Re: [ontolog-forum] Universal Basic Semantic Structures

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doug, yes, I agree with all you say.  There is no fundamental difference between one artifact of human culture and another, in that they are all artifacts of human culture.  But they have different roles in a given context. The artifacts being studied, and the artifacts being created and used in the study.  When Hildegard von Bingen designed her notation for music, this was a 
human artifact being created based on others she was studying.  Now, that 
notation has evolved and may continue to evolve "naturally", as part of much of worldwide musical culture.  

So, there is some way we are capable of separating out those time when we are studying  and conscious modelling of human culture, and those times when we are participating in it naturally, even though, a la Heisenberg, modelling of human culture is a human cultural activity.   

I feel it is important to distinquish between what some formal ontology says, however excellent that may be, and the domain concepts of groups of domain practitioners.  I take this to be one of David Hay's points about his work.  It is a useful model.  And for example, if someone says, "in many systems, part is reflexive", that is a statement about some formal model of 'part',  not about how people usually think about parts and wholes, (of which of course there will be many variants.)  If we do not keep our models and what they model separate, at least in the context in which we are working, then I think we start staring at ***ourselves**, instead of looking at the world we are trying to learn from and the world we hope will be able to use what we have learned.

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 10:07 AM, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, September 27, 2012 17:22, William Frank wrote:
> ...
> OTOH, the implicit domain concepts used by New Orleans jazz musicians is
> not a human artifact, it is a naturally occuring phenomina of human
> culture.   What some  anthropological linguists create to explain and
> document this natural occurence would be an artifact.

This gets into the definition of what is an artifact.  Human culture is
created by humans making decisions, so by some definitions, human
culture is an artifact.

>From the discussion above, it appears that your definition of artifact
includes intangible things, such as concepts -- nothing wrong with that,
if not, this would not even be an issue.

As i view it, New Orleans jazz didn't just happen.  The musicians had a
musical heritage and blended aspects of marches, French Quadrilles,
ragtime, and blues.  A new aspect they added was a style of improvisation.

French Quadrilles were certainly a designed form; so the concept would
be an artifact (according to the implicit definition above).  There were
certainly many rules for marching songs -- another artefactual concept.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't similarly call ragtime and blues artifacts
as well.

Of course the concepts of the types of instruments used are artifacts.

Maybe you wouldn't consider improvisation in general artefactual, but
jazz musicians designed improvisational techniques -- which being
designed, would be artifacts.

Certainly, a description of how New Orleans jazz developed would be
an artifact, but the domain concepts seem to me to be artefactual as well.

-- doug foxvog



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-- 
William Frank

413/376-8167


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