On Sep 26, 2012, at 10:04 PM, William Frank wrote: (01)
>
>
> On 9/26/2012 5:45 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
> > On Sep 26, 2012, at 1:10 PM, William Frank wrote:
> >
> >> Try to imagine a thing you could not classify at all. I just can't.
>Please describe such a thing you have imagined to me.
> > Consider a point in space, somewhere in the room you happen to be in. Make
>it reasonably near several ordinary objects. The thing I describe is the
>mereological sum of all, and only, the stuff inside a sphere centered on that
>point, with a radius of 24 inches, at precisely 10:22 pm on the 27 September
>2012, GMT.
>
> Pat, my point is that when you describe something, you are ipso facto
>classifying it. That is just what a description does. It specifies the set of
>things that fit the description, even if that is a singleton. (02)
Well, OK, but then that reduces your claim to vacuity. That if description is
classification, then to describe is to classify, is simply a tautology. Most
people, I suspect, mean by "classify" something rather more than simply "refer
to", so would understand your thesis as having some actual content. I
understood it that way, but then I would claim that my example (which is taken
from Cyc, by the way) is a counterexample to that less vacuous claim. (03)
>
> In particular, I think you HAVE classified the thing, as something
>locallizable in space and sherical in shape, and occupying a particular
>position at a particular time. this distinquishes it from Pakistan,
>topology, hurricane Dora, my brother, and many other things that do not fit
>the classifier you created. (04)
It distinguishes it from those, but that hardly amounts to a classification in
any sense I recognize. I have no idea what categories it would be said to
belong to, for example.
>
>
> (Especially if you imagine it, you have to be seeing something in your minds
>eye. Perhaps you imagine something with a color, or a word, even if you don't
>know what word. If there is no description, you could not tell me about it,
>and I don't even think you cold imagine it.) (05)
I can't imagine it, which is why I specified it to be in YOUR room, which I
have never seen, and not in my room. It is easy to specify things one cannot
imagine. Mathematicians do it every day. (06)
>
> But, on reflection, I think my point was beside you all's point. Because you
>all are discussing rules for **constructing** an ontology, and one of the
>rules is, we have a universe of discourse of atomic zero order things, and
>each of those has to have a classifier that it fits. So, this is a good rule
>for the completeness of an ontology, only it is not a rule about the world,
>where everything DOES have a classifier. (07)
Well now, I think that is false, if I understand "classifier" in any reasonable
sense. Under what heading (other than obviously artifactual ones such as "silly
entities invented by Pat") could this instantaneous spherical piece of stuff be
put? I cannot think of any. (08)
Pat (09)
> It is a rule about how to build a human aritifact, a formal ontology.
>
> Wm
>
> >
> > Pat Hayes
> >
> > ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
> > IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973
> > 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
> > Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax
> > FL 32502 (850)291 0667 mobile
> > phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
> >
> >
>
> --
> William Frank
>
> 413/376-8167
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (010)
------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502 (850)291 0667 mobile
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes (011)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (012)
|