Hans
I just saw your email, so I am forwarding my reply to Pat.
See below.
You talked about concepts like "school district" and "social reality".
I would simply warn you to think very carefully about what you want
those terms to mean, and make your definitions clear to other people
that you communicate with. And try not to change the "usual"
meaning of words too much. [If you look at the Ontolog Forum
archives, you'll find I have trouble in that respect. And so did
Ayn Rand (selfishness), but she did it on purpose.]
Your discussion of "school district" seemed to be concerned
with "space" -- the geographic location of the district.
On the other hand, my first thought was "person" -- the children
who attend the schools, the parents of the PTA, the teachers,
the principal. That's because my step-daughter is a school teacher.
And I could go on, my mother was a teacher, I was a teaching
assistant, ... My context is definitely school district.person.
Dick McCullough
Context Knowledge Systems
mKE and the mKR language
mKR/mKE tutorial
From: rhmccullough@xxxxxxxxx
To: phayes@xxxxxxx
CC: kr-language@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: metaphysical context
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:49:41 -0700
&&&&& comments below
P.S. I'm logging some of these things to my KR-language email group
just to make sure I have a record to look up later if I want to.
It's my equivalent of the Ontolog Forum archives.
Dick McCullough
Context Knowledge Systems
mKE and the mKR language
mKR/mKE tutorial> Subject: Re: metaphysical context
> From: phayes@xxxxxxx
> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 10:46:10 -0500
> CC: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; kr-language@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; rslatimer@xxxxxxx
> To: rhm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; rhmccullough@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
> On Apr 10, 2014, at 2:01 AM, Richard H. McCullough <rhmccullough@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > I'm using "physical context" to denote all the propositions which describe the
> > external world, independent of man. The propositions include the relations
> > which define the entity-characteristc-proposition hierarchy which is very
> > helpful in organizing our knowledge about the external world. In my definitions,
> > "characteristic" and "property" are synonyms.
>
> OK, then with this understanding, classes are in the physical context also, since they are used to describe the external world. In fact, they are what are often called categories. So for example, the category of being a plant is a class.
>
&&&&& yes. in the physical context, the units/elements of classes are real things
&&&&& in the mental context, the classes are the units/elements of Class.
> >
> > I take physical context propositions to be "real things" because they denote facts
> > about the real world.
>
> Careful. There is an important distinction between being real (being in the world) on the one hand, and being used to denote something real (being ABOUT the world) on the other. These do not mean the same thing. (This is related to the two-universes distinction in Common Logic semantics, by the way.) Which sense do you mean here?
>
&&&&& I mean real -- they are true facts; they are ultimately denoted by propositions identified by man
&&&&& I should have said "are" instead of "denote"
&&&&& I'd like to talk to you some more about this; I'd like to understand CL semantics.
> > "entity", "characteristic" and "proposition" are three different
> > kinds of real things. Objects in the ordinary sense of the word are entities.
> > The more acceptable synonym of "real thing" is "existent".
> >
> > I take mental/epistemology context to mean looking inside your mind. In that context, you
> > have mental objects which are your view of entity, characteristic, proposition.
>
> I am tempted to ask whether our mental thoughts are also part of the real world. I sure think that mine are :-)
>
&&&&& yes. I agree, but they are part of the mental/epistemology context, not the physical context
> Pat
>
>
> > It's hard to avoid getting completely confused thinking about physical
> > vs. mental things. You have to remember that it is "your responsibility"
> > to identify the physical context propositions by observing what happens in
> > the real world.
> >
> > Dick McCullough
> > Context Knowledge Systems
> > mKE and the mKR language
> > mKR/mKE tutorial
> >