I'd like to elaborate on the following point by Chris Menzel: (01)
> Rather than debating endlessly over subtle, quasi-philosophical distinctions
> and treading yet again over well-worn territory (often, it seems, in ignorance
> of vast bodies of relevant literature in philosophy, linguistics, and
>artificial
> intelligence), it would be far more useful to research and discuss the virtues
> and liabilities (vis-á-vis, e.g., simplicity, expressiveness, and
>tractability)
> of various alternatives for capturing the information we need rigorously in
>logic. (02)
I strongly agree. And I would add that it is necessary to have
a systematic framework for analyzing, discussing, and representing
any topics that are intended for computational use of any kind. (03)
The major problem with a single word like 'conceptual' is that it is
just one word. By itself, it has no associated structure that can be
used to specify anything else. The word 'conceptual' does have some
connection with other words like 'concept' and 'conceive'. But that
gets you nowhere. It just means is that the word has associations
that are different from what you get with the word 'physical'. (04)
You can get just as much useful information by doing a global change
of the word 'conceptual' to some nonsense word like 'gzooky' in every
message in this thread. If you wish, you can also map 'concept' to
'gzook', 'conceive' to 'gzookify', and 'conceptualization' to
'gzookification'. (05)
That mapping not only distinguishes 'conceptual' from 'physical',
it also keeps it distinct from all the old, vague associations
with 'conceptual'. Then you can sit down and start mapping the
gzooky stuff to logic without any distracting thoughts. (06)
Good luck. (07)
John (08)
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