Thanks for taking a few minutes to answer my (extremely naïve) question.
I've been reading through a lot of technical material -- including your
signproc.pdf and the Applied Ontology book -- and I've been going over my
own perhaps vastly oversimplified notion of an "linear" ontology that
unfolds from a single fundamental dimension -- and just spent 30 minutes
looking at a very helpful introduction to OWL that asks the question "Why is
it hard?" (01)
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~hulld/pres/20050729_xml_summerschool_ontologies_Ses
sion1.pdf (02)
I have what is probably a nervous-tic reaction to terminological conflict --
because I have rightly-or-wrongly become convinced that the meaning of words
cannot be defined in a reliable way using bottom-up methods -- even though
this approach might be the only realistic solution to real-world problems
addressed by real-world ontologists in today's real-world economy. So -- the
issue with me is: is this just impossible, and a Don Quixote quest for the
certifiable -- or is there a realistic possible route to a solution -- even
if that route would require some major teamwork or institutional support to
make it feasible....? In the last few days, I have hammered out something
on this subject, that I might try to post very briefly here another time... (03)
To your specific questions: (04)
> But even for people, there are many who don't have unique ids.
> For example, newborn babies, those who live in villages with little
contact with rest of the world, etc. (05)
This reminds me of problems with the "No-fly list". Is "Muhammad A. Iqbal"
from New Orleans the same "Muhammad Akbar Iqbal" we have listed in
Connecticut? Ok, so there is a real identity problem with individual humans
-- and a lot politics around this question. (06)
> How would you extend that principle that [to] cows, chickens, pigeons,
mice, bees, trees, flowers, rocks, grains of sand, bacteria, hurricanes,
tornadoes, storms, clouds, ocean waves, molecules of water, hydrogen atoms,
electrons, photons... ? (07)
The naming of objects... (08)
Ok -- my first response involves some things I read by you in "Conceptual
Structures" many years ago -- that suggested such things are impossible
(http://originresearch.com/sd/sd4.cfm ). So-called "real" objects don't
have "real" boundaries. Plus, they are transient. So, at best, naming of
"real objects" is something like a marginally-reliable social convenience
among friends (I am just starting to work through the defense of "realism"
in the Applied Ontology book -- which at a glance looks "naïve" to me - for
the kinds of reasons you outline in Conceptual Structures). I myself
advocate for a strict "information-structure modeling approach" to the
definition of anything supposedly "real" -- and then see the process of
science as correlating the abstract model to the experience through testing
and iterative feedback. When your correlations get really high and your
margins of error very small, maybe your model is starting to be trustworthy
(this goes to your quote -- something like "all models are wrong -- some are
useful"). (09)
What I have come to believe -- as something like a religious doctrine -- is
that in actual practice human beings parse conceptual space through a
process I call "ad hoc top-down stipulation". Yes, this approach comes at
the question in very intuitive ways -- but if I understand you, I would say
these intuitive ways at least begin to address your concern in signproc.pdf
where you talk about a "Static Lifeless Purposeless World" --
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.pdf (010)
Here's my basic hypothesis -- that I think maybe could be generalized, with
enough muscle behind the effort: All human cognition and
classification/conceptualization basically works through a top-down
stipulative process that is 100% context-specific -- based on Person A's
personal understanding of meanings, and her best guess as to Person B's
personal meanings -- as they both no doubt draw on something like a
shared/default pool of meanings in the world -- but configure and shade
those meanings for their specific immediate purposes. (011)
According to this emerging vision, the prime linear dimension of cognition
is "level of abstraction" -- which I believe can be defined as a linear
measure ranging from "absolutely not abstract" (0) to "absolutely abstract"
(1) -- with any kind of taxonomy or "is-a" hierarchy or "kind-of" hierarchy
defined along the same primary dimension. Induction and deduction operate
along the same primary dimension -- "from parts to wholes" ("particulars to
generals" - induction /bottom-up) or "from wholes to parts" ("generals to
particulars" - deduction/top-down). (012)
So -- seen in this simplistic light -- we are starting off by claiming that
the entire range of cognition and classification/taxonomy can be usefully
understood as varying along a single prime dimension that we understand in
the very simple (and apparently naïve) terms "bottom up" or "top down" --
which extreme simplicity we endeavor to justify by developing a detailed
algebraic model of this process that can interpret all these many related
variations that are out there -- like "mereology" -- in ways that capture
the specific objectives of the particular method, while maintaining the link
or "logical bridge" back to the general form. "Abduction" -- interpreted in
this light -- is something like "induction with an asterisk" -- a special
case of induction, with a boost from good guesswork. (013)
So -- once this hopeful design gets sketched out -- and I did start to build
a database on this the other day, just concentrating on Wikipedia
definitions -- the real challenge emerges in the effort to generalize the
algebraic form of this process. (014)
In the Applied Ontology book, there is section on "Algebraism" (p. 76) which
looks to me like an attack on this kind of approach -- which for me would be
persuasive if it ruled out the specific kinds of ideas I personally consider
so potent. So, for me, the essence of this challenge IS "algebraic" -- in
some kind of generalized cascading process across levels of specificity. We
are defining an idealized and perfected "information structure" (100%
abstract symbolic structure) and then mapping that structure to the real
world in a process of testing and confirmation. (015)
More or less -- what I think happens in real world cognition -- as human
beings communicate -- is that individual A parses an intended conceptual
space in their own particular way while talking to individual B -- and then
refines that specification in response to questions from B by assigning
increasingly-specific boundary values to the selected terminology -- much as
might happen in a complex contracting process. I tend to think that all
categorical specification is a process of assigning boundary values in a
stipulative process -- that becomes accurate because "the listener" asks
questions of "the speaker" until the important issues have been defined
"within acceptable error tolerances" and the process terminates in agreement
and stability. (016)
Regarding the “Four Thousand Ships Passed Through the Lock” article –
http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/classes/s07/events/krifka90.pdf -- the
definition of all these objects – “what is a ship?” “what is a yacht?” –
become issues of stipulated boundary values in selected dimensions. That’s
how we tell them apart. We stipulate in a measured and uniform way. (017)
Ok, having said that much.... (018)
> For whatever principle you propose, how do you state it in a way that
anybody can apply it to any situation whatever -- in a way that any two
independent (but well trained) observers would agree? (019)
This is a great question -- and a huge one. The short answer is "find the
philosopher's stone...." Or -- "invoke a miracle". (020)
But let's catch our breath and imagine a revolutionized world where people
would enter a conversation *wanting* to find agreement -- even if it's
tough, but knowing it’s necessary. (021)
There is something about "bridges". My health-insurance friend was just
telling me about "bridge keys" used to connect database information in
"Covered California" http://www.coveredca.com/ with a database at a major
health insurer (Anthem/Blue Shield) (022)
I think there IS a possible "bridge language" -- taking the form of "an
algebraic generalization of conceptual space" -- defined along this primary
axis of abstraction/generalization -- and its primary algebraic element is
"dimension" -- 100% linear -- as ALL constituent elements get a 100% linear
"compositional" definition -- as all terms like "characteristic" or
"attribute" or "property" or "quality" are all linearized in a compositional
way (ie, all their “internal parts” are also linear) under stipulation. (023)
This is the tough part in making all of this really work. Is it do-able?
In my highest energy moments -- when I could hold 30 simultaneous dimensions
in my head -- if only for a brief "super-flash" -- I did become persuaded
the answer is "Yes". Boundary values, fractals, taxonomic cascades,
dimensional analysis, genus/differentia and mystic circles -- all at the
same time... (024)
Can I prove it? No. Not today. I sometimes think the same goddess who
inspired the Hindu mathematician Ramanujan has to be part of this or we're
going to remain stuck in one gnarly forest of incommensurate variables and
conflicting terminological overlap... (025)
Thanks for your patience. (026)
- Bruce (027)
ATTACHED: DRAFT IMAGE – gross simplification of extreme complexity, to be
addressed through synthetic dimensional construction (028)
For a charming and fascinating reference, see “Infinity and the Mind” by
author, mathematician and computer science professor Rudy Rucker,
who gets highly into the issue of “the many and the one”, citing Georg
Cantor and his personal conversations with Kurt Gödel. (029)
https://keychests.com/item.php?v=bsorbseaxjw (030)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2015 3:19 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm (031)
Bruce, (032)
That is a good solution when you have a type that is small enough that
everything of that type can be assigned a unique id: (033)
> Every passenger (with their check-list of attributes or tags) has a
> unique ID number, and so do the flights. Associated with every flight
> is the list of passengers. (034)
But even for people, there are many who don't have unique ids.
For example, newborn babies, those who live in villages with little contact
with rest of the world, etc. (035)
How would you extend that principle that cows, chickens, pigeons, mice,
bees, trees, flowers, rocks, grains of sand, bacteria, hurricanes,
tornadoes, storms, clouds, ocean waves, molecules of water, hydrogen atoms,
electrons, photons... ? (036)
For whatever principle you propose, how do you state it in a way that
anybody can apply it to any situation whatever -- in a way that any two
independent (but well trained) observers would agree? (037)
John (038)
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