SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
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LIS. Discussion Note 64
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
Matthew,
Collating two exchanges:
JA: From what I have seen so far, the system that you are proposing is undermined
in its first distinction by an "absolute fallacy", that misidentifies subject
matters that need to be expressed in relative terms with subject matters that
can be expressed in absolute terms. That is, there is no case being made for
the unexamined assumption that abstractness is an absolute property of things,
rather than a relative property of things. The preponderance of the evidence
that has developed in these discussions has been that it may even be a purely
accidental or arbitrary attribution. The only way forward that I can now see
is to backtrack to the unconsidered distinction between absolute and relative
properties of things.
MW: This I do not follow.
JA: A practical test of whether a property of a thing
is a relative property of a thing is that one needs
additional information, beyond that which identifies
the thing, in order to make a decision about whether
the thing in question has the property in question.
MW: For example?
Let me absorb the "absolute fallacy" under the more general
description of a certain type of "reductive error", whereby
one attempts to use a data model with too few dimensions,
or what amounts to the same thing, a relational model of
too low an arity to preserve the appearances or resolve
the anomalies of the phenomenon or problem in question.
We are presently immersed in a poignant example, namely,
the acute situation of uncertainty that devolves from a
disagreement about the classification of terms, that is,
in effect, a disagreement about the application of some
terms to other terms within a discursive universe, mere
strings of syntax as well they may be, or, if it's safe
to say that the terms in the second set denote commonly
identifiable objects in our universe of discourse, then
about the classification of the things that are denoted.
Table 1. Situation Of Uncertainty
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| <thing> | <abstract_object_JA> | <abstract_object_MW> |
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| ego | 1 | 0 |
| number | 1 | 1 |
| quark | 1 | 0 |
| unicorn | 1 | 0 |
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One hypothesis about what has gotten us into difficulties here is that
we are taking it far too much for granted that there just has to be an
objective 2-adic relation, indeed, the type of objective function that
we know as a classification, that is the only acceptable model for the
underlying reality of the situation. Taking this for granted, whether
wittingly or unwittingly, we may fail to give due consideration to the
possibility that no such 2-adic model will fit the reality of the case.
Let !A! be a discursive universe, for now just a set of words, that
includes the terms "ego", "number", "quark", "unicorn", and let us
assume that each of these general terms has a non-empty extension
in some universe of discourse X, that is, a collection of things.
Furthermore, for the sake of simplicity, let us observe the rule
that all of the predicates that are listed in the column heads
of the Table apply equally well to all of the things that are
denoted by the terms that lead off the rows. That is to say,
any instance of an ego, number, quark, or unicorn represents
its class impartially with respect to the application of the
predicates abstract_object_JA, abstract_object_MW : X -> B.
Now, if by some sporadic confluence of the stars, our two random observers
chanced to compute the very same function under the stem-and-leaf variants
abstract_object_JA, abstract_object_MW : X -> B, then we'd be justified in
reducing the data of the situation to a single classification, proposition,
or indicator function, convening the common stem, abstract_object : X -> B.
But until that happens, we have no choice but to save what's given, namely,
the full 3-adic relational data, or a model that preserves its information.
Nevertheless, many dimension-preserving transformations are still possible.
Jon Awbrey
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