Dear Ed and John,
EB> The problem in many
engineering disciplines is that the design engineers *only* work with designs
and prototypes, and they use the *terms* for the actual things in describing
their design objects. But that is a term/denotation practice; and the
denotation of the same terms in the manufacturing and operations environment is
different.
Agreed. Most engineering disciplines do the same
thing because they are working on an object/process that takes time to reach
completion, but starts with a wish. That's why the words
actually used by people in each sub organization differ; they have different
perspectives.
You can see that clearly in patent claims as reflected in
the patent specifications.
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper,
Rich Cooper,
Chief Technology Officer,
MetaSemantics Corporation
MetaSemantics AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2
http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Edward Barkmeyer
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2015 10:58 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Watchout Watson: Here comes Amazon Machine Learning
- ZDNet- 2015.04.10
John,
I agree with this:
> Possibility and necessity affect the logic, not the
ontology
I disagree with this in more than one way:
> They can be treated in the same way as plans for the
future.
> For example, if you're designing an airplane or a
bridge, it's a possibility until it's actually built.
The handling of future things is very much about what the
ontological commitments are. One "can" treat future things as
'possibilities', by making that ontological commitment, but one can also treat
them as 'facts' by making a different commitment. In a 4D logic, for
example, it is entirely acceptable to provide the time stamp for temporal parts
of a thing as future dates and times. And it is a common practice in creating
business calendars. It is also possible to treat them as "mental
events" a la Davidson. Future is yet another ontological can of
worms.
My engineering (and semiotics) background objects to your
example. The design for an aircraft is a design, not an aircraft.
The design exists independently of its realization. The design itself may
undergo state changes, which are modeled in various ways, including
"versions", which are much more common than "temporal
parts".
And one can make the same argument about "plans"
for future events. The "plan" is the "mental event"
that conceptualizes the expected event. It can exist long before the
actual event, which may never come to pass.
In short, this is all about your ontology, and only some
ontological choices affect the choice of logic.
-Ed
P.S. Confusing a design for a thing with the thing
itself is a semiotic error -- it is ontologically simply wrong. The
problem in many engineering disciplines is that the design engineers *only*
work with designs and prototypes, and they use the *terms* for the actual
things in describing their design objects. But that is a term/denotation
practice; and the denotation of the same terms in the manufacturing and
operations environment is different.
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 8:13 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Watchout Watson: Here comes
Amazon Machine Learning - ZDNet- 2015.04.10
Dear Matthew,
Possibility and necessity affect the logic, not the
ontology:
> Another problematic category is possibilia (things
that might be, or
> possibly are in some parallel universe).
They can be treated in the same way as plans for the future.
For example, if you're designing an airplane or a bridge,
it's a possibility until it's actually built.
> The criteria for including possibilia (or not) is
utility vs the
> baggage that comes with the extra commitment.
The categories of parts, part numbers, etc., might be
empty in actuality, but they are specified in the ontology by the same methods
before and after the things are built.
There are, of course, issues about storing information
about the future in the database -- orders for future delivery of things that
don't yet exist, reservations for hotels, travel, etc.
The orders and reservations exist in the present (or
past), but they refer to things and events in the future.
Tom Johnston wrote a book about time and temporal issues
in databases. Perhaps he might care to comment on this point.
Following is an article in which I discuss issues about
modality, possible worlds, and the laws that govern them:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/worlds.pdf
Worlds, models, and descriptions
And by the way, possibilities are another area where a
strictly nominalist position (e.g., Quine's or Goodman's) gets into trouble.
Clarence Irving Lewis, who defined the first modern
versions of modal logic, had been the chair of the philosophy department at
Harvard while Quine was a student and later a professor.
But Quine was very strongly opposed to any version of
modal logic and any talk of possibilia. Hao Wang, who had earned a PhD
under Quine's supervision, was very critical of Quine's attitude. He
called it *logical negativism*. See
Wang, Hao (1986) Beyond Analytic
Philosophy: Doing Justice
to What We Know, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA.
John
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