On Tue, July 19, 2011 10:16, Matthew West said: (01)
> Something being intensional does not mean it cannot be extensional also. (02)
> Take for example the paperweight on my desk. I found it as a nice round
> stone on the beach, and I intentionally decided it would make a good paper
> weight. Are you saying it therefore ceases to be an extensional object
> because it is intentionally created as a paperweight? (03)
This seems to be reversed from the computer ontological meanings of
"intensional" and "extensional". An "intensional" claass is defined by its
properties, while an "extensional" class is defined as comprising the
objects that are specified as members. Thus the stone you found was
a member of the intensional class, BeachPebble (and of all its superclasses)
while you added it to the extent of the Paperweight class. (04)
John was referring to the creation of possible worlds to produce models for
proving something. Such models are populated with instances (extents of
various classes) in order to prove/demonstrate something about a world
outside the generated possible world. His argument is that the parameters
that you used to create the possible world, could be used to demonstrate
whatever was demonstrated by the possible world. (05)
> As far as possible worlds is concerned you should also look at multiverses
> (Hugh Everett). This is becoming quite a respectable theory in physics
> that the different possibilities really happen from a quantum level
> upwards. So they do not necessarily exist just in someone's imagination. (06)
But such multiverses, in my understanding, are intrinsically undetectable
from our universe and can not affect it. Therefore, they have no
predictive value and thus could be considered non-scientific. It is
similarly impossible to prove that the universe did not come into existence
a millisecond ago (with all particles having positions and momenta that
suggest a universe of an age of ~14 billion years. (07)
Neither theory is useful for an ontological description of any given
state of affairs that is not specifically dealing with such a theory. (08)
-- doug foxvog (09)
> Regards
> Matthew West (010)
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> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: 19 July 2011 11:17
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] intangibles (was RE: Why most classifications
> are fuzzy)
>
>
>
> Dear Matthew,
>
> The point I'm trying to make is that possible worlds don't exist. They
> are
> imaginary. The way you imagine them is to create some hypothesis, theory,
> axioms, or specifications that generate them.
>
> The so-called extensional methods are superfluous. Whatever hypothesis
> you
> formed to generate the possible worlds contains all the information
> necessary to derive whatever conclusion you could get by analyzing the set
> of worlds.
>
> In short, the starting hypothesis is intensional. The possible worlds
> are
> useless baggage. They might give you some pleasure in your imagination.
> They might even be useful as illustrations. But the method of forming the
> initial specification for the worlds is intensional.
>
> John (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.
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