Among other things, Bruce Schuman wrote:
But this statement below goes
right to my big simple-minded point. Unless we synthesize a common simple
“zero-ambiguity” foundation based on something obvious – we are going to be
roiling in a sea of relativistic semantics, with every term depending on every
other term as propounded in some special case someplace or by some guru some of
us have agreed to follow. That’s how the “humanistic disciplines” are
organized. Everything is just personal opinion and “schools of thought” –
with no reliable agreement and no sound grounding. This is more or less
why the Vienna Circle wanted to throw out metaphysics.
There have been very useful mathematical tools developed for knowledge
representation, but they all depend on the observer's believing in the
foundational premises of each tool. So I agree with your statement " Everything
is just personal opinion and “schools of thought” – with no reliable agreement
and no sound grounding.". Philosophy seems to be opinion and construed
plausible structure, but yes - no sound grounding. Reality is about grounding;
philosophy seems to be about imagining, IMHO.
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: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bruce
Schuman
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 3:10 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm
Hmm. Thanks all. A little wild and wooly – kinda messy
– but interesting and fertile and maybe (?) significant.
So, my apologies for pushing into this from an angle nobody’s ever
heard of, but I think I’m staring at very solid confirmations of my earlier
message from this morning.
If any group ought to be able to get their definitions straight
and consensual, it’s semantic ontologists.
But this statement below goes right to my big simple-minded
point. Unless we synthesize a common simple “zero-ambiguity” foundation
based on something obvious – we are going to be roiling in a sea of
relativistic semantics, with every term depending on every other term as propounded
in some special case someplace or by some guru some of us have agreed to
follow. That’s how the “humanistic disciplines” are organized.
Everything is just personal opinion and “schools of thought” – with no reliable
agreement and no sound grounding. This is more or less why the Vienna
Circle wanted to throw out metaphysics.
Does this matter in this ontolog context? Is this an issue
of consequence that extends beyond high-tech competence in some esoteric
zone? I think the answer is yes. Actually, it’s huge. We’re
in a global world now, and relativistic definitions make everybody crazy.
And without something we can agree on, and build on, that’s not going to
change.
So – this first statement goes to my fundamental distinction
between “real object” and “abstract object” – and that “identity” is an
abstract property inherent only in an abstract object:
TOM: What is clear is that to say that something "in the real
world ... has identity" is not clear.
BRUCE: Yes, exactly. I’d say it’s not only “not clear” –
it’s a systematic error to see it this way – at least if we are maintaining a
distinction between “real object” (physical thing or situation) and “abstract
object” (model of that thing). A very strong defense can be made of the
case that “real objects” do not have “properties”. A “property”
(attribute, characteristic, dimension, feature, etc.) is an intellectual
abstraction assigned to experience by cognition. It’s my understand that
John Sowa has been asserting more or less this general thesis since 1984, and
I’ve been convinced since then that it is absolutely true.
TOM: 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.
BRUCE: Yes, exactly right. The “process of identification”
has to be executed or performed by a “conscious agent” – who takes a
measurement, makes an appraisal, assigns a value, asserts some attribute – and
on the basis of that selected and abstract characteristic, assigns that value
to an abstract model. If you have two adjacent and “similar” models, you
now have unambiguous criteria for determining whether the two abstract objects
are “similar” or “identical”. If they are “identical” – it is because the
two objects have the have the same (“identical”) values in the same
(“identical”) dimensions. All of that should be defined according to the
general theory of measurements in a specified number of decimal places, with a
defined error tolerance (ie, is 9.3874 “identical to” 9.3873999? – maybe yes,
maybe no). Two grains of sand are “identical” if they have “identical”
values in every dimension some conscious agent deemed significant, to within
“acceptable” error tolerance.
TOM: 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?
BRUCE: It looks to me like all
these values and properties of the grain of sand are assigned by a “conscious
agent”. The grain of sand itself has no “properties” – until we create
those properties through a conscious volitional act of appraisal or measurement
that assigns those properties to the object. That action is going on in a
human mind – and maybe in a model created by that mind -- and by itself
has nothing to do with the grain of sand – which could be appraised, as I believe
John Sowa has often asserted, in an infinite number of ways, at widely varying
levels of scale and dimensionality – all of which are created by the conscious
agent, and do not inhere in the “real object”.
***
Thanks for the conversation.
- Bruce Schuman
Santa Barbara