On Fri, January 25, 2013 06:17, Matthew West wrote:
> doug foxvog wrote:
>> On Tue, January 22, 2013 13:16, Simon Spero wrote:
>> > On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Matthew West
>> > <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>wrote: (01)
>> >> An good example of this are Fictional people (in worlds in which they
>> >> are fictional, *not in their fictional worlds*).
>> >> These entities have a temporal extent, but assigning them to a
>> >> spacial location is problematic. (02)
>> Agreed. Is there a need for assigning a location to a shared mental
>> concept? (03)
> MW: A mental concept is (I would argue) a representation of some thing.
> Presumably, a shared mental concept are metal concepts of different people
> that represent the same thing, so it is the location of the thing that is
> relevant, because that is how you know that the mental concepts are shared
> representations.
>> There are various representations of different portions of such concept
>> (in brains, books, films, digital memory objects, and actions
>> (performances, showings, broadcasts) which themselves have locations.
>> I'd prefer to call
>> them aspatial, but if you must assign a location, i'd suggest Earth plus
>> whatever range broadcasts may have reached outside of Earth. Sherlock
>> Holmes, the character, certainly existed on the Moon when Buzz Aldrin
>> was there. (04)
> MW: Representations are things in their own right, and must have a
> location of some sort. (05)
Agreed. (06)
You are arguing that a "mental concept" is a representation and a
"shared mental concept" is what? -- a group of representations?
If it is a set of representations, then it is aspatial, but if it is a group,
then it has the mereological spatial sum of its group members. If it is
a group of events and physical objects, then it would have (at any given
time) a mass equal to the sum of all the group members. So the mass
of the character, Sherlock Holmes, would be the mass of all physical
representations of him (at any given time), including the mass of all
books, movie reels, digital storage, brain memory regions, and actors
happening to be playing Sherlock at the time. (07)
It seems to me that such a meaning for the "shared mental concept"
would have a lot of properties that i would not expect for the character. (08)
>> >> MW: I don't see a problem. There simply is a possible world in which
>> >> they do exist and have a location, (09)
>> That is not the question. The question is a location for conceptual
>> artifacts in the "real" world. (010)
> MW: As I said above, what you have in the real world are representations
> of what "conceptual artifacts" are about. (011)
Such objects, whether artifacts, or representations in people's brains
certainly do exist. But i would distinguish the collection of
representations
from the concept. (012)
>> >> You can't place them in the "real" world simply because they do not
>> >> exist there, and the one they do exist in can be arbitrarily similar
>> >> to the real world that we are in and they are not. (013)
>> > This was the case I was trying to distinguish: (014)
>> > (1) In our world, at some time prior to 1887, at 1 Bush Villas, Elm
>> > Grove, SouthSea, Portsmouth, England, Arthur Conan Doyle
>> > conceived of the fictional character "Sherlock Holmes". (015)
>> inMt: PeopleDataMt.
>> (isa ArthurConanDoyle MaleHuman)
>> (firstName ArthurConanDoyle "Arthur")
>> (middleName ArthurConanDoyle "Conan")
>> (lastName ArthurConanDoyle "Doyle")
>> (familyName ArthurConanDoyle "Doyle")
>> (isa ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes CWCreation) (performedBy
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes ArthurConanDoyle) (dateOfEvent
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes (YearFn 1886)) (outputsCreated
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes SherlockHolmesWorld) (holdsAfter (YearFn
>> 1886)
>> (isa SherlockHolmesWorld FictionalContext)) (outputsCreated
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes SherlockHolmes) (holdsAfter
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes
>> (isa SherlockHolmesWorld FictionalCharacter)) (isa OneBushVillas
>> HumanResidence) (holdsIn ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes
>> (streetAddressText OneBushVillas
>> "1 Bush Villas, Elm Grove, SouthSea, Portsmouth, England"))
> (eventOccursAt
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes OneBushVillas)
>>
>> inMt: SherlockHolmesWorld
>> (isa SherlockHolmes AdultMaleHuman)
>> (firstName SherlockHolmes "Sherlock")
>> (lastName SherlockHolmes "Holmes") (016)
> MW: Conceiving of here means writing down a representation of a possible
> world in which Sherlock Holmes exists. (017)
I interpreted you to mean the mental act of conceiving of Sherlock Holmes,
after which a representation existed in ACD's brain. After the initial
conception (using this meaning), properties of the character were fleshed
out over a number of years. One could easily add assertions about acts of
writing character sketches, drafts of chapters and stories about Sherlock
Holmes. (018)
>> > (2) Before 1887 the character "Sherlock Holmes" did not exist as
>> > something to which the conception of could be attributed. (019)
>> inMt: PeopleDataMt.
>> (startsDuring (YearFn 1887) SherlockHolmes) (020)
> MW: Well, before this date the representation does not exist. But probably
> Sherlock Holmes was not himself born in that year. (021)
This is where context is important. In our world, Sherlock Holmes is a
fictional character, and as such was never born. In Sherlock Holmes's
world, there was a birth date. Given an approximate year of the setting
for a story and Sherlock's approximate age during the story, an
approximate birth date can be assigned in that context. (022)
inMt: SherlockHolmesWorld.
(birthDate SherlockHolmes (DayFn D (MonthFn M (YearFn Y))))
; for the appropriate day month and year. (023)
Note that this would not be true in the real world. (024)
>> > (3) In our world, the fictional character of Holmes was partially
>> > inspired by the actual person Joseph Bell, who was a Doctor. (025)
>> inMt: PeopleDataMt.
>> (holdsSometimeDuring
>> (TimeIntervalBetweenFn (YearFn 1800) (YearFn 1886))
>> (and
>> (isa JosephBell HumanAdultMale)
>> (firstName JosephBell "Joseph")
>> (lastName JosephBell "Bell")
>> (occupation JosephBell Doctor)))
>> (<wasPartiallyInspiredByFor> (026)
> MW: Strings like this do not really mean anything at all. (027)
The angle brackets were to indicate that such a predicate does not
currently exist in OpenCyc. The predicate would have to be defined
before it had a meaning, if that's what you mean. (028)
I did not take the time to define the predicate for the purpose of showing
an example of encoding the sentences. Most other examples of ontology
snippets i've seen in the Ontolog Forum do not restrict themselves to
previously defined terms. (029)
There were several other questions, which i failed to answer earlier,
of the form:
>> > Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in
>> > (4)? (030)
These are asking whether two things are "the same" in different contexts.
Inter-contextual reasoning depends upon clearly stating what contexts
are being asked about, and from what context the answer is being sought. (031)
The context of (1) is "In our world" and refers to the creation of a
fictional character. The fictional character has properties (of having
a creator, of having a name, of having a creation date, and of being
a character in a specified fictional context. (032)
The context of (4) is also "In our world" and refers to additional
fictional contexts in which the fictional character is a character.
(1) specifies properties about the fictional character at time T1,
while (4) specifies properties about the fictional character at time
T2, both properties "in our world". (033)
The question whether the two described fictional characters are
"the same" seems to be similar to a question whether whether
the baby Arthur Conan Doyle of 1860 was "the same" as the
novelist who wrote <i>A Study in Scarlet</i> in 1886. I would
accept one meaning of "the same" that would allow these two
things to be equal, and another meaning (represented by another
predicate) which would allow these things to be different. (034)
I would say that the answer to the question to whether the two
Sherlock Holmeses are the same the same would be the same as
the answer to whether the two Arthur Conan Doyles are the same. (035)
I'd like to use a predicate for "the same" that would allow the answer
to both of these to be "yes". (036)
The question
>> > Is the fictional character in (5) the same fictional character as in
>> > (6)?
relates (5)'s "fictional world ... which ... Conan Doyle conceived" to
a "possible real world" in which Conan Doyle "conceived of [another]
fictional world". (037)
In the context of (5), there is no fictional character; Holmes is a
detective.
In (6), there is a fictional character with different properties than in (1),
and a fictional context (6') in which Holmes is a baker. The real person,
Sherlock Holmes, in (5) is different from the real person, Sherlock Holmes
in (6'), and different from the fictional characters named Sherlock Holmes
in both (1) and (6). The fictional characters named Sherlock Holmes in
(1) and (6) have different properties and so are different. (038)
>> > Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in
>> > (7)? (039)
In the fictional context (7), the character Sherlock Holmes was created
by a different person than in context (1), and thus is a different fictional
character. However, the Sherlock Holmes world created in fictional
context (7) is the same as the Sherlock Holmes world created in context
(1) -- which we have previously identified as context (5). This means
that the detective Sherlock Holmes in (5) is the same as the detective
Sherlock Holmes in (7') -- everything true about one is true about the
other. (040)
-- doug foxvog (041)
> Regards
>
> Matthew West
> Information Junction
> Tel: +44 1489 880185
> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
> Skype: dr.matthew.west
> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
> http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
> This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
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> Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE. (042)
>> ArthurCannonDoyle JosephBell SherlockHolmes))
>>
>> > (4) In our world, the BBC commissioned a number of films featuring
>> > modern reinterpretations of the Conan Doyle stories, featuring a
>> > Holmes who in the worlds of those movies differed in some respects
>> > from the original source. [Written by Stephen Moffat, who isn't a
>> > Doctor, but writes one on TV]
>>
>> inMt: MassMediaDataMt.
>> (thereExists ?FILM
>> (and
>> (isa ?FILM Movie-CW)
>> (thereExists ?COMMISSIONING
>> (and
>> (isa ?COMMISSIONING CommissioningSomething)
>> (<objectCommissioned> ?COMMISSIONING ?FILM)
>> (ist (ContextOfPCWFn ?FILM)
>> (isa SherlockHolmes AdultMaleHuman))))))
>>
>> > (5) In the fictional world in which our Conan Doyle conceived, Holmes
>> > was a detective, who resided at 221B Baker St.
>>
>> inMt: SherlockHolmesWorld.
>> (isa SherlockHolmes AdultMaleHuman)
>> (occupation SherlockHolmes Detective)
>>
>> (isa TwoTwoOneBBakerSt HumanResidence)
>> (streetAddressText TwoTwoOneBBakerSt "212B Baker St.") (<residesAt>
>> SherlockHolmes TwoTwoOneBBakerSt)
>>
>> > (6) In a possible real world, that Conan Doyle may have conceived of
>> > a fictional world in which Holmes was a baker, who lived at 221B
>> > Detective St.
>>
>> inMt: UniversalVocabularyMt.
>> (ist PossibleRealWorld1324 DataMicrotheory) (genlMt
>> PossibleRealWorld1324
>> PeopleDataMt)
>>
>> inMt: CurrentWorldDataCollectorMt-NonDualist.
>> (ist PossibleRealWorld1324 FictionalContext)
>>
>> inMt: PossibleRealWorld1324.
>> (isa ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes CWCreation) (performedBy
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes ArthurConanDoyle) (dateOfEvent
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes (YearFn 1886)) (outputsCreated
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes SherlockHolmesWorld2) (holdsAfter
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes
>> (isa SherlockHolmesWorld2 FictionalContext)) (outputsCreated
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes SherlockHolmes) (holdsAfter
>> ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes
>> (isa SherlockHolmes FictionalCharacter))
>>
>> inMt: SherlockHolmesWorld2.
>> (isa SherlockHolmes AdultMaleHuman)
>> (occupation SherlockHolmes Baker)
>>
>> (isa TwoTwoOneBBakerSt HumanResidence)
>> (streetAddressText TwoTwoOneBBakerSt "212B Detective St.")
>> (<residesAt> SherlockHolmes TwoTwoOneBBakerSt) (043)
>> > (7) In yet another possible world, Bell may have been partially
>> > inspired by Conan Doyle to conceive of a Holmes and write fictional
>> > stories featuring that character word-for-word identical with the ones
>> > in our Conan Doyle wrote. (044)
>> > Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in
>> > (4)?
>> > Is the fictional character in (5) the same fictional character as in
>> > (6)?
>> > Is the fictional character in (1) the same fictional character as in
>> > (7)? (045)
>> > In our world could two people in the year 1700 discuss the character
>> > Sherlock Holmes?
>>
>> I'm having problems with the tense, here. (046)
>> In our world, no one can do anything in the year 1700 -- what happened,
>> happened (Shroedinger's cat notwithstanding). (047)
>> Are you asking if it is possible that two people in the year 1700 could
>> have discussed the character Sherlock Holmes -- even though no one
>> did? (048)
>> I figure that the possibility would have been greater than one in a
>> googleplex, (10^-(10^100) ) in that year. Two people could have
>> hypothesized an author who created a fictional detective
>> with the name "Sherlock Holmes".
>> The odds drop as things that they discuss about Holmes happen to match
>> up with features of the conceptual work. (049)
>> > In our world, could two people in 2013 discuss real properties of the
>> > character Sherlock Holmes (e.g. the street address where the character
>> > was conceived).
>>
>> Yes. One can ask:
>> inMt: CurrentWorldDataCollectorMt-NonDualist
>> (thereExists ?RESIDENCE
>> (and
>> (eventOccursAt ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes ?RESIDENCE)
>> (holdsIn ConceivingOfSherlockHolmes
>> (streetAddressText ?RESIDENCE ?ADDRESS)))
>>
>> -- doug f
>>
>> > Simon (050)
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