A few thoughts follow which might be relevant to an ontology of action. (These
come from notes I made decades ago when I was trying to develop a 'logic of
actions' as an extension to McCarthy's situation calculus.) (01)
1. Actions are not state-to-state functions on "world states". Rather, they
take place in a dynamic world which is in constant flux. Many actions simply do
not make sense unless this is taken as basic, eg accelerating a vehicle to
overtake a truck.
2. Actions take time. Some take longer than others, but there is no such thing
as an instantaneous action.
3. Actions often have startings and endings which are typical of the action, in
some cases unique to it. Many actions (not all) can be usefully characterized
by their starting and ending conditions, ignoring any intermediate temporal
structure. (This is relevant to Doug's point ****, below.)
4. Some things treated as actions in legal and folk terms are in fact failures
to act, eg defaulting on a mortgage payment, dropping a ball, sleeping late,
missing an appointment. We treat these non-actions as acts, both in language
and socially, eg one can be blamed or punished for failing to act just as one
can for acting. Sometimes, for complex actions, the 'positive' and 'negative'
aspects are closely intertwined, eg playing music, dancing.
5. Some extreme cases. (a) A person lies down and goes to sleep, blocking a
door from opening. Is the opening-prevention itself an action? (If so, what if
a brick were "doing" it? If not, why can someone be blamed for doing this if
bad consequences ensue, eg preventing egress in case of a fire?) (b) An
outfielder makes a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to catch a ball. What
action did they take? Is an attempt to do an action itself an action? How is
the attempt related to the successful action? (c) A person shoots at a target,
misses, but hits and kills a passerby, not intending to. What action took
place? Legally this would be manslaughter, I guess. Can the theory of actions
distinguish murder from manslaughter, and voluntary from involuntary
manslaughter? Note that the laws often refer to an act performed "while engaged
in" another act (eg a felony).
6. Consider a road sign which says "proceed with caution" (this is what a
flashing amber light means.) What would it be to act so as to satisfy this? How
would an action taken "with caution" differ from the (same??) action taken
without caution? Similarly: what does it mean to be "reckless"? (02)
Anyway, some food for thought. (03)
Pat (04)
On Jun 7, 2012, at 10:56 AM, doug foxvog wrote: (05)
> On Mon, June 4, 2012 15:09, Rich Cooper wrote:
>
>> I don’t plan to reinvent the Agent/Activity
>> ontology, but I don’t want to use “action” instead
>> of the more aggregated “Activity” concept. The
>> reason is because I don’t relay on syntactic
>> analysis as the first step. Instead, I start with
>> the semantic analysis that is available based on
>> the lexicon and phraseology used in the corpus.
>
>> But in my methods of the ‘923, it isn’t necessary
>> to start with a complex pantheon of concepts. I
>> am developing a reference design for the ‘923
>> which is minimalist – Agents and Activities
>
> I'm not sure how the use of Activities is minimalist. Activities are
> structured sets of Actions. ****I'm not sure how one would model
> Activity without modeling its relationships to component Actions.****
> To be minimalist, i would suggest going with Action and a grouping
> function.
>
> One might also want to model Events without doers (and are thus not
> necessarily actions), and even Static Situations. One might also want
> to distinguish purposeful actions (where the doer has intent, unlike the
> stone) from non-purposeful actions. This would give:
>
> Situation -- an occurrence. Has temporal parts.
> StaticSituation -- a Situation that does not include a state change
> Event -- a Situation that includes a state change
> Action -- an Event with a "doer"
> PurposefulAction -- an action undertaken with intent
> NonpurposefulAction -- an action without intent
> PassiveEvent -- an Event without a "doer"
>
>> – rather than choosing a maximized set of concepts
>> because I think that approach is much more
>> effective for the applications I have in mind.
>
>> Thanks for the reminder re SUMO. When I get stuck
>> with a concept, perhaps I can find precedents in
>> the SUMO ontology.
>
> Two good places to look for prior art are SUMO and OpenCyc.
> Instead of waiting until you get stuck, it can be useful to use both
> of these, as well as a dictionary when creating ontologies. Centuries
> of effort has gone into developing these publicly available ontologies,
> and using them may save you time and effort.
>
> -- doug foxvog
>
>> -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 Ed Barkmeyer
>> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 8:04 AM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
>> Ontology
>>
>>
>>
>> Rich/John,
>>
>> There is no need to reinvent the agent/action
>> ontology. SUMO, for example, has a semantic take
>> on the basic linguistic idea: An action is a
>> "gerund" -- a thing that is the action. So an
>> action is modeled as a class denoted by a verb.
>> An action has an "agent" property, just as the
>> verb has a "subject" in any simple sentence
>> denoting an instance of the action. An action may
>> have a "patient" property, which is the "direct
>> object" of the verb, if it is transitive, in
>> simple sentences denoting instances of the action.
>> Adverbial phrases are unary predicates that modify
>> the action (simple adverbs) or
>> predicates/properties that relate the action thing
>> to some other thing (prepositional phrases), and
>> in each case the predicate determines the term for
>> the related thing. It is useful to standardize
>> predicates for time and place.
>>
>> This approach is also used in Cyc, and is common
>> to a lot of ontologies for interpreting natural
>> language. For the OWL and RDF lot, it has the
>> advantage of avoiding n-ary relations. If the
>> semantics of an action intrinsically requires a
>> 3rd participant thing, e.g., a "dative" or
>> "instrumental" role, the specific action class
>> simply has a required additional participant
>> relation.
>>
>> My favorite test case for arity>2, however, is the
>> rendering of "X is between A and B", precisely
>> because it is intrinsically ternary and does not
>> fit the linguistic pattern.
>>
>> [Aside: I have seen descriptions of this general
>> model that say it is THE Davidsonian model (from
>> Daniel Davidson). My impression (Chris can
>> correct me) is that it is rather A Davidsonian
>> model. Davidson only asserts that actions are, or
>> at least can be, things in the universe of
>> discourse, and thus be arguments to predicates.
>> They can, of course, be arguments to unary
>> predicates that classify actions, but there is no
>> requirement for that, and I'm not aware of any
>> Davidson assertion that there have to be
>> predicates that model "subject of action" or
>> "direct object of action". I would have said that
>> the Sowa CG model --
>> <action> is described by <(nominalized)
>> proposition> -- is equally Davidsonian.]
>>
>> So I'm not saying "use the SUMO model." I am
>> saying: Look at the upper ontology literature,
>> and pick one.
>> (This fits the Hayes' Doctrine for use of upper
>> ontologies: When you discover you need one of
>> these basic ideas, look to see if some published
>> upper ontology has a model you can use, and
>> copy/convert those axioms, and, as a professional
>> courtesy, include an attribution.)
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>> P.S. I am terrible at providing references, and I
>> keep finding that my preferred ones are not the
>> Web-available reference, if there is one.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Edward J. Barkmeyer Email:
>> edbark@xxxxxxxx
>> National Institute of Standards & Technology
>> Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
>> 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1
>> 301-975-3528
>> Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1
>> 240-672-5800
>>
>> "The opinions expressed above do not reflect
>> consensus of NIST,
>> and have not been reviewed by any Government
>> authority."
>>
>>
>>
>> John Bottoms wrote:
>>
>> Rich,
>>
>> Hmmm, I don't understand your language. I know
>> that it may be common to the field but I also find
>> that some well accepted concepts can be pitfalls
>> without an understanding of what is entailed. I
>> don't know Chomsky's grammar. Which of his many
>> papers can you refer me to? I don't know what
>> "highly rational text" is, or how it is measured.
>> It seems to imply that there are other grades of
>> rational text.
>>
>> In opening paragraph). You contrast agents and
>> actions ("The first distinction I want to make is
>> between agents and activities"). I understand this
>> view as it was one that I once held myself. I tend
>> to think of these things more grammatically now.
>> The problem arises with the understanding of
>> "actor" or "agent" vs things and activities.
>> Agents don't always do things, they may not take
>> an action or may be inhibited from taking an
>> action. They are in effect "nouns" that do "verb"
>> things.
>>
>> This view is confounded by a view of things
>> (nouns) that do things when they are not supposed
>> to. I first ran into this problem in a linguistic
>> setting; note that you do not see this in the
>> semantic analysis, but may in a linguistic
>> analysis. Take for example: a rock (clearly an
>> inert thingy) sitting on a clay slope. Along comes
>> the rain and it no longer is a thing but becomes
>> an agent but perhaps not quite an actor. Anyway,
>> it slides down the slope unlodging others of its
>> kind with a few logs. It seems to act on its own
>> and starts to look more and more like an avenging
>> angel agent. My suggestion is to stay with verbs
>> and nouns for as long as possible. This puts you
>> in the syntactic arena but that is safe as long as
>> it can be tolerated. I understand that at some
>> point you may need to move to semantic analysis,
>> but resist until you can't resist any further.
>>
>> I don't have the expertise to read the patent
>> expediently.
>>
>> My other comments are embedded below.
>>
>> -John Bottoms
>> FirstStar Systems
>> Concord, MA USA
>>
>> On 5/30/2012 5:22 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>>
>> John, those are excellent questions for describing
>> the context of this project. My comments are
>> below,
>>
>>
>>
>> -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 John Bottoms
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 11:23 AM
>> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
>> Ontology
>>
>>
>>
>> Rich,
>>
>> I find it useful to start the development with
>> questions that define the scope. What is the
>> problem to be solved.
>>
>>
>>
>> This formulation is a system spec for a reference
>> design that practices my patent 7,209,923,
>> attached to this email. A previous reference
>> design was developed to process patent claims from
>> the USPTO patent database.
>>
>>
>>
>> This reference design (TBD) is intended to
>> demonstrate the ability to analyze highly rational
>> text, which Chomsky typically writes (though not
>> always). The idea is to manage a lexicon of verbs
>> (including gerunds and signatures a la Beth Levin)
>> that relate to activities which individuals
>> perform, as described in the corpus text.
>>
>>
>>
>> The first distinction I want to make is between
>> agents and activities. With the signatures there
>> are embedded variables that can be bound to the
>> actual objects and phrases that are not verbs or
>> gerunds according to the initial lexicon.
>> Chomsky’s language is so precise and consistent
>> (IMHO) that his texts provide a foundation for
>> simpler accumulation of signatures for verb
>> phrases that might be useful initial lexicons for
>> specific applications TBD later which also
>> practice the ‘923 methods.
>>
>> 1. Is this taxonomy looking outward?
>>
>> I’m not sure what you mean by “looking outward”;
>> please elaborate so we are talking the same
>> concepts.
>>
>> By "outward" I mean from the self to another
>> agent. The difference between self-interest and
>> other-agent's-interest is in the missing
>> information for the other-agent. So the processing
>> is different.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there someone's (or some group's) motives I am
>> trying to understand?
>>
>> Yes, Chomsky’s favorite subject relates to
>> political, economic and military actions performed
>> by politicians, government employees,
>> corporations, NGOs and at least those other agent
>> classes.
>>
>> Does this pertain to the patent?
>> (As an aside, I believe there are entre's to
>> duTocqueville's "hidden hand" concept if the
>> duality analysis is pursued carefully. That would
>> be an interesting study.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This view would be useful in duality evaluations.
>>
>> Please define “duality evaluation”; I’m not sure
>> what you mean by that phrase.
>>
>> Nah, I made it up. I am referring to the ability
>> to develop a theory for an agent based on
>> behaviors. Of course, to do it right one has to
>> consider oneself as part of the situation.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2. For myself, looking inward; what is my goal and
>> what are the range of behaviors or processes that
>> are candidates to further my position vis à vis my
>> goals.
>>
>> My goal is to have a reference design that can be
>> adapted to a wide variety of applications, and
>> which can be attractive to licensees of the
>> patent. The main attraction is to provide a
>> minimal reference design that can start an
>> application designer on the path to practicing the
>> invention.
>>
>> 3. What problem is trying to solve. That is: what
>> is the current restrain on this self-interest.
>> This would lead to a change of analysis of
>> restraints.
>> By reducing the cost and schedule of a considered
>> application, the reference design helps potential
>> licensees get a jump on minimizing the cost and
>> schedule for the application. That economy is in
>> the licensees self interest.
>>
>> It sounds like you are trying to develop a grammar
>> for an application. Is that right?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Re the self interest of the corpus and the agents
>> mentioned there, I think the best approach is
>> simply to build a case base of the behaviors which
>> each agent performs (i.e., which activities and
>> which object bindings). The case base in this
>> patent is stored in a database that can be
>> dynamically sized and configured (see the ‘923
>> specification for an explanation). Finding
>> patterns of linguistic use within the parsed and
>> stored database is a lot easier than constructing
>> the software to make and manage that database in
>> the first place.
>>
>> It sounds like you need a meta-grammar application
>> to find and label the patterns. This is done for
>> Hidden Markov Model systems that are typically
>> hand-tweaked. Statistical analysis such as in
>> Watson can help, but to be safe you need to have a
>> human review the results of any machine learning
>> algorithm.
>>
>> For me, I don't see much of a difference between
>> patterns and algorithms at some point. There
>> appears to be a mathematical mapping from one to
>> the other. Watson has contributed by identifying
>> the important subject areas under the query curve,
>> at least for Jeopardy. Clearly, it doesn't
>> understand the subjects being discussed, and in
>> that sense it is my opinion that it is a
>> "statistical gossip machine".
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 4. 'Course the "cost/benefit" is elemental,
>> including community standing as a self-interest
>> item (both in terms of success or failure).
>> Again, the behaviors (actions) of the agents can
>> be organized into a case base and analyzed to
>> infer self-interest and coping behaviors from the
>> database of text phrases and IDEF0
>> interpretations.
>>
>> I'm not as fully studied in behavioral economics
>> as I would like to be. My exposure in this area is
>> via assessment, which is an adolescent field. I
>> would encourage you to include metrics linked to
>> scoring and behaviors to understand another's
>> self-interest traits.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 5. History: how has this been solved before, why
>> can't that be done now. Precursor contexts may be
>> interesting: how did we get here, why does this
>> problem need to be solved.
>>
>> Agreed; the Before and After conditions of each
>> activity should be linked through database indexes
>> to identify patterns, infer self interest and
>> coping behaviors for each agent.
>>
>> Pre- and -post scoring in statistics is better
>> understood than normative assessment. The cutting
>> edge currently is in "adaptive polytomous
>> assessment". These extract multiple traits while
>> selecting against a controlled variable. These
>> techniques require significant investment until
>> better tools are developed and there's not a lot
>> of call for them now. Again, the proximal region
>> hasn't required it just yet.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 6. Future: how is this going to affect the
>> context, who are those in the context that will be
>> effected
>>
>> Context is the represented element of an IDEF0
>> activity that is organized into the database as
>> associated ICOMAs and their component object types
>> and decompositions.
>>
>> ;TL, DR
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 7. Time, how long will it take, do the parties
>> have that much time?
>>
>> The plan, as in 3 above, is to provide a starting
>> structure for reducing the cost and schedule for
>> developing future applications. Not every writer
>> is as precise and accurate as Chomsky, so
>> metaphors, incomplete sentences, ambiguous
>> sentences and phrases, and other related
>> application elements will show up, but ways to
>> handle those derived considerations still will
>> have to be done individually, for each
>> application, on top of the reference design.
>>
>> My comments here referred to the length of time an
>> assessment takes. That may not be relevant in your
>> case if the assessment can be handled strictly
>> with semantics aside from time considerations.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -John Bottoms
>> FirstStar Systems
>> Concord, MA
>> Thanks for your comments; they were very useful.
>> Please keep them coming,
>>
>> -Rich
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/30/2012 1:41 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>>
>> Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> This is a would-be taxonomy without classification
>> criteria, or
>>
>> consequent properties, which makes it
>> ontologically useless.
>>
>> Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of
>> places to be visited on
>>
>> the way to formulating some kind of political
>> science ontology.
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>>
>>
>> True, it’s only a starting point, not a finished
>> ontology. The final version should ultimately be
>> capable of reasoning in its various shades.
>>
>>
>>
>> I still want to map the elements cited (and others
>> TBD) into a regular rendering, and I prefer IDEF0
>> since it is well known by nonontologists. When
>> the ontology is finished some day, it can be
>> mapped into the IDEF0 structures and
>> interconnects, and augmented with rules for logic,
>> etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is a would-be taxonomy without classification
>> criteria, or
>>
>> consequent properties, which makes it
>> ontologically useless.
>>
>> Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of
>> places to be visited on
>>
>> the way to formulating some kind of political
>> science ontology.
>>
>>
>>
>> True. Its only a starting point.
>>
>>
>>
>> Your discussions below re the meaning of self
>> interest is also useful. I’ll think about it some
>> more, but I think self interest is still a
>> slippery concept to me, and will take some deeper
>> thought to render properly.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the thoughts; more would be appreciated
>> also,
>>
>> -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 Ed Barkmeyer
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 8:52 AM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
>> Ontology
>>
>>
>>
>> Ignoring the choice of political scientist as
>> source, this purports to
>>
>> be the basis for an ontology.
>>
>> What is the basis for this high-level taxonomy?
>> What are the
>>
>> distinguishing properties of the 2nd level
>> classifiers?
>>
>>
>>
>> And how do those properties relate to
>> "self-interest"?
>>
>>
>>
>> All organizations have self-interests, and their
>> human components
>>
>> typically share some of those interests, either
>> out of ideology -- what
>>
>> the organization does is "good" -- or out of
>> pragmatism -- I will do
>>
>> well only if the organization does well (even
>> though the definition of
>>
>> "x does well" is quite different for x=me vs.
>> x=the organization). But
>>
>> there are also cases in which the self-interest of
>> the individuals may
>>
>> be to the detriment of the organization -- I can
>> use the organization to
>>
>> do well -- as in the leveraged buyout game. And a
>> lot of work is
>>
>> motivated by "pride in accomplishment" -- personal
>> fulfillment, which
>>
>> may or may not be "useful accomplishment" --
>> organizational value.
>>
>> Bureaucrats commonly mistake making a contribution
>> for making a useful
>>
>> contribution. So, it is not at all clear to me
>> how position in an
>>
>> organization affects the self-interest of either
>> the individual or the
>>
>> organization.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is a would-be taxonomy without classification
>> criteria, or
>>
>> consequent properties, which makes it
>> ontologically useless.
>>
>> Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of
>> places to be visited on
>>
>> the way to formulating some kind of political
>> science ontology.
>>
>>
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Rich Cooper wrote:
>>
>>>
>>
>>> If we limit the Self Interest Ontology to just
>> the players Chomsky
>>
>>> mentions (directly or indirectly), the set of
>> agents could be
>>
>>> organized thusly:
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -government
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -legislators
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -judiciary
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -cabinet level executives
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -employees
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -NGOs
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -corporate
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -stockholders
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -directors
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -executive management
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -lobbyists
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -employees
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -individuals
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -taxpayers
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -adults
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -minors
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -beneficiaries
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -adults
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -minors
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> This gives one view for the Ontology which
>> identifies the agents that
>>
>>> participate in the Chomskyesque materials. Does
>> anyone want to
>>
>>> suggest additions, deletions, or changes to the
>> list above?
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Activities of the Self Interest Ontology might
>> include:
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -government
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -taxation
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -regulation
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -legislation
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -enforcement
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -judgments
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -corporate
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -markets
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -monopolies
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -competitors
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -persuasion
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -operations
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -finance
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -capital
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -revenues
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -costs
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -lobbying
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -employment
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -taxation
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -Individuals
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> One way to develop materials for filling in the
>> lower levels of the
>>
>>> ontology might be to process NLP from Chomsky’s
>> books and articles,
>>
>>> and news stories, including daily news articles
>> from individual
>>
>>> reporters, articles from corporate news sources
>> (e.g., WSJ, NYT, LA
>>
>>> Times, etc). By identifying the named entities
>> that correspond to the
>>
>>> agent classes above, it should be possible to
>> organize news stories to
>>
>>> deepen the Self Interest Ontology to include
>> lower level subclasses.
>>
>>> This is a very limited first step in identifying
>> the actors and
>>
>>> activities that play identifiable roles a la
>> Chomsky’s viewpoint. It
>>
>>> should also identify the news sources which are
>> biased in each
>>
>>> direction for each class of agents.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Has anything serious been left out of the top
>> level for the Self
>>
>>> Interest Ontology? Again, suggestions are
>> appreciated,
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -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:* Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:46 AM
>>
>>> *To:* '[ontolog-forum] '
>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
>> Ontology
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Chomsky’s theories of the corporate-state
>> partnership, and how it
>>
>>> concentrates power in the hands of large
>> corporations, are well known,
>>
>>> especially:
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TieGj2Yi5r8
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> But neither Rand nor Hayek subscribed to
>> corporate-state partnership.
>>
>>> In both cases, they value the individual, not
>> the corporation and not
>>
>>> the state and certainly not the combination of
>> the two. So I don’t
>>
>>> think that is the reason why he is unhappy with
>> both Rand and Hayek.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> From the above video “elections are always
>> bought”, “President Obama’s
>>
>>> election was funded by corporate interests”, and
>> numerous other
>>
>>> examples indicate his deep displeasure with the
>> state-corporate binding.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> I would like to see quotes from Chomsky that
>> specifically describe his
>>
>>> displeasure with both Rand and Hayek rather than
>> trying to predict his
>>
>>> rationale. Chomsky is always very deep in his
>> rationale, so I don’t
>>
>>> think that we can simply say the corporate-state
>> binding is why he is
>>
>>> against either Rand or Hayek.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Mike Pool quoted this short paragraph from the
>> article, which is
>>
>>> somewhat enlightening:
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> "Hayek was the kind of 'libertarian' who was
>> quite tolerant of such
>>
>>> free societies as Pinochet's Chile, one of the
>> most grotesque of the
>>
>>> National Security States instituted with US
>> backing or direct
>>
>>> initiative during the hideous plague of terror
>> and violence that
>>
>>> spread over the hemisphere from the 60s through
>> the 80s. He even sank
>>
>>> to the level of arranging a meeting of his Mont
>> Pelerin society there
>>
>>> during the most vicious days of the
>> dictatorship. "
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> But that critique is not directed at Hayek’s
>> ideas about economics in
>>
>>> general, only about his interpretation of
>> Hayek’s poor showing in the
>>
>>> political area, specifically in supporting
>> Pinochet and the US methods
>>
>>> of supporting property owners at the expense of
>> the average citizen.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> His description of how democratic groups in
>> Haiti were overturned by
>>
>>> the US government and a dictator was reinstalled
>> under US actions, is
>>
>>> typical Chomsky, and very clearly in line with
>> his past work. But in
>>
>>> broad brush strokes in the article, he paints
>> both Rand and Hayek
>>
>>> (neither of whom are known for their political
>> wisdom) as evil without
>>
>>> considering the kudos they gave to the
>> individuals.
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> -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 *Chris
>>
>>> Menzel
>>
>>> *Sent:* Monday, May 28, 2012 5:30 AM
>>
>>> *To:* [ontolog-forum]
>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
>> Ontology
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Rich Cooper
>>
>>> <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> <mailto:rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> <mailto:rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Thanks – a very interesting article. I’m
>> surprised at how vehemently
>>
>>> Chomsky shrugs her off as evil. He doesn’t give
>> any explanation in
>>
>>> the article; do you have any information about
>> WHY he thinks Rand is
>>
>>> evil?
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>> It's obvious if you read Chomsky's (vast) work
>> on political theory and
>>
>>> American social and political history,
>> especially his writings on
>>
>>> social security, taxation, corporate welfare,
>> the massive
>>
>>> redistribution of wealth from the middle class
>> to the top income
>>
>>> brackets engineered by conservative tax policy
>> over the last dozen
>>
>>> years, etc, all of which are in vehement
>> opposition to the social
>>
>>> darwinism that lies at the heart of Randian
>> economic theories (and
>>
>>> current GOP economic politicies).
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Edward J. Barkmeyer Email:
>> edbark@xxxxxxxx
>>
>> National Institute of Standards & Technology
>>
>> Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
>>
>> 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1
>> 301-975-3528
>>
>> Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1
>> 240-672-5800
>>
>>
>>
>> "The opinions expressed above do not reflect
>> consensus of NIST,
>>
>> and have not been reviewed by any Government
>> authority."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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