SUO: *Date 20 Jan 2002
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Unicorns & Vampires & Intensions, Oh My!
What is the point of all this unicorn talk?
Well, I guess it's a metaphor for something, most likely,
for the way that we frequently entertain the existence of
this or that abstract, hypothetical, imagined, or virtual
object, and the way that we go on saying and even "proving",
that is to say, a bit more exactly, "deducing", many things
about this "supposed object" (SO), until such time as we can
figure out by logic or by a suitable test against some reality
or another that what we are saying either does or does not make
sense in regard to that reality, or maybe any conceivable reality.
Last time I introduced the notion of a "fixed ontological genre" (FOG),
which I took to mean any fixed set of axioms, definitions, predicates,
and rules or schemes for inference. I had intended this abbreviation
for another application, but I am presently and pleasantly surprised
to find that it has its uses here, in this quandary about intensions.
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg07725.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg03666.html
The thing that you really ought to realize is that all FOG's are alike,
right up to the point when we apply a "principle of precipitation" (POP)
to them. What is a POP? Well, if you look around, you will notice that
different communities of inquiry and interpretation typically apply all
sorts of different POP's to all sorts of different FOG's. Just by way
of a sample, there are principles of experimental test, principles of
historical accuracy, principles of logical consistency, principles of
textual evidence, and many more. But the gist of what I am saying
is this: It does not really matter all that much whether we are
talking about unicorns and vampires, or Hamlets and Hobbits, or
lions, tigers, and bears, or Monsters and Friendly Giants, or
quarks and quasars, or singular dwarf stars. Until we say
which which reality check we intend to pay, all of those
FOG's are the same, for all that.
There is no such thing as 'the' unique intension of a unicorn or a vampire.
These are a fictional beings and imaginary creatures, that is to say, they
are beings and creatures only in fictions, denoted by the signs in various
narrative stories, and existing only on the suppositions of sundry works
of imagination. As the stories vary, so does each intension, quality,
property of the hypothetical character in question, and therefore the
combination of their determinations, the so-called "comprehension"
of the beast, is not fixed, but varies from story to story with
the whims of their authors.
I don't care much about unicorns in parallel worlds.
I do care about numbers and functions and relations
and all sorts of other imaginary beings that exist
within the frame of many a hypothetical discussion
that actually takes place and goes on in this world.
So I normally regard these stereotypical discussions
of cliche fictions to be invoking allegorical figures
and other styles of literary metaphors as an indirect
way of talking about these other more pressing species
of imaginary creatures, like mathematical objects and
the hypothetical models that we use on a regular basis
in every inquiry that needs to abduce its explanations.
And when I do worry about unicorns and dragons and
hobbits and Hamlets and so on, it is always within
the frame of a discourse, a dream, or a text where,
for as long as it lasts, I am talking and thinking
just as if these creatures exist, and so I have no
extraordinary problem with hitching an existential
quantifier to them, that is, predicating existence
of these creatures, in relation to, in relation of,
the narrative in question, within that context and
in that frame of mind.
That is, there is no additional burden, not beyond
the original suspension of disbelief that it takes
to open up a hypothetical space in the first place,
nor beyond the usual sorts of worries that I would
have about the existence of anything else, carried
within that context, by a predication of existence.
Jon Awbrey
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