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Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontolog

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Rich Cooper" <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 09:46:03 -0700
Message-id: <052701d0b678$ea51e230$bef5a690$@com>

Dear Matthew,

 

Here is a relevant quote from Ed:

 

Ed
> It is my personal philosophy that “objective reality” is unknowable
> and therefore cannot be modeled.  It is possible to model theories of
> reality, but we have to accept that they are theories. What most of us
> model is “commonly perceived reality”, and the only question is which
> stakeholders are involved in determining what is “common perception”.

 

It's that last part - which stakeholders ... determine .. common perception, that reminds us we are looking at different worlds. 

 

You see only 3.5 dimensions (x, y, z, and t<Now) out of Greene's 11, and I see 3.5 dimensions of 11, but I am necessarily looking from a different 11D position, in a different 11D direction, at different 11D sceneries, with different 11D constituents. 

 

There are alive and dead cats in boxes, quanta with independent wills, electrons locked in synchrony at vast distances, black holes that swallow light, and so many other oddities that, in effect, we have no reason to think that we are seeing the same worlds even if we *could* directly observe reality instead of observing just those daily abstractions of reality that we *commonly* recognize. 

 

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 Matthew West
Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2015 8:55 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Rich,

Multiverses is just a Possible Worlds set up from a physics perspective. It does not suggest that we are in different universes, just that all possible universes are a physical reality somewhere (in one universe Schodeinger’s cat is dead, in another alive – but there is not one universe where both are true when the box is opened). It does not mean that we are experiencing different universes, just that they exist (which I’m fine with as a possibility, but I don’t see how that can be proved, since the alternatives – so far at least – are inaccessible, another reason why we don’t inhabit different ones.

 

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: 04 July 2015 14:52
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Matthew,

 

Here is a video on the Multiverse - multiple simultaneous universes:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUW7patpm9s

 

 

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 Rich Cooper
Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2015 6:47 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Matthew,

 

You wrote: Dear Rich,

So to summarise, you have no proof that we inhabit different worlds.

 

Yes, I have no proof we inhabit different worlds, and I don't necessarily believe we do.  But I also have no evidence that we inhabit the same world.

 

What I do believe is that we sense different worlds because of our diversity of sensing and interpretation.  I can only interpret things that I have some past experience with.  Any my past experience is very different from even my neighbor's experience, or your experience, or JFS's experience.  The world is so frigging big, and so frigging complex, that we will probably never focus so tightly each to see the others' sense of the world. 

 

That is, whether I sense the same world as you sense (I think I most probably do) doesn't really matter.  The WAYs in which we sense the world are not exact, not even approximately equivalent, so that it is less important than my understanding your views and beliefs about the world, or than your understanding my views and beliefs, because we have so much trouble aligning along those axes. 

 

Brian Greene has a very thought provoking video on the 11 dimensions he believes comprise the universe.  Here is his video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtdE662eY_M

 

Do you think we sense quarks?  I don't.  Our ability to interact with the universe is so extremely limited, and the universe is so vast, that we will likely never be looking at the same part of it.

 

So why assume we do see the same world?  That assumption seems suspect to me. 

 

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 Matthew West
Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2015 6:09 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Rich,

So to summarise, you have no proof that we inhabit different worlds.

 

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: 03 July 2015 22:50
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Matthew,

 

You wrote:

In my view it is a really big thing to say that we do not together inhabit some common world. We might experience it in different ways, but to say that what we experience is different is quite another thing.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West                           

Information  Junction

 

I am an avid psych lit reader, but not a psychologist.  >From my readings, I think most of what we experience is a reactivation of our memories, comprising a jambalaya of objects that are in some way linked either to the present stimuli, or to other memories of other linked stimuli. 

 

I think of it as a DAG (directed acyclic graph) of AND and OR nodes with a "~" prefix to calculate the complementary NOT. In total, an AND/OR graph, with symbols and functions with parameter lists, all represented in the DAG. 

 

The linkage, according to Chomsky, is a stored pattern with empty slots, or variables, that we fill in with bits and pieces of the current situation.  We see this newly filled-in pattern, in many ways like the matching pattern along with links, within links, ..

 

So do we inhabit a commonly shared world? 

 

We can never know that.  We can share our knowledge and observations with other agreeable agents, and they with us, and we can even run confirmatory experiments to confirm or deny our own view of a theory, theirs or ours.  But we can't really know if it is the SAME experience we have, or an experience of the SAME situation, because we are different observers, each with our own vast library of biases. 

 

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 Matthew West
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 3:09 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontologies?

 

Dear Kingsley,

 

 

On 6/30/15 9:21 PM, Chris Partridge wrote:

Not sure this is going to get us far, but I still cannot make much sense of "But the point is that none of it is about objective reality or objective truth.  It is about the world as seen by the people and software that have to communicate." Don't we see/sense the same world?

No we don't.

[MW>] That’s a big statement. Would you care to back it up with some evidence, rather than just assume it is a self evident truth?

That's Ed's fundamental point. The very same point made by John Sowa, Patrick Hayes and others --  in a variety of posts over the years.

[MW>] I’m not sure I’ve heard them say that either. Care to give specific quotes?

 

In my view it is a really big thing to say that we do not together inhabit some common world. We might experience it in different ways, but to say that what we experience is different is quite another thing.

 

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.

Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.

 

 



We are individuals for a reason :)

Think of this as the cognition paradox .

-- 
Regards,
 
Kingsley Idehen       
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