Dear Richard,
Having read your paper, I like the way you
formulated the problem to be solved in terms of various groups. In
particular your quote:
We
use the term ‘ontological’ quite deliberately in that expanded
information and
meaning
frameworks are generated by people. Thus, people use their innate intelligence
and
sense of being to create relationships, to create meaning, and to solve
problems. Such
meaning
frameworks are not generated by machines but through the use of human
interpretative intelligence (Vines and
Firestone, forthcoming).
This is an interesting formulation, though
I am not familiar with the examples from Australian politics you use to
illustrate the principles. But it seems to me that self interest, widely
distributed among the population, and often at odds with the commons, that
should drive the system instead of regulatory bodies.
Here in the US, if you have been watching our silly
struggle over the fiscal state of the country, you can see demonstrated the two
or three major viewpoints to which all parties subscribe. Republican,
Democrat and Tea Party actors hew to only three major value systems. That
is like mapping a fourteen dimensional physics onto a two dimensional paper
substrate.
I think what is missing is a full and
adequate accounting of self interest. Specifically, every American (Australian,
Syrian, Brit, Frenchman, …) has a unique evaluation of the process.
Jefferson anticipated compromise and balance,
and did not anticipate the conglomeration of self-interests into a few major
threads.
In an And/Or graph (e.g., IDEF0: http://www.englishlogickernel.com/Patent-7-209-923-B1.pdf
figures 5 and 11A) if I use different heuristic valuation methods, I get
distinctly different preferred solution subtrees. Each person in any
group has unique values, and therefore the emergent set of heuristics is plural
in value systems. With present systems, the projection of millions of
value systems onto a two dimensional regulatory body loses the knowledge needed
to solve everybody’s problem. I think a valuation of each
individual’s needs – the three hundred million US citizens, for
example – is the missing ingredient of subjectivity, and without accounting
for that massive divergence, we are doomed to average out the noise of
individuals in seeking a single, choiceless, and history shows incompetent,
solution to the single individual’s problems.
We need to look at multiple value
structures, not just logic, in how knowledge is represented, formulated,
selected, interpreted and conveyed into social structures. Economists
like Milton Friedman, Somebody Hyek, Adam Smith and others taught that self
interest and individual choice is what makes the free market work.
Governments are the least free of markets, presently structured, like
ontologies, to represent only a single value structured solution to problems
formulated by a few special interests, not by widespread representations of all
citizens’ interests.
It may be stretching an analogy to say
that political graphs are like the current state of ontologies, but I do so
anyway. If anyone still reading this has a solution to that multiply
valued, multiply choiced fantasy of mine, I would love to hear more. But
logic alone is simply misleading, and IMHO inappropriate, as a solution to
problems of groups of people.
Negotiation of individual transactions by
individual choices and values is what makes the free market work, as well as it
does or doesn’t, and I have not seen another system level method that
even approaches the flexibility and evolving progress that so consistently
follows free market expressions of self interest.
Thanks for an interesting paper,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Vines
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011
4:25 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
intangibles (was RE: Why most classificationsare fuzzy)
Hi
Because I have followed a small number of the threads of this group over a
period and learned a number of things from doing this, I thought I might make a
small contribution back even though I am sure I am way out of my depth
……
RC: …….., I doubt if I can
contribute much more, since I have a very strong conviction that subjective
construction is the missing ingredient in ontology.
JS: There are three important issues that
are worth discussing, but they should be kept distinct when we're trying to analyze
them: (1.) The technical question about how modal logic is related to
possible worlds and/or possible models of the world. (2). The philosophy
of science about the nature of physical laws, and the criteria for accepting a
hypothesis as a law. (3) The psychological and sociological issues about how
scientists and engineers do their work and reach their conclusions.
In this discussion crossing over ontology and epistemic logic (and
modalities), I am not sure why there is no reference to the nature of
“evolutionary possibility”.
For me, there is a need to explicitly take into account a temporal
component to this analysis …. that different types of knowledge emerge
through time.
I have puzzled over these matters for some time and made a first attempt
to link them in section 1.3 of first part of this paper
(the overarching topic being about regulatory systems not epistemology or
ontology). In thinking about this notion of “evolutionary
possibility”, I was interested in exploring whether there might be merit in exploring a
synthesis between Pierce, Popper (and his idea of “evolutionary
epistemology”) Wittgenstein and Peter Munz. Munz was the only student
ever to study under both Popper and Wittgenstein. It is clear from his book
“Beyond Wittgenstein’s Poker”, Munz carried this as an
unresolved burden for a good part of his life and his book has been an attempt
to make sense of this early experience in the 1940’s. I was very interested
in some of his discussion about meaning making within this context.
Subjective construction as “a missing ingredient in
ontology” (in the broad sense of the word ontology) is very much alive
and well in the discourse of knowledge management and to some extent, the KM
world has recently been keen to draw upon Pierce’s notion of abductive
reasoning to support the trend towards the uptake of a theory of social
constructivism. Whilst I am sure this is a good thing, I think there is a long
way to go before prevailing views about KM stabilise – it is still very
much an emergent domain.
To this extent, I have been very much
influenced by John’s advocacy for an “epistemic cycle”. I
think this has a lot to offer for those with interests in KM theory and practice
– and thus I referenced this in the piece referred to above.
This earlier piece on knowledge
support systems in research intensive enterprises also made an attempt to
integrate the impact of hierarchically
complex systems and public knowledge spaces into this mix. These two aspects
have some relevance to this discussion. – particularly, this:
i.e. RC multiple viewers of the same sign, each
seeing it in distinct ways, and reaching distinct conclusions,
Cheers,
Richard