|
RW: "The fact that theories are validated and invalidated, extended and
updated or even abandoned does not mean that they are not
theories."
Certainly, they are not all theories, as far as any
true theory describes the nature and causes of things, some domain of the
world, incorporating laws, facts and proven hypothesis.
All what is invalidated and abandoned or wrong concern hypotheses,
conjectures, opinions, possibilities, beliefs, to be verified or falsified
according to the standard techiques and methods.
We apply medical theories, as tested and proven, to make people healthy;
physical theories to create nuclear weapons or build giant physical structures,
chemical theories to create chemical processes and chemical weapons, etc.
An example of such confusing is a political/social hypothesis, the
cause of unstable societies, having much less validity than scientific
theories, and trying to survive experimental testing on human lives.
Azamat Abdoullaev
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 11:28
PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] intangibles
(was RE: Why most classifications are fuzzy)
On 25/07/2011 4:00 PM, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote:
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 8:54
PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
intangibles (was RE: Why most classifications are fuzzy)
On 25/07/2011 1:14 PM, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote:
JS: "The next step beyond predicting how to place your foot on a
slippery slope is to design a wakway or a bridge to provide a more
secure footing. Primitive societies learned how to develop that
technology by a few steps of cognitive reasoning beyond just trial and
error. Humans did it by thinking, and spiders did it by genetic
learning over millions of years. But the fundamental principles
are *exactly* the same."
Indeed. We learn to do things by doing things: we
learn how to perceive by perception/sensing, how to walk by walking, how
to communicate by communicating, how to read by reading, by trial
and error. You can draw some analogies between doing physical
actions by trial and error and problem solving by way of theories,
where the hypotheses are a sort of trial.
Still it's critical to draw a distinction between the
intellectual processes of predictions or anticipations or forecast and
the physical interactions by stimulus-response coordination
mechanisms.
Why?
What is here questioned? That there are higher cognitive
processes (as knowing, search, deciding, language, intellection,
predicition) and basic cognitive processes (sensing/perception, motor
actions).
I am questioning the necessity
of drawing a sharp distinction. There is much more evidence of a continuum.
When progressing from crawling and learning to cross a street in a busy city,
at what point does a child cross the line from basic cognitive processes
(trial and error) to higher cognitive processes (traffic pattern recognition,
street lights, validity of crosswalks (I live in Montreal where crosswalks are
just convenient landmarks for ambulances), acceleration capabilities by type
of vehicle, prediction of the humanity of strangers ,etc.).
Remember the mental "eye of the soul" with intellectual intuition,
and your unique capacity to see ideas, to grasp the essence of
things. For instance, more reliable economic forecasts are done not by
various statistical methods, supported by various theories, but by
the intellectual insight of prevision.
You have got to be kidding!
AA: "The accuracy of economic forecasting has been reduced
by increased uncertainty in the global and national economies snce
the early 1970s... Some of the greatest contributions to the economic
forecasting ...come from economists who have the insight to
understand the changing economy of today" (Britannica, Economic Growth and
Planning).
One is in need to create a whole taxonomy of sources of errors in
economic forecasting, global and national: partial theories, ideologies,
personal judgments, biases, old or manipulated statistics; no powerful
machine is of any help here.
The whole global crisis was just missed.
Only now a comprehensive/holistic approach, named as the FCA and TBL,
is getting recognition. Any economic growth and planning economic
changes requests accounting not only economic factors, but also ecological
capital and social capital.
The fact that theories are
validated and invalidated, extended and updated or even abandoned does not
mean that they are not theories.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 6:15
PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
intangibles (was RE: Why most classifications are fuzzy)
Azamat,
No. I gave examples of short-term physical predictions just
to illustrate the point. But every one of those examples can be
extended at any length of time whatever.
> IMO, moving in the physical world, interacting with the
world, manipulating with the world's objects, processing the world's
instant representations, are hardly about predictions, in the strict
sense.
Predicting your next step on a walkway is of *exactly* the same
nature as predicting the weather. Both of them depend on the
same laws of nature: gravity, the behavior of physical objects
in a force field, the relationships among multiple competing forces
acting on matter, etc.
The next step beyond predicting how to place your foot on a
slippery slope is to design a wakway or a bridge to provide a more
secure footing. Primitive societies learned how to develop that
technology by a few steps of cognitive reasoning beyond just trial and
error. Humans did it by thinking, and spiders did it by genetic
learning over millions of years. But the fundamental principles
are *exactly* the same.
The fact that the short-term interactions are learned by trial and
error rather than formal lectures in a physics course is a
trivial difference from the point of view of ontology.
There is a continuum between a child learning how to maintain balance
while walking and engineers using physics to predict how the
International Space Station will interact in the gravitational fields
of the earth, sun, and moon.
As far as ontology is concerned, the child and the engineer are
learning about gravity and how to maintain a desired position within
its range of influence. They're making the same kinds of
predictions for the same reasons -- but at different levels of
complexity on the continuum.
John
_________________________________________________________________
Message
Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared
Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community
Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
_________________________________________________________________
Message
Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared
Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community
Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
_________________________________________________________________
Message
Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config
Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
|
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (01)
|