Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: SUO: Definition of life
Thanks, Leonid. This is a good expansion along the lines of my proposed
ontology of purpose. I'm not sure what Alexei means about boundary, but I
think it's important to think about evolutionary purposefulness and
behavioral purposefulness. Again, I come to this with an Ashby and
Maturana & Varela perspective that these and other kinds of purpose are
attributed to natural phenomena by observers, and this is done to support
the purposes of the observers. This is why I think that an understanding
of the range of types of purpose can give us a framework for relating
ontologies from various domains, and defining the domains in the first
place. We would be able to have a principled and rigorous discussion of
the commercial purposes of Bill Andersen, and the scientific purposes of
Alexei Sharov, and how they relate.
Doug McDavid
IBM Business Innovation Services
Member, IBM Academy of Technology
mcdavid@us.ibm.com
"Imagine all the people ... living life in peace."
Leonid Ototsky <leo@mmk.ru>@majordomo.ieee.org on 06/03/2002 05:58:14 PM
Please respond to Leonid Ototsky <leo@mmk.ru>
Sent by: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
cc:
Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: SUO: Definition of life
Suppose it will be helpful for the community to look at the biologist
point of view.
Leonid
===========================
This is a forwarded message
From: Alexei Sharov <sharov@vt.edu>
To: Leonid Ototsky <leo@mmk.ru>
Date: Monday, June 03, 2002, 7:36:45 PM
Subject: : SUO: Definition of life
===8<==============Original message text===============
Return-Path: <sharov@vt.edu>
Received: from antivirus.mmk.ru (relgate.man.mmk.chel.su [161.8.27.2]) by
relgate.mmk.ru (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g53DZBd02213 for <leo@mmk.ru>;
Mon, 3 Jun 2002 19:35:11 +0600 (YEKST)
Received: from lennier.cc.vt.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by
antivirus.mmk.ru (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g53DVeL05175 for
<leo@mmk.ru>; Mon, 3 Jun 2002 19:31:41 +0600 (ESD)
Received: from zidane.cc.vt.edu (IDENT:mirapoint@zidane-lb.cc.vt.edu
[10.1.1.13]) by lennier.cc.vt.edu (8.11.4/8.11.4) with ESMTP id
g53DYFo18211 for <leo@mmk.ru>; Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:34:15 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from lgdoc7.vt.edu ([137.187.160.37]) by zidane.cc.vt.edu
(Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS 3.1.0.54-GA) with ESMTP id ADJ34708 (AUTH
sharov); Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:34:12 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020603082829.00a9aec0@mail.vt.edu>
X-Sender: sharov@mail.vt.edu
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 08:36:45 -0500
To: Leonid Ototsky <leo@mmk.ru>
From: Alexei Sharov <sharov@vt.edu>
Subject: Re: Fwd: SUO: Definition of life
In-Reply-To: <17290.020603@mmk.ru>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Status:
Leonid,
I think that John Sowa is on the right path of thinking, which is
consistent
with biosemiotics. He attributes to Pierce, but I think that Pierce never
formulated it explicitly (may be I missed some quotation).
Doug who replied to John missed a very important point that there is no
boundary between the two cases that he discussed (behavioral and
evolutionary purposefulness) . The existence of an amoeba is also
purposeful
at the evolutionary level. But this is "hard stuff" and it will take long
before common people will start understanding it.
-Alexei
===8<===========End of original message text===========
Best regards,
Leonid
mailto:leo@mmk.ru and copy to leo@mgn.ru
=====================================================
Leonid Ototsky,
http://ototsky.mgn.ru
Chief Specialist of the Computer Center,
Magnitogorsk Iron&Steel Works (MMK)- www.mmk.ru
Russia
=====================================================