SUO: JA's Bit 13 Jan 2002
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suo floks, i told jim i would keep my posings
to one or fewer a day for a while, so here is
my summary for today.
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Re_1: Matthew West
Subj: -adic & -tomic compatibility
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:17:18 +0100
From: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE <Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com>
To: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
CC: Ontology <ontology@ieee.org>,
Stand Up Ontology <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
MW: I think I missed the point of what you were trying to say below.
MW: The critical point behind what I was trying to convey
is that different ways of looking at the world will
actually discriminate different objects in it.
I think it is a useful lesson to ponder on
how arbitrarily different the way we see
the world can be.
let me try another example: particles versus waves.
you can say that there is a particle-view and a wave-view.
what there really is -- the real object of nature's ontology --
that is likely beyond our comprehension, but we have to work
with the glimpses that we have in the process of seeing more.
but if you go ahead and write down an axiom for "wave" that
says "not a particle", then you have rendered the concepts
logically incompatible -- in your own mind -- whereas
nature may not care a fig what you write or think.
i am not a person who says that all reality is constructed by us --
even if there are definitely some realities that we do construct --
but i am a 'constructive thinker' in the sense that i would say that
we construct our knowledge of things, and the raw materials of that
construction are called 'signs', which for me includes concepts and
the data of experience. and we organize our thoughts in such a way
that we might as well go ahead and say that we are often talking
about this or that abstract, formal, hypostatic, or ideal object,
like numbers, propositions, spaces, etc. and then the question
becomes: how do these formal, logical, mathematical objects
compare with the real objects and problems that nature,
including our own nature, keeps tossing our way?
now, with regard to viewpoints, john sowa was
careful to say in his knowledge rep book that:
| The physical/abstract distinction is independent of the observer's viewpoint,
| but the continuant/occurrent distinction depends on the choice of time scale.
|
| John Sowa, KR, p. 71
i would probably agree with the latter half of that,
and worry a while what the former half depends on,
but a relative distinction is a different sort
of thing from an absolute distinction, twisi,
at least from my current pov.
previous message:
JA: i am not especially onterested in the versus between
trimeters & tetrameters, as i think it's a mistake to
get trapped in such diminished dimensionalities, but the
problems to which you point here do illustrate a vastly
more generic issue that affects the whole way some people
seem to make use of ontological forms of thought.
JA: i have discussed this before under the heading of the contrast between
k-adic and k-tomic thinking, the difference between thinking in k axes
and thinking in k parts of a partition of the universe, that is, parts
that are thought to be mutually exclusive and possibly exhaustive sets
or classes or categories or whatever.
JA: for a maximally generic example, let's say you have divided the world
along the lines of "abstract" versus "physical" or "logos" & "physis" --
what then? doing this, the way some people do it, anyway, completely
misses the utility of mathematics in talking about objective reality,
which is bound up in the recognition of the synthetic unities of form
and matter, in which thinkers as early as aristotle were sufficiently
well-versed not to be saying the silly things that we hear hereabouts
on a daily basis.
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Re_2: Matthew West
Subj: IFF Updates 2002-Jan-02, Comments Requested
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:17:20 +0100
From: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE <Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com>
To: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
CC: Jim Farrugia <jim@spatial.maine.edu>, Ian Niles <iniles@teknowledge.com>,
standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>,
Ontology <ontology@ieee.org>
JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
MW: I am aware of the points you make below and support them.
I have started to investigate Category Theory and see much
in it that is relevant, as you say at the basement level
for all kinds of mappings. In particular I think it might
provide some underpinnings for relations, which we seem
prepared to accept as given, but without much explanation
or justification.
MW: I also agree with the point John makes in another note
that there is much to do to demystify Category Theory.
i agree with that. i have a few things in mind that might help.
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