose only tokens are neural
> impressions in the brains of the people who made the contract. That might
> be harder to enforce in a court of law, but people who value their
> reputations will honor the contract.
> In any case, the physical things that have the causal effect are the
neural
> patterns in somebody's brain.
>
> AA
> > I don't know if there is any consistent typing of economic
> > intangibles, but it's clear that the whole matter of intangibles what
> > is needing all attention.
>
> Peirce devoted years of concentrated attention to such issues, and he
solved
> them. I recommend his writings.
>
> CBC
> > How do intangibles have tangible effect? Not sure I know, I suspect
> > it has something to do with behavior.
>
> More precisely, it has something to do with minds implemented in physical
> neurons that contain tokens of the sign types.
> Those tokens have physical effects that are manifest in behavior
> -- e.g., somebody honoring the contract.
>
> CBC
> > If I were to represent a contract as the signed piece of paper, how
> > would this piece of paper in a filing cabinet have impact on physical
> > objects in a different space and time? This seems at least as magical.
>
> The piece of paper is just one token of the type. That token by itself
can't do
> anything. Brains are physical interpreters of sign tokens. The
interpretation
> of the physical token on paper is a neural token in the brain. That token
can
> trigger processes that result in appropriate behavior.
>
> John
>
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