SUO: Re: ontology as science
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Fowler, Julian wrote:
>
> Jon et al
>
> Addressing one point here:
>
> JA: ... but there is just no way of mushing togther a research
> oriented ontology with a general info, person in the street,
> journalistic ontology, without generating more mush, and
> there is no way of deriving scientific knowledge from
> popular (mis-)conceptions without radically changing
> common sense concepts in the process.
>
> I agree entirely with what you say here; however, I'm not sure that
> "mushing together" is the goal of the SUO (or, if it is, then there
> is some serious redirection needed!). Rather, an SUO framework
> should allow the following to be represented:
>
> "the sun goes round the earth" (man on the Clapham omnibus)
> "the earth goes round the sun" (popular science)
> "the movement of the earth is determined by the gravitational
> attraction of other bodies, particular massive bodies within
> the solar system ..." (high school science)
> ...
> continuing to
> ...
> (full exposition of gravitational theory as applied to celestial bodies)
>
> as long as these are not treated as contextually equivalent assertions/theories
> (which they would if the ontologies in which each statement occurs were to be
> "mushed together"). Further, the framework should allow the bases for each
> of these assertions to be formalized as well as the relationships among them.
>
> regards
> Julian
Julian,
Yes, I know what the promises are. JS is all against monolithic mush, and he is
trying to sell us a big empty LOT as a pegboard to hang our hats and tools on.
RK is organizing an "Ontological Seville Liberties CoProduct" that will let
us all live in preistablished harmony by preventing each category-theoretic
Monad from impacting on any other, much less touching the ground. I'm more
or less all sold on all that, though I do see a few catches here and there.
But I've been listing to these promises and premisses for three years now --
I voted for both motions this time around, partly out of a perverse desire
for novelty, and partly out of the dreamy sense of inclusiveness that the
cajoling of John and Matthew coaxed us into. We shall see. AP & Co. is
already showing signs of the old Nixon, but maybe it will all settle down.
I want to believe.
But every time I try to press anybody for the details, what I get is the
same old, same old brand of hyper-mundane porridge. I am reduced to this:
All I want now is some kind of "Truth In Labeling" provision. People can
sit one rainy afternoon and write up axioms for "Graph" if they so desire.
But if the result has no demonstrable connection with what the world wide
community of pre-established Graph Theorists (TM) means by that, then the
rainy day axiomatizers should be required to label their product in such
a way that an unsuspecting public shall not be deceived by the IEEE logo
into thinking that this is the Scientific-Technical brand of Graph (TM).
That is just basic professional integrity, just plain honesty to me.
Now, whether our amateur axiomatizers label their personal copy
of the string "Graph" with the indices of place and time that
are propinquitous to it, say "Graph_USA_Today", or in the
pretextual style, "Not_Ready_For_Prime_Time_Graph", or
"I_Can't_Believe_It's_Not_A_Graph", or whatever they
may choose, I have no stock in that, except that it
not exploit the aegis of engineering, scientific,
technical societies to confuse the public with
more pseudo-scientism than that with which
the the public is already beleagured,
at least, in the USA, today.
Jon Awbrey
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