Chris, (01)
I never said that a purely extensional position was "congenial" --
on the contrary, I believe it's untenable for a general ontology. (02)
> And, also as we have previously agreed, an extensionalist position
> is more congenial to a 4D one, in other words, the choices are
> entangled. (03)
I forget the exact words I used, but I meant "easier to state".
So the issue is just a matter of convenience for the person who
is writing definitions. That's not fundamental. (04)
However, things like contracts, money, and anything dependent on
contracts and money (such as the difference between a business and
a nonprofit organization) cannot be defined in extensional terms.
In general, anything that involves society, organizations, people,
animals, and their intentions cannot be defined in extensional terms. (05)
JFS>> The formulation of an extensional or intensional 3-D position
>> could be mapped to or from an extensional or intensional 4-D
>> position by the same methods used to map any 3-D statement to
>> or from 4-D. (06)
CP> Though (as I pointed out) no-one has quite managed to do it yet
> - despite talking about it for years. (07)
Physicists have been doing such transformations for the past century.
Just look at the light cone, which maps the 4-D view to or from a
view that can be expressed in terms of English tenses. (08)
JFS>> An ontology for UoM does not depend in any way on the
>> of assumptions of extensional vs. intensional, 3-D vs. 4-D, (09)
CP> I really cannot see how you can arrive at this conclusion,
> especially given the simple example provided by me in the
> mail to Ingvar. (010)
I don't have the example in front of me now, and I deleted it
because it didn't seem to be relevant. But if you send another
copy, I'd be happy to analyze it and show exactly why it's
irrelevant. (011)
CP> When Matthew, David and I have worked on UoM's over the last
> decade, we have come across ways in which these choices affect
> the ontology. (012)
Please send the examples, and I'd be happy to show how to
revise the ontology to eliminate any dependency. (013)
CP> There are examples in the history of science where measures
> are affected by advances. Kuhn has a nice example of how the
> Aristotelian notion of weight helped to support the chemist's
> notion of calorific in the late 18th century - until weight
> changed from being an accidental to an essential property
> of matter. (014)
That was a change in their theory of matter. In any case,
weight is still an accidental property. Mass is essential.
In any case, that observation did not change their units of
measure. (And by the way, note that the kilogram is the only
unit of measure whose definition has not been replaced by
anything more fundamental than the same lump of metal they
used for the past few centuries.) (015)
CP> "Brute facts"? So, for example, Popper's notion that observation
> is theory laden does not apply (or Quine's (who I know you do not
> like) web of belief?). (016)
I certainly recognize the influence of theory on terminology and
on many kinds of facts. But the most common units of measure were
chosen at very early dates, and they survived many redefinitions
stated in a wide range of theoretical formulations. Furthermore,
the definitions of the measuring procedures can be stated in terms
that do not use the theoretical terms. (017)
Re Quine: I never said I didn't like Quine. I heard him speak,
but I didn't know him personally. I've read almost all of his
writings, but he had a very narrow point of view. He ignored
anything outside that narrow perspective. (018)
John (019)
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