Calling all Ontologists,
Here is a second use case which addresses
some of the incommensurability issues discussed here heretofore.
Alf Gamma and Bet Gamma
are two agents joined by partial common interest in an activity. Alf owns
amount A of the investment required to make the activity completely performed, and
Bet owns amount B. The total assets invested (labor, capital, resources,
depreciation, less earnings (classical EBITDA), taxes paid, interest paid, and
amortization taken amount to A+B, so Alf’s share is A/(A+B) and Bets
share is B/(A+B).
Halfway through the task,
Alf has formed opinion Oa about how to complete the activity (lets say Alf
proposes an IDEF0 decomposition of the activity context), and Bet has formed
opinion Ob (a distinctly different IDEF0
decomposition of the same activity context). The two opinions are
partially supportive and partially contradictory. That is, some of the
same ICOMs are used and some of the same decomposition activities are
performed, but other ICOMs and other decomposition activities are distinct in
the two opinions.
If A>B, then one
democratic (voting) way to reconcile their differences for the sake of progress
might be to follow Oa whether it leads to good or bad results. If A<B,
then Ob could be voted in. If A=B, it
would be a tossup and a coin flip might be used to select from between Oa and Ob. Or if A=B, and there is no agreement on a coin
flip, perhaps the activity should be discontinued and the rewards or losses
partitioned among Alf and Bet by some rule of fairness, or some contract terms
they signed before starting.
Suppose opinion Oa is
chosen (by whatever means) and the task turns out well. Should Alf get a
better share of EBITDA than just A/(A+B), or should they still split the
earnings in proportion to their invested self interest. What is the value
of effective knowledge when applied, versus knowledge of indeterminate
effectiveness?
By way of contrast,
suppose opinion Ob is chosen and the task
turns out badly. Should Bet get less than the B/(A+B) share of mutually invested
self interest?
A third option; Alf and
Bet have irreconcilable differences so that Alf won’t continue working
toward decomposition Ob and Bet won’t continue working toward decomposition
Oa because they simply can’t agree, and are strongly opined in opposition.
How should the current state of their contract be partitioned so that Alf and
Bet are both treated “fairly”?
This Use Case 2 might be analogically
applied to the various situations we have discussed, yet they avoid all awkward
personalization of the political topics we have discussed in our search for
examples. You are free to relate your response to specific instances, but
I suggest the answer be couched in terms of Alf and Bet, A and B, Oa and Ob and the results of the activity.
You also might want to use the Uniform
Commercial Code (UCC) provisions to illustrate your examples, or you might want
to use Napoleonic law, or socialist principles, or any other appeal that suits
the purpose you want to illustrate.
Can we find commensurability in the
activity of discussing this Use Case 2 ourselves, or only incommensurability as
in our earlier discussions?
Hopefully and Changefully,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 6:31
PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Self
Interest Ontology - Bacteria Use Case 1
Self Interested Ontologists,
Let’s consider a use case for the
bacterial film example. I will propose one, and if there are comments,
please feel free to add your $0.02 or to correct mine as appropriate.
USE CASE 1.
A bacterial film covers teeth. One bacterium,
Strepta, senses a chemical gradient she associates with problems to come.
So Strepta sends a chemical message M to the film at large.
Further away in the film, Chlamy
identifies the message, which she interprets as “Watch it; there is
dangerous antibacterial toothpaste in the vicinity.”
Chlamy senses the direction of the
message, and quickly forms a waist in the plane of the message direction, then
splits at right angles in the cross product, splitting into two daughter cells
Bacilla and Amoebi, while Chlamy ceases to exist as a unit, having split.
Bacilla is on top, and her weight plus her
flailing cilia push Amoebi one micron down into the cavity. When the
noxious chemical (was it really toothpaste?) touches Bacilla, she pops, spreading
proteins, fats and carbohydrates which coat Amoebi in her cavity, effectively
protecting Amoebi from the noxious chemical gradient.
Strepta may share very few genes (self
interest objects) with Chlamy, but Chlamy’s offspring have very accurate
copies of Bacilla’s genes, so both have mutually high self
interest. By splitting, Chlamy preserves her genes. Bacilla
preserves her genes, which are faithful copies of Chlamy’s, by protecting
her twin sister Amoebi with her (Bacilla’s) own life.
What is in it for Strepta? She may
be millions of generations distal from Amoebi, the ultimate beneficiary of
Strepta’s message. So the gradient of the film should somehow
represent the contribution of Strepta’s gene pool to Amoebi, which is
what gives Strepta (through their shared ancestral forebears) genetic reasons
to send her message to distal parts of the film.
Should there be a limit to the distality
with which Strepta uses her cellular resources to send the message far and
wide? It should be related to the likelihood of Strepta’s genes
being preserved as compared to the likelihood that her resources consumed to
send the message are wasted, if the chemical turns out not to be toothpaste but
simple custard.
Wouldn’t statistical decision theory
hold in this use case 1; wouldn’t the likelihood of resource loss be
approximately equal to the likelihood that Amoebi, with genes that are equal to
Strepta’s, is saved from annihilation to continue propagating those genes
into a future film? Wouldn’t the sensors and effectors used by
Strepta evolve to be quantitatively related to the survival benefits enjoyed by
her sacrificed materials?
Comments welcome,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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