Amen. How about instead No-OPS? (01)
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
>Sent: Monday, October 06, 2014 12:30 PM
>To: [ontolog-forum]
>Subject: [ontolog-forum] Pentatonic debates (Was: Re: Ontology vs KR)
>
>The pentatonic scale, dividing the octave into five notes, is a recognizable
>pattern in the folk music of many cultures. Pretty much any sequence of notes
>in this scale sounds melodic, and many well-known melodies fit into it.
>However, it has no semitones and is incapable of handling sophisticated
>musical composition. After a while it gets kind of monotonous.
>
>I would like to propose that we re-name ontolog forum as the Ontologist's
>Pentatonic Scale, or OPS. The same arguments and points get made and re-
>made over and over again, always at about the same philosophical depth. It is
>entertaining at first, and like folk music it has a kind of reassuring
>simplicity,
>but it gets boring after a while, as one tends to hear the same melodies
>repeated for the hundreth time.
>
>Anyone else agree?
>
>Pat Hayes
>
>On Oct 4, 2014, at 7:49 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Pat C, Ed, Leo, Steven, Rich, and Mark,
>>
>> I'd like to quote Anna Wierzbicka's remark about her "primitives".
>> Her point is also true of Longman's list of 2000 defining terms,
>> which Pat has emphasized:
>>
>> AW, _Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis_
>>> An adequate definition of a vague concept must aim not at precision,
>>> but at vagueness: it must aim at precisely that level of vagueness
>>> which characterizes the concept itself.
>>
>> Anna W's list, Longman's list, and the synsets of WordNet are vague.
>> That vagueness is *useful* for enabling incompatible predicates
>> from inconsistent ontologies to be mapped to the same synsets.
>> Those mappings are valuable for NLP, but not for detailed reasoning.
>> Immanuel Kant summarized the issues:
>>
>> IK, _Logic_, Dover reprint.
>>> Since the synthesis of empirical concepts is not arbitrary but based
>>> on experience, and as such can never be complete (for in experience
>>> ever new characteristics of the concept can be discovered), empirical
>>> concepts cannot be defined. Thus only arbitrarily made concepts can
>>> be defined synthetically. Such definitions... could also be called
>>> declarations, since in them one declares one's thoughts or renders
>>> account of what one understands by a word. This is the case with
>>> mathematicians.
>>
>> In short, you can have complete formal definitions in mathematics.
>> Since every computer is formally specified, every program does
>> something very precise -- but what it does so precisely might not
>> be what the programmer had intended.
>>
>> EL
>>> Thorough simplification leads to convergence in underlying features
>>> of language design, such as the structure of information building
>>> blocks that are well designed to be easily arranged.
>>
>> I assume that you're talking about the design of computer systems
>> and languages. I agree that those designs should be clean, simple,
>> and formally defined.
>>
>> To draw an analogy, the difference between what a programmer says
>> and what the program actually does is similar to the difference
>> between WordNet and formal ontologies.
>>
>> Leo
>>> One exception may be the foundations of mathematics (and logic)
>>> such as Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZFC) or variants...
>>
>> Kant would say that any mathematical system can be specified
>> precisely. But the question whether a single foundation can
>> be adequate for every possible mathematical system has been
>> hotly debated since it was first proposed in the 19th century.
>>
>> Leo
>>> Then of course for science, to gauge/adjudicate scientific
>>> theories, one gets into philosophy of science issues such
>>> as theory succinctness...
>>
>> SE-Z
>>> Not the case Leo ... There is no bridge constructed between
>>> Pure Mathematics the Physical Sciences...
>>
>> I'll let Leo and Steven clarify what they mean. But I'd emphasize
>> that mathematics is not part of physics. Those precise mathematical
>> specifications of physical concepts are *fallible* and *changeable*.
>>
>> English words such as 'mass', 'force', 'energy'... are mapped
>> to incompatible theories in the same way as as WordNet synsets.
>> In fact, engineers frequently and *knowingly* use incompatible
>> definitions of those terms for different components of the same
>> physical system -- car, airplane, computer...
>>
>> RC
>>> the infant Kernel of the agent, prior to learning, should include
>>> a vocabulary of each and every perception, and each and every action,
>>> plus a pool of constants, variables and constraints among them, as
>>> imposed by the agent on the environment, and by the environment
>>> on the agent.
>>
>> MHL
>>> it seems unlikely that there can be a fundamental ontology of
>>> perception or of action.
>>
>> The vague primitives by Anna W. are an example of a vague starting
>> set that is common to infants around the world. But AW would agree
>> with Mark (and Kant) that no formal definition is possible *or*
>> desirable. Any such definition would destroy their flexibility.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
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