Tom and Rich, (01)
I was giving a brief summary of the article by McCarthy & Hayes (1969),
which analyzed various issues in knowledge representation in AI.
That article was the basis for many years of publications. I put
some of them in the collection at http://www.jfsowa.com/ikl . (02)
TJ
> The classical definition of a statement, as I understand it, is that
> it is a declarative sentence with all indexicals resolved. (03)
RC
> Please define the word "indexicality" as you are using it. (04)
In ordinary language, a statement is any sentence that is stated.
An indexical is a "pointing word" like pronouns and noun phrases
such as 'the president'. In sign languages, the index finger is
used instead of indexicals. (05)
RC
> I think you mean the binding between FOL variables and their
> substituted constants (06)
Yes, but very few formal logics have a notation for indexicals, and
people almost never resolve the indexicals before making a statement.
So the process of resolving indexicals occurs during the mapping. (07)
TJ
> So, as a statement, a fluent is a statement schema (08)
That definition depends on the syntax, and it gets tangled up
with all the issues of mapping NLs to formal logics. It's better
to use a notation-independent definition -- such as JMc & PJH's:
"A fluent is a function whose domain is the space Sit of situations." (09)
TJ
> More generally, we can conceive of a statement-family as a statement
> schema in which one or more indexicals are not resolved -- place,
> time, person, perhaps even propositional attitude. (010)
I would say that defining a fluent as a function is more general
because it's independent of any notation, formal or informal. (011)
TJ
> Are such statement families worth reifying? Or is it enough simply to
> understand that many apparent statements are not statements because
> of indexicality? (012)
Those are philosophical puzzles for nominalists like Quine and
Goodman. When it comes to irritating Quine, I'm with Alonzo Church. (013)
There's a very good reason why natural languages permit arbitrary
nominalizations: People find them concise and convenient for saying
what they want to say. (Note your use of 'indexicality'.) (014)
If nominalists don't like them -- excuse my French -- tant pis.
Besides Church, there are many worthy philosophers who agree:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm#static (015)
And by the way, very few formal languages have a notation for
indexicals. In my 1984 book, I allowed indexicals in conceptual graphs
and marked them with the prefix '#'. For an example of the notation
and the methods for resolving indexicals, see pp. 20 to 22 of (016)
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/eg2cg.pdf
From existential graphs to conceptual graphs (017)
John (018)
_________________________________________________________________
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 (019)
|