RE: SUO: Definition of life & that 'guiding hand'
JS...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
> John F. Sowa
> Sent: Monday, 3 June 2002 5:39
> Cc: cg@cs.uah.edu; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: Re: SUO: Definition of life
>
>
>
<snip>
> DM> And one more "by the way": neither system, nor purpose, are
> > concepts ontologized in SUMO.
>
> Of course not. They never did their homework. For the past two
> years, I've been telling them to read Peirce's writings, and they
> haven't done so. They said that they incorporated some of the
> concepts from my KR ontology, but they omitted everything based
> on the category of Thirdness -- and that includes system, purpose,
> intention, organization, business, and life.
>
Peirce's failure to properly differentiate mediation and representation as
as oscillation process, and so include DYNAMICS as a category on its own
rather than some sort of 'irritating inconvenience' as we attempt to be
'crystal' in our categories needs to be recognised before you can push the
'thirdness' concept (thus the categories are more tetradic than triadic but
the oscillation can blind you of this)
As to the 'guiding hand', other than the 'cheerleading neurons' mentioned in
my previous post, the exaggeration ability in the species means that, within
the materialist levels of our nature seem to be two 'instincts' originally
developed as a form of protection:
(a) all sensations are [potentially] linked together.
(b) all sensations are [potentially] meaningful.
The exaggeration of these instincts, their generalisation into perspectives
useful in analysis of the universal, can allow for the emergence of the
experience of the 'spiritual' - especially at a time in our species
development where we had no idea re genetics, neurosciences, etc etc
As such these local perspectives are focused on the 'what could be' of the
universe out of which, given our 'driven' interpreting brain, can stem all
sorts of wonders as well as all sorts of motives (with the aid of those
cheerleading neurons!)
The other source of a *perception* of a guiding hand is in the form of how
habits and instincts are stored and processed - they are stored in the
dendrites of the neurons such that CONTEXT can actually PUSH us and the mind
can have no idea what is going on!
The 'ancient texts' speak of Angels, Demons etc etc but it appears that
these texts, whoes authors were totally unware of genes, neurosciences etc,
were in fact talking about this 'push' nature in that a species
instinct/cultural habit could be set-off in a context and as such the
mindful individual would feel as if being pushed by 'mystical' forces.
The documentation of these events and the taking of that documentation
literally can easily lead to the development of a 'spiritual' perspective
whereas the only 'spriritual' perspective around is that created by the
species based on the two 'instincts' dealing with linkage/meaning mentioned
above.
Religious texts passed-down through the centuries are done so as if they
contain the 'word of god' rather than the fact that they contain metaphors
created by authors lacking in knowledge about their species and its nature.
For more on this see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/angels.html
BTW - note that a teleological perspective can emerge when a species,
generally REACTIVE in dealing with the context, internalises a 'map' of the
local context. This internalisation allows for the species to become
PROACTIVE. A high level of proactive behaviour, when witnessed from
'outside' and with a lack of understanding re the adaptations to context,
will seem as if 'guided' by external forces.
Chris
------------------
Chris Lofting
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