Dear William,
You wrote:
When I
say why care, I mean that if we are all just saying what we please, then what
we please is what we said. Unless you believe in logical reasons, evidence, it
is just as good if I phoney up a picture as if I take one. If you think that
all views are equally correct, reasons are irrelevant. I would like to
understand how a person could think otherwise, and claim to be a scientist or
engineer.
No, evidence, though as subjective as any
other factual demonstration, is in what we choose to support our viewpoints.
One man’s evidence may (or may not) be acceptable to another, e.g. to a judge
or jury. Evidence is always interpreted. The choice of evidence in a
litigation is made by each party in its own interest. So evidence is not
wholly objective either.
-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 William Frank
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012
2:36 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 4:48 PM, Rich Cooper
<rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear William,
Thanks for your insights. We wrote:
RC] People are always
subjective, even when pretending toward the objective view.
WF] If this is true, then is not your stating this view above entirely a
matter of your ***own*** subjective view, and is therefore something noone else
should care about, since they either have their own subjective views, equally
as good as yours, or are perhaps to be persuaded that uttering the same
statements as you will maybe be in their personal interest, as the group that
shares your views might be able to exert power of them, if they disagree?
I agree that this is my own subjective view, and clearly you don’t
fully agree. But I don’t conclude that “no one else should
care” because there are some who
share a portion of my concerns and some who share a portion of yours as
well. There will be those who do care and those who don’t. Those
who don’t are perfectly free to focus on some other area that is of real
importance to them. Those who do can continue discussing the concepts and
inferences you and I are individually representing and considering. There
are those who care (because it is in their self interests) and those who don’t
care (because they have no skin in the debate).
None of that makes any one party “in error”, it simply reflects
said party’s personal views on how to satisfy said party’s needs. No
party has a lock on objective truth.
This is for sure. In fact, I would go further, and say that objective
truth is an unreachable goal. But ***without the goal**, and the ability
to be closer or further away, always subject to revision, there is no
point in saying anything, except to decieve people into believing things that
are in your interest in having them believe. It does
not follow from no party knowing for sure what is correct, that all parties are
equally correct.
And you and hans, who are in favor of viewpoints, are in my camp in that
regard. In fact, I can't find anything I disagree with in what Hans says.
When I say why care, I mean that if we are all just saying what we please, then
what we please is what we said. Unless you believe in logical reasons,
evidence, it is just as good if I phoney up a picture as if I take one. If you
think that all views are equally correct, reasons are irrelevant. I would
like to understand how a person could think otherwise, and claim to be a
scientist or engineer.
Wm
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
I have one big
question about this, for the group as a whole, I wonder how widely held is the
"reasoning" and opinions expressed by Rich below in this group. I am
surprised to see views on these matters aired on what I thought was a
scientific forum, views very far off what I thought was the subject. I am sorry
for using your time further on such a matter, but it ***really** confuses me so
to find this stuff here; I would like to understand better what s going on.
On Sat, Mar 10,
2012 at 2:19 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear Hans,
Thanks for your reply. Please see my responses embedded into your
email below,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
Rich,
I think it would be better not to use terms like
“semantic baggage”, which suggest some lack of objectivity on the part of
whoever defined C.
I can’t take credit for
that term; David was the first to use it, but I heartily agree with the term
because I firmly believe that the originator(s) of any ontology necessarily
exercised their subjective cache of beliefs to create the ontology. That is
really my point in this discussion.
Many perhaps most reflectively people would agree that it is impossible to completely
eliminate subjectivity, just as it is impossible to be completely sure what is
true, or what is right. But from this, none of the rest of what you say
follows.
People are always
subjective, even when pretending toward the objective view.
If this is true, then is not your stating this view above entirely a matter of
your ***own*** subjective view, and is therefore something noone else should
care about, since they either have their own subjective views, equally as good
as yours, or are perhaps to be persuaded that uttering the same statements as
you will maybe be in their personal interest, as the group that shares your
views might be able to exert power of them, if they disagree?
Doesn't the word "pretending" means that you know what you are doing
is not real, and you are making no attempt to conform to what is real. Is
everyone who tries to get closer to the truth just 'pretending' they are?
Does it follow that when people try to get closer to objectivity, they are only
"pretending", rather than honestly trying to be *more* objective, be
*closer* to the truth? does it follow when people try to find the truth, they
are doing no more than saying whatever will most benefit them? Does this mean
that a newspaper might as well make up whatever it wants, that Pravda was
*just* as objective as the Times, because both were influence by the glasses
they wore? Don't the matters of degree make any difference? (Of course,
there are no degrees, if we accepted your view. Every view is as correct as any
other) Does this mean that scientists are wrongly chastised for making up thier
data? If so, why should we bother to converse? Or maybe if it meets their ends,
they are right to make up data? Is it even possible for their to be a
difference between made up data and other data, if it is all just pretending at
being objective?
We see our world through
the glasses of a subjective experience from birth to now. Objectivity is what
we call it when people don’t disagree much on a concept.
So, the only judge is what others say. So, when they believed that the world
was flat, because others agreed, that was objective truth? When the Concil of
Constance said it was right to burn Huss as a heretic without listening to what
he had to say, because who should listen to a heretic, that was reason, because
it was accepted by the group? Then, the only reason others might disagree with
this is because the belong to some group that does so? If so, why bother?
Because you are pursuing your own interests? If so, does this mean you can
murder whomever you like, as long as your group, however you define it, agrees.
Can there be groups of one?
That is why people can
agree on very simple ontologies such as Dublin Core, but not on more complex
ontologies.
Well, what happens if I disagree with the Dublin Core? I am simply
excommunicated from the group? Does this mean the core cannot change? Unless
somebody with more power comes along to make it change, or unless the majority
happens to changes its view like lemmings running over a cliff? If the majority
is always right, which majority? Or is every majority right? From your account
of why to say things, I can only think that I should agree with the dublin core
because it wil help me get a job, or stay in this august group, etc, becuase that
is the only kind of being right there is.
It follows to me from what you say above, that the Dublin core must be only a sociological
metric, that records whatever its current members happen to say. But, if when I
read what the core says, if I find it to be a disertation on the quality of
Bulgarian poliphonic music, I have made no possible mistake.
On the contrary, have found that people instead are able to understand that
they way they use words is part of a viewpoint, that not all others might not share,
but that some must, and when they are asked to consider these other viewpoints,
are able to see value in them, and see how their own viewpoint might fit in as
a part of a bigger whole, that such people now know something important
to know, that is *true*, and that science represents advances in truth, (at
least until I started to see things like this). But if is all the same, we are
just pretending when we believe these things, then why are you bothering? In
all sincerity, I ask what your motivations could be.
Me, I would guess you really and truly BELIEVE what you are saying The
problem is, that fact in itself is ***inconsistent** with what you are saying:
If what you are saying is true, there is no truth, so what you say can't be
true. And, since believing something is thinking it to be true, then
beliving there is no truth except what you believe is circular. So
whatever you said is as "true" as anything else you might say.
Then, why should you be passionate, as you seem to be, about a belief grounded
in nothing but your own personal impressions? Whatever you believe is true IS
true, so what are you doing caring whether others believe it too. The only
other choice I can imagine is that all talk is just for personal benefit: talk
to keep an easy job, talk to get the satisfaction of winning in a low-pain
sport, talk to keep people's attention on one, talk to make sure that as many
others are in your camp as possible, to avoid threats.
Or perhaps, you believe also it makes no difference whether what you say is
consistent, because consistency and reasoning is also just
"pretending" to be objective. Then, why do you bother to use a word
like "why", which to most of us, means providing a sound reason. Any
reason or no reason would be is as good as any other. Because you think
giving a reason will persuade all the foolish people who think that good
reasons are relevant?
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