Dear Rich,
RC: I don't understand your response. Tom and I are trying to understand what you meant in our own terms, based on our own experiences, our own prior knowledge. We are each using that to interpret your statement.
MW: If you want to understand what I am saying perhaps the best approach would be to ask me, rather than speculate.
I am trying to draw out a distinction between two things that I am calling identity and identification, which it seemed to me you were in danger of confusing.
Identity is the relationship something has with itself. Further, we should be interested in identity criteria, which is how, when you come across an object in the real world, in particular at one time and another, you know whether they are the same thing (more strictly I would want to say temporal parts of the same thing). In the world of data and systems they are what hopefully stop you creating multiple identifications for the same thing. For example, the identity criteria I use are that for particulars (in the real world), if they have the same spatio-temporal extent, then they are the same particular (as opposed to merely being coincident at some point in time). For sets if they have the same members then they are the same set. Things in the real world can have identity without being of interest to you or anyone else. This applies as much to a handful of sand as to each grain that makes up the handful.
Identification is something different. This is the intentional act of giving something (with identity) an identifier, which may be a name or a code) so that we can conveniently refer to it in e.g. databases. Now we are absolutely in the realm of what someone might be interested in.
However, there are no strict rules about what can be given an identifier. I gave an example of when one might what to give an identifier to a grain of sand when studying longshore drift. Perhaps more practically, you might think that no one would want to give an identifier to a single nut, but in my past I designed a major upgrade for a Hydrocracker. This operated at around 100 barg and the nuts on the head flange were about 0.5m across, made of some exotic steel, and were worth over $100k each. You can bet they had identifiers.
In my view it is a mistake to conflate these two ideas, which it seemed to me you were in danger of doing.
Regards
Matthew West
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk
+44 750 338 5279
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: 18 June 2015 22:19
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm
Matthew,
I don't understand your response. Tom and I are trying to understand what you meant in our own terms, based on our own experiences, our own prior knowledge. We are each using that to interpret your statement.
If you believe your statement has not been well understood, then please explain it in a different way until we can all clarify the issues, our positions, and your position especially.
Deep responses appreciated,
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
Dear Tom and Rich,
It seems from this discussion that the only thing that does not matter is what I meant, only what I might have meant. That’s a shame really.
Regards
Matthew West
Information Junction
Mobile: +44 750 3385279
Skype: dr.matthew.west
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.
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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
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.
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.