SUO: More terminology
John,
> Pierre,
>
> If you want something to critize, go read my paper on
Are you pissed? I apologize. I was replying to your comments which I found
erroneous, I wasn't chasticizing for the sake of it. I'll read your papers and
website when time allows (although it looks like a large detour to come back to
these issues). I was unaware that I add to enter into your system to use these
words. Meanwhile, you should not expect anybody to abide by your private
dictionary when using terms which as you rightfully recognize are so loaded.
(Are universals supposed to be definitionally non spatiotemporal in virtue of a
definition that I will find in your writings?)
> "Signs, Processes, and Language Games", which goes into much
> more detail about the philosophical issues than is possible
> in a short note:
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm
>
> I also recommend my paper on Laws, Facts, and Contexts,
> which gets into more details about the formalism:
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/laws.htm
>
> PG> This is a bad habit. Predicates, concepts, types, and
> > universals are all of very different kinds of thing.
> > They are related and there are correspondances but it is
> > lazyness or doctrine (to use a rather neutral term) which
> > leads to identification.
>
> Glib comments like that are also very lazy. My positions are
> stated in detail in my books and on my web site in articles
> that I have cited many times. Go and look. For starters,
> see the papers cited above.
>
> For the record, following is my position:
>
> 1. I am not identifying universals and particulars with
> anything else. They have already been identified with too
> many radically different notions to be useful in a serious
> discussion of ontological issues. (That is one of my
> criticisms of DOLCE, which uses a novel notion to which
> they are confusingly applying a traditional word.)
>
> 2. Predicates are important because they are the basic building
> blocks of the logic that is being used to represent the
> ontology. Therefore, it is essential to talk about them
> when discussing the ontology. The differences between the
> many different theories of universals can be avoided by
> casting many (but not all) discussions in terms of
> predicates. I also avoid the word "property" for the same
> reason -- any discussion about properties can be cast in
> terms of monadic predicates.
You used your terminology to describe Cyc's ontology. Until I have read your
dictionary I have to take the words you use for what I understand them to be
and in particular what they are in the context of Cyc. The basic building
blocks of representation in Cyc are collections, attribute values, and
predicates. Most predicates are relational terms. Monadic predicates are
scarcely used and tend to be considered bad style. It is very confusing that
you would stick to your private language in discussing Cyc's ontology. This was
the sense of my comments.
> 3. I use the terms "concept" and "relation" as purely formal
> terms: they are nodes in a conceptul graph. I agree that
> is not the traditional usage, and I make no pretense that
> it is. But it allows me to use the terms very precisely
> to characterize the mapping from formalism to reality.
It doesn't allow a great deal of communication however.
> Please read the papers cited above. Then we can talk.
>
> John
>
--
Pierre Grenon
IFOMIS Uni Leipzig
Haertelstr. 16-18
04107 Leipzig
http://people.ifomis.uni-leipzig.de/pierre.grenon/
pgrenon@ifomis.uni-leipzig.de
phone: 49(0)351971672
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