Self Interested Ontologists,
Perhaps the phylogenically attributed “virtues”
(self sacrifice a la apoptosis, sexiness as viewed from the opposite gender,
healthiness observables [power, wealth, generosity a la peacock displays…]
as viewed from all genders …) are the ones at the top (nil end) of the
lattice. Ontogencially attributed virtues must be those that are actualized
(a la Maslow) by individual selves evolving from the fertile egg that produced
us.
Then the other factors in Doug’s
ontology of self interest can be derived by specializing the phylogenic
virtues.
Could that be the formulation which
explains the top level, and still connects us all to the “same”
species, each in our subjective individuality?
Questioningly,
-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 Rich Cooper
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2011
12:02 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology
Dear Pat,
Please see comments below in
response to your post and the two interesting questions you raised,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2011 11:18 AM
To: Rich Cooper
Cc: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
Semantics of Natural Languages
PH:> I am finding this whole thread rather bewildering. The original
suggestion, as I understand it, was that it might be a good idea to invent an
ontology focussed on the notion of self-interest. To my mind, this suggestion
immediately invites several questions.
1. Why? That is, why this
notion rather than some other folk-psychological notion, such as, say,
schadenfreude or anger or happiness or...? Is it because someone feels that
self-interest is of central importance in human affairs? What assumptions
underlie this (or whatever other relevant) intuition of this notion's
importance? The answer to this question might iluminate that of the next
question.
If you would like to suggest alternatives that
can explain behavior in subjective scenarios, that could be very useful. I chose
the term self-interest because that explains a huge portion of the political
scenarios that were discussed in the beginning of this thread.
Also, when I used the term "subjectivity",
it didn't get across the purpose I wanted to convey.
That purpose is to find more accurate ways of explaining human behavior.
John felt that starting at a smaller scale
(biosemiotics) could narrow the subject well enough to make progress, but my
Use Case 1 suggestion didn't stimulate
discussion. If you have a more compelling
Use Case, that would also be useful. I tried Use Case 2, but that seemed
too abstract, and oriented the self interest issues only in terms of EBITDA,
which is such a small part of self interest that it seems to have
also not been a good keystone for starting
discussions.
But it (self
interest) is a soft appellation; suggestions to change it to another phrase, or to
decompose it into more specific constituent
categories, or otherwise to clarify the discussion (which
is, as you put it, bewildering so far) would be useful.
2. This phrase
'self-interest' seems underspecified. It can be understood in many ways: as a
social/political force in human affairs; as a pyschological hypothesis about
human cognition; as a moral factor; and so on. Each of these relates the phrase
to a different context of related notions, and probably will turn out to be a
slightly differnt idea as a result. What context was in mind when the ontology
was originally suggested? Where should we look to see what kind of other
concepts would be in the proposed ontology?
That is an excellent question, and yes,
Self-Interest is (so far) highly underspecified.
I was hoping that the political illustration of
how self interest explains nearly all of the differences of opinion observable
in American politics would add some context, but that got us into purely
political discussion, so was too
emotional a topic and lost the focus from the main topic of what predicts human
behavior, or even agent behavior (i.e., biota, leaf cutter ants, …).
So there is still not a good context that we can
all agree on, unfortunately, and which stays on topic. ANY suggestions
you might have to get us back on focus would be very good to read.
Pat
David Eddy favors a list of 1,500 to 6,000
concepts which I thought might help
explain the self interest (and the business processes affected by it), though I
think the estimate is higher than that. Nevertheless, some context such
as business, politics, biosemiotics, investment resolution, or any other factor
in which people (and simpler agents) interact could possibly be the right one. We just haven't found it
yet.
As David said,
> Information systems
typically are poorly/ambiguously defined & constantly evolving.
> Plus the language
used to describe information systems (software) is all over the place &
very rarely formally expressed.
> Like it or not,
believe it or not, Agile or not, most systems used in organizations go through
some sort of systems development life cycle...
>
> 1 - requirements
> 2 - analysis
> 3 - design
> 4 - coding
> 5 - implementation
> 6 - maintenance
>
> At each one of these
steps people with different views of the world, with different life experiences
& with different use of language get to put their oar in the water.
Then you get to mix in professional
> jealousies
(requirements folks CERTAINLY do NOT speak/write/think the same language as
programmers) & the dynamics of mergers & acquisitions.
>
> True enough; each
discipline has its own tribe of adherents (BA, SA, SE, Mgr …) and each
has its own collective viewpoint about how things OUGHT to be; it is nearly
always something another tribe is NOT doing, to that tribe's discomfort and
hysteria. The amazing thing is that ultimately MOST software developments
are somewhat successful; otherwise they would stop getting funded by those
satisficing business execs.
Note that David, with great experience in that
context, understands how subjective (self interested) the various parties are
and why they focus on their personal limited viewpoints instead of on the
higher level issue of the business as a
whole. That analogizes nicely
with the politics of American forces - Unions, Large Businesses, Political
Causes, and various other amalgamations (groups) of people, each with a self
interest to protect at the expense of the whole.
The quote from Genesereth that Cyc has failed is
worth considering in this topic, IMHO, because that widely agreed notion of its
failure might show what is missing. In my opinion, it is the lack of a
model for self interest which might be the answer, or at least a large part of the
answer to that question. What is missing from the combination of knowing
what and knowing how that prevents us from constructing demonstrations of the Turing Test, simple as it is.
Thanks,
-Rich