Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm

[Thomas Johnston <tmj44p@xxxxxxx>]

Rich,

Thanks.

Your question caught me out in a bad habit. I should, when writing a comment in this forum, copy the material I am commenting on into a word processor, and work on my reply there, only then uploading it to the forum.

But I often don't do that, and simply write and revise in place. The problem with doing it that way is that I can't scroll back to the material I wanted to comment on. So I sometimes don't get it exactly right. In this case, I got it pretty wrong.

So my apologies for sloppy work.

But I do appear to have described several things that Matthew could have meant, in the passage of his that you quote. So it's definitely not as clear as Pat thinks it is.

As I said, there is an epistemological interpretation of that passage, one without ontological commitment. I'm fine with that, but it seems to me that Pat wants “has identity” or “with (intact) identities” to carry ontological commitment. Pat said:

<<<

He (Matthew) said that the identity of each grain of sand is IN THE REAL WORLD, WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT. He did not say that it depends upon your perspective. You and your perspective could cease to exist, and the grains of sand would still be real, in the real world, with their identities intact. The identities of things in the real world do not depend upon your or anyone else's perspectives upon them. They are, you see, REAL.

>>>

It seems to me that, in this remark, Pat is taking you to be accusing Matthew of being a subjective idealist, a position first developed by Bishop George Berkeley (18^th century). Berkeley said: “to be is to be perceived or to perceive”, (although in castigating Berkeley, the “to perceive” part is usually ignored).

This is a position in ontology; it says what it is “to be”, i.e. to exist. But nobody regards it any longer as anything but a piece of eccentric intellectual history. Nobody takes it seriously anymore.

I agree with Pat that subjective idealism is false. But I'm worried about you. In replying to Pat, you said: “I find the view that something exists without someone to experience it unsatisfyingly theoretical”. That sounds a lot like Berkeley.

But that still leaves my question about what identity is, and what it means to say that things, with their identities, exist. And I would certainly hope to learn more than that they are “REAL”.

My best take on it, as I indicated before, is that to say that things, with their identities, exist, is to say that for discrete (count noun) objects, if there are no grounds on which we can distinguish them, then they aren't discrete objects.

On Thursday, June 18, 2015 2:55 PM, Rich Cooper <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tom,

 

Thanks for the lovely, well organized, and well presented list of choices!  It was beautifully done, it seems complete to me, and it thoroughly summarizes the situation. 

 

One small portion escapes my understanding however.  When you wrote:

what I called the "epistemological interpretation" above (approximately Rich's position, I think),

 

you distinguished my rendition to an "epistemological" interpretation, rather than an ontological one, specifically.  Could you explain to me why exactly you make that distinction?  Perhaps you could also identify what part of my statement is epistemological in your opinion, versus the ontological. 

 

Since you write so clearly and so well, it would be very helpful to more fully understand your reasoning re that distinction. 

 

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

 

From: Thomas Johnston [mailto:tmj44p@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 11:27 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]; Rich Cooper
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm

 

Pat:

 

re Matthew's statement that 

 

<<<Each grain of sand exists in the real world and has identity ...>>>

 

re Pat's comment, I do not agree that Matthew clearly meant the exact opposite of what Rich thought he meant. What is clear is that to say that something "in the real world ... has identity" is not clear. 

 

On an epistemological interpretation, it would seem to mean something like "can be identified", where it is some kind of conscious agent who could do the identifying. With Rich, I have no problem with this interpretation.

 

On an ontological interpretation, having identity is mysterious. Does a grain of sand "have" an identity in the same sense that it has size and weight? Or in the same sense that it has a location in space and time? If not, what does "has identity" mean? 

 

Perhaps you can clear up the mystery?

 

The best case I could make for an ontological interpretation would be that Matthew (and you?) are, whether consciously or not, expressing your agreement with Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles. That is indeed an ontological claim, not just an epistemological one. But it doesn't involve claiming that there is a property/attribute/quality called "identity" that physical things have.

 

So is Leibniz's principle what Matthew (and you) mean? If so, it certainly wasn't clear to me, at least, from Matthew's statement. 

 

If that isn't what you mean, but what you do mean is not what I called the "epistemological interpretation" above (approximately Rich's position, I think), then what is it that Matthew meant, and that is apparently clear to you?

 

Another avenue of response for you is some variant of saying that, by just using "good old common sense", what Matthew means is indeed clear, and that what I've suggested here is just philosophical hair-splitting which only obscures otherwise plain and clear meanings. But, as we are all ontologists, and if, as John Sowa's work makes completely clear (8>), classical ontology and ontology engineering are both about "ontology" in much the same sense, then I would hope that you don't propose some variant of this response.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 9:29 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:

 

On Jun 17, 2015, at 11:39 AM, Rich Cooper <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Thanks Pat,
> 
> for explaining your take on the idea, but we differ again on this issue.  Maybe if we keep this up another fifteen years, we will agree on something.  (:->)
> 
> PH: NO, Rich, that is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what Matthew said. Did you actually read his words? He said that the identity of each grain of sand is IN THE REAL WORLD, WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT. He did not say that it depends upon your perspective. You and your perspective could cease to exist, and the grains of sand would still be real, in the real world, with their identities intact. The identities of things in the real world do not depend upon your or anyone else's perspectives upon them. They are, you see, REAL.
> 
> RC: I find the view that something exists without someone to experience it unsatisfyingly theoretical, Pat.

I was not trying to convince you of anything, nor expressing "my take". I was making the point that you had completely misquoted, or misunderstood, what Matthew actually SAID. Whether you agree with what he said is another question altogether, and one I am not particularly interested in; but unless you actually understand what others are saying, there is little point in debating with them.

Pat
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