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Re: [ontolog-forum] Watchout Watson: Here comes Amazon Machine Learning

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Rich Cooper" <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 11:33:00 -0700
Message-id: <08fa01d08374$17272230$45756690$@com>

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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