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Re: [ontolog-forum] Dennett on the Darwinism of Memes

To: doug@xxxxxxxxxx, "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:43:54 -0700
Message-id: <4B4CCE46-5A12-4D8B-B786-843AECBF12A9@xxxxxxx>

On Apr 10, 2013, at 2:15 PM, doug foxvog wrote:    (01)

> On Wed, April 10, 2013 14:50, Pat Hayes wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> If you wish to claim that some words are not things, then you are obliged
>> to say what it is you think they are. The grammatical distinction can
>> hardly work, as (in English at least) the same word may often be used both
>> as a noun and as a verb, eg "stitch". If nouns but not verbs are things,
>> is "stitch" a thing?
>> ...
>> Many, probably most, ontology
>> formalisms allow words to exist as things, eg "stitch"@en^^rdf:langString
>> in RDF 1.1. Character strings are one of the basic XML Schema datatypes.
> 
> I suggest that a character string (or even a langString) is not a 'word'
> in the common sense of the term.    (02)

That is why I used rdf:langString rather than xsd:string. A language-tagged 
string is a character string representing a word in a language, together with a 
language tag indicating which language it is intended to be interpreted in. 
"chat"^^xsd:string is a mere string of four letters, but 
"chat"@fr^^rdf:langString is the French word referring to domestic felines.     (03)

>  Words have various properties
> (conjugations, declensions, combining rules, homonyms, possibly multiple
> spellings, histories of usage, etc.)  that character strings do not have.    (04)

Quite.     (05)

> 
> How would you state various properties of words if you modeled them as
> character strings?    (06)

Most of the above seem to be relationships between words, or between words and 
other things, which I would state using an RDF dialect. Although RDF has this 
unfortunate rule that literals may not be subjects, which makes things awkward, 
so I might choose a different formalism.     (07)

> 
>> ... BTW, support for xsd:string is mandatory in OWL.
> 
> But that does not bring us close to the concept, "word".    (08)

Well, it brings us part of the way. Purely as a metaphysical point, if you are 
able to swallow the idea that strings exist, surely you won't have trouble 
admitting that words exist.     (09)

Pat    (010)

> 
> -- doug foxvog
> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Pat
>> 
>> 
>>> ).  I will read or re-read the books that you suggested.
>>> 
>>> Pavithra
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
>>> To: Pavithra <pavithra_kenjige@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> Cc: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 11:35 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Dennett on the Darwinism of Memes
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Apr 10, 2013, at 8:15 AM, Pavithra wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> John Bottoms:
>>>> From a modeling perspective:
>>>> 
>>>> ·        Languages are first level abstraction of real world
>>>> ·        Languages are expression of the world, allows us to express
>>> and communicate past, present, future, real and imaginary, proven and
>>> unproven aspects of the world.
>>> 
>>> But they are also in the actual world, and can be studied empirically
>>> like any other phenomenon.
>>> 
>>>> ·        Words are parts of a language.
>>>> ·        Nouns are used to express “things” in English language.
>>> Things - as in entities.  ( Not all words are things. For example,
>>> verbs are words, but not things)
>>> 
>>> All words are things. Not all words *describe* things, maybe.
>>> 
>>>> ·        Nouns are a subset of words.
>>>> ·        Memes are ideas / concepts, real or imaginary, proven or
>>> unproven.
>>>> 
>>>> Question is :  do  we need to model  meme??
>>> 
>>> Who is "we" and what is being "modeled"?
>>> 
>>>> My opinion : Concepts can be named with a name  and modeled.    At
>>> present we do not use the verbiage –“ meme” for it.  Probably we can
>>> use the name “meme”  in the future.
>>> 
>>> My advice would be to only use the term if you have a pretty exact idea
>>> of what it is you are talking about, and document that understanding as
>>> carefully as you possibly can.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> About Darwinism,  Americans use the word Darwinism from a scientific
>>> evolution point of view vs theological, god made us, changed us (
>>> mutation) etc.
>>> 
>>> American scientists use the term the same way other scientists do.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Maxwell,  & Dr. Steven.
>>>> Thanks for summarizing my gibberish writing.  ( It was not scientific
>>> feed back, it was more of a general discussion)
>>>> There is natural evolution due to mutation and then there is human
>>> intervention for change.
>>> 
>>> Until recently, the only intervention available was artificial
>>> *selection*, which follows the natural process but amplifies the
>>> effects.
>>> 
>>>> Grafting & genetic engineering are human intervention.  My point was
>>> Darwinism did not include human intervention, or cross breeding among
>>> subspecies.
>>> 
>>> Darwin certainly considered cross-breeding and also human intervention
>>> in breeding (eg of dogs and farm animals, which he studied at great
>>> length: I recommend reading his "Origin of Species", it is a very
>>> readable work.) He did not, of course, consider genetic engineering, as
>>> genetics had not even been formulated when he was writing. I suspect he
>>> would have been delighted and fascinated to have known about genetics
>>> and DNA, but he did not have this pleasure.
>>> 
>>>> You mentioned that his theory includes cross breeding among
>>> subspecies??
>>> 
>>> If animals can breed and produce fertile offspring, they are (by
>>> definition) the same species.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> However the following is not totally proven in all cases and is open
>>> for speculation and there are ethical issues about genetic
>>> engineering. ( I don;t want to go there)
>>>>    • crossing between different species is genetically fatal  ..
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Pavithra
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From: John Bottoms <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:20 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Dennett on the Darwinism of Memes
>>>> 
>>>> Pavithra,
>>>> 
>>>> I may not have remembered his wording correctly in the use of "word".
>>> Also, it is a difficulty of linguistics that "thing" often gets used
>>> when a better selection would be "entity". However, the audience
>>> understood the intent of the question. Words come and go and likewise
>>> memes come and go. They share some characteristics and there is a
>>> shoot-from-the-hip impulse to put them in a lexicon or dictionary.
>>>> 
>>>> Another view might be that memes are types of propositions that need
>>> to be evaluated. They could be classified into "indeterminate" until
>>> they are evaluated. Dennett does recognize that memes are "good" or
>>> "bad", and I suppose we should accept that they can be resurrected.
>>> One theory I have is that the term "meme" applies to atomic entities
>>> that have particular attributes or properties that  can be generalized
>>> or rationalized. If that is true then we should be able to build
>>> classifiers for memes. A question for exploration is whether that
>>> property can be understood in a way that makes sense or is useful.
>>>> 
>>>> Your view of giraffe evolution is referred to as Lamarckian
>>> inheritance and it survives today only as a weakened theory.
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism)
>>>> 
>>>> -John Bottoms
>>>> Concord, MA USA
>>>> On 4/9/2013 8:39 PM, Pavithra wrote:
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Words are not things.  "Words" representation things if they are
>>> nouns.  memes are ideas that spreads from person to person??
>>>>> 
>>>>> Darwinism and theory of evolution explains how living organisms
>>> evolve over  few generations according to the needs/usage etc.
>>> According to him Giraffe has long neck, because they keep stretching
>>> their neck to eat branches and eventually it caused a genetic
>>> mutation to  aid survival -- a process known as "natural selection."
>>> These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Darwin does not take cross pollination ( for lack of better word)
>>> of plants and animals and between different species that happens in
>>> one generation and produce offspring of  blended types  into
>>> consideration.  A Lion and Tiger may have a Liger for a child.  You
>>> can actually cut a branch of one fruit tree and put it  another
>>> fruit tree branch stub and tie it up and it may bear the fruit of
>>> the first tree kind..  There is all sorts of intervention that
>>> happens to change the way species of plants and animal world to
>>> evolve  into  something new and different not only by genetic
>>> mutation due to thousands of years of  usage or need for survival
>>> but due to cross pollination.  I know this is a thesis for genetic
>>> decoding not fiction.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I still have to read the book listed below..
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pavithra
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> From: John Bottoms <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> To: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:28 PM
>>>>> Subject: [ontolog-forum] Dennett on the Darwinism of Memes
>>>>> 
>>>>> Daniel Dennett's next book will be out in a few weeks and I had the
>>>>> opportunity to hear him talk about how memes obey the tenets of
>>> Darwinism.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The title of his book is, "Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for
>>> Thinking".
>>>>> (not available yet,
>>>>> http://www.amazon.com/Intuition-Pumps-Other-Tools-Thinking/dp/0393082067)
>>>>> 
>>>>> His argument starts by asking if words are things. Then he argues
>>> that
>>>>> if words are things then we should consider memes as things also. He
>>>>> goes on to illustrate that memes follow the basic three principles of
>>>>> Darwinism.
>>>>> 
>>>>> His arguments are compelling and I wonder where they belong in the
>>> grand
>>>>> ontologies of entities. Are memes a new construct, or do memes simply
>>>>> replicate a known construct?
>>>>> 
>>>>> -John Bottoms
>>>>> FirstStar Systems
>>>>> Concord, MA USA
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>> IHMC                                     (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973
>> 40 South Alcaniz St.           (850)202 4416   office
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IHMC                                     (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973   
40 South Alcaniz St.           (850)202 4416   office
Pensacola                            (850)202 4440   fax
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