ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology is affected by Personality

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 14:35:41 -0500
Message-id: <CALuUwtBb7AteGo_ZQyduLuc8voLQ59vncK3ED2facyBJsJySnA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 1:09 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Yes, as reformulated, I agree with my original point.  But I go further and state that reality, experienced differently by different people, is different for the two people. 

 
 what **they experience** is different.  Nobody would disagree.

That is, The constraints that limit my life and different than the constraints that limit your life,


Nobody would disagree with this either,


and therefore reality is different for me than for you, and vice versa. 


But this does not follow.    It seems that for you, there is no difference between what we experience and what underlies the experience.  


Put on blue glasses, everything IS blue.  Have a second baby, some things actually CHANGE their sizes.  No way to determine if they are REALLY a different color, if thing have REALLY changed their sizes. There are no spectrometers; there are no tape measures. 


(because, if I have funny glasses on, I might misread the tape measure.  Therefore, there is no right way to read the tape measure, all are equal.  Therefore, everything acutally HAS every size that anyone believes  it has.  So, why bother to use a tape measure in the first place?)


In a funny movie, laurel puts on blue glasses, and he says, "hey hardie, Everything is blue!"  Most people would say, 'when I put on blue glasses, everything LOOKS blue."   They, and those watching the movie, know that laurel has blue glasses on.  Most people seem to recognize the difference between what they experience and the underlying facts that might cause those experiences, and always cause them to differ.   But most people must be wrong.  They don't realize, whatever we believe, is true.


What's blue for me is red for you.  End of story.  


You are assuming that because we experience two different things, we are experiencing two different underlying root causes for those experiences, instead of them being different aspects of a whole.  but even though I feel the elephant's trunk, and you feel its tail, it might still be one elephant.


One could never PROVE that it is one elephant, one can contrawise never prove that they are different elephants, either.    This is the difference between emperical evidence (what we can prove or disprove) and logical necessity (what we must accept as the foundation for a communications event to have the possiblity of having a meaning if nothing is shared, there is no meaning). 


It is logically necessary that we go on the assumption that there is a single reality we can share, one that we can only get closer to, as we communicate more and more, though of course we will never get all there way there.


This matter is one to which experiment does not apply.  It is not an empirical matter.  It is a matter of logic, of what must be the case if it makes sense to even TRY to communicate. 

 

Wm


 

 

-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 rrovetto@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 8:01 PM


To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology is affected by Personality

 

John,

Well said.
Wrt #2 and in general, it's important to also explicitly mention that human beings are capable of shape(ing) the world, including their environments, and their development in it (via mind, harnessing natural laws, etc.).


Respectfully,
Robert

 

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 11:13 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rich, Leo, and William,

You're emphasizing different aspects of how humans and other animals
interpret their experiences and react to them.  As Wittgenstein said,
philosophy is a systematic set of reminders of the obvious.  Following
are five reminders that I would emphasize:

  1. There is a real world out there that is independent of what
     any of us think about it.

  2. The beliefs and habits of all living creatures that successfully
     carve out a niche where they and their family can thrive are
     adapted to and shaped by the aspects of reality they experience.

  3. But different experiences, environments, perspectives, abilities,
     tools, and goals result in differences in their belief systems
     and ways of behaving -- even for two siblings.

  4. Even the same individual at different stages of life will have
     belief systems that differ in significant ways.

  5. And even the same individual at the same stage of life will,
     for different purposes, interpret and respond to very similar
     experiences in significantly different ways.

RC

> To say that there is ONE objective reality to be experienced by all
> observers is to go beyond the actual evidence.

I suggest that the word 'reality' be reserved for point #1 above.
Instead, I recommend the following version:

Revised version of RC's point:
> To say that there is ONE objective way of expressing the aspects of reality

> experienced  by all observers is to go beyond the actual evidence.

Leo

> I would say that there is an underlying ontology that we all share (though
> we may not know it) + additional ontologies which are cultural, mini-cultural,
> and personal in nature.

'Ontology' is not a synonym for 'reality'.  The fundamental theories
of physics are the most accurate ontologies that have ever been
formulated.  But those theories are constantly changing.  Even
physicists who agree on a particular theory often disagree on how
to interpret it and apply it.

For a good summary of how physics and astronomy have changed from year
to year during the past century -- and how different scientists react
to and interpret those changes, I recommend:

    Dean, Cornelia, ed. (2012) The New York Times Book of Physics
    and Astronomy, New York: Sterling.

This is a collection of articles published in the NY Times from 1896 to
the present.  They don't go into the technical details, but they show
the development of the ideas, theories, debates, and applications.

(Available for $12.47 from Barnes and Noble or Amazon.  I suggest bn.com
in order to preserve the survival of at least one competitor to Amazon.)

WF

> 'people in a speech community share meanings' empirically. This is

> true  as a logical necessity, not as something that could be tested...

> sharing of meanings is not all or nothing, it is a matter of degree,
> as communities fade into each other.

The meaning of 'meaning' is extremely vague and complex.  What people
share are not precisely defined ontologies or even precise word senses.
The meaning of a word is more like a cloud that shifts its shape and
position to adapt to changing conditions.

Despite the enormous changes, physicists still use the same cloud of
meanings as Newton over 300 years ago:  force, mass, momentum, energy,
acceleration, etc.  All the theories are precise, their predictions
agree on certain tests, but they differ on others.

For further discussion by a computational linguist and lexicographer,

    Kilgarriff, Adam (1997) I don’t believe in word senses,
    http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk/Publications/1997-K-CHum-believe.pdf

John

 



_________________________________________________________________
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
 


_________________________________________________________________
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    (01)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>