Azamat,
Your illustrations helped me
understand your approach to these very difficult topics of primitive/fundamental
ideas that ground an upper ontology. As in the quantum realm our naked
commonsense may not serve us well here but a consistent exploration of
different, fallible hypotheses of these fundamentals concept should do it. This might include, to use Thagard’s
(1992) related discovery methods, -data-driven (generalizations from
observation and from experiments with ontologies, abductive processes to explain
patterns, and coherence-driven
corrections to resolve contradictions arising between hypotheses and
observation. We then attempt to
restore consistency adapting, removing or modifying one or more assumptions
which are judged contributes to the derivation of contradiction.
To put this back, for a moment, in
the philosophical contexts we started with in earlier messages, I would add an idea from Clarence Lewis ‘s
"A Pragmatic Conception of the a priori," where he rejects Kantian
concepts of the a priori arguing that”
"The thought which both rationalism
and empiricism have missed is that there are principles, representing the
initiative of mind, which impose upon experience no limitations whatever, but
that such conceptions are still subject to alternation on pragmatic
grounds when the expanding boundaries of experience reveal their felicity as
intellectual instruments." Underlining is mine.
Thus, paraphrasing some of Lewis’s
work and its interpretation by others, what is important about an hypothesis,
including ones on primitive ontological hypotheses, is that it is a "concept" --
a purely logical meaning -- which we bring to bear on experience. The concepts
we formulate are in part determined by our immediate, pragmatic interests and in
part by the historical nature of individual experience as researchers. In the
sense Sowa has talked about fundamental scientific laws they are outside our
methods (a priori in a sense) because they order experience in a way that
can be investigated consistently across all of our historical experience and our
pragmatic interests at the time.
It’s a knowledge hypothesis that
this type of ordering would be true
of our more fundamental categorical notions – the ones we need for an upper
ontology. We formulate such upper level concepts based on our experience and the
pragamatics of the time, but our intuition is that we arrive at what we will
call a ontological primitive concept that transcends these pragmatic starting
points.
BTW, this discussion has mostly
slipped beyond the Idealism vs. Materialism back to one more direct toward the
pragmatics of developing upper ontological topics.
Regards,
Gary
-----Original Message-----
From: azamat
abdoullaev [mailto:abdoul@cytanet.com.cy]
Sent: Tue 3/22/2005 1:26
PM
To: Gary Berg-Cross
Cc:
standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG; ONTOLOGY@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: Idealism vs Materialism : Idealism and the
Differentiating Element
Gary,
Let me clear up the matter in a more illustrative
way.
Traditionally, reality is separated into two or three
disjoint divisions of the same rank and status:
1. as concrete individuals
(as contingent things) and universals
(as necessary things);
2. as concrete things,
collections (or classes or sets) of concrete
things (concrete universals) and abstract,
conceptual classes, or universals per se.
Written in abbreviated forms, the above may be
presented as the CC (concrete and conceivable) schema or the CCC (concrete,
collective, and conceivable) perspective of reality; what is commonly
expressed in the natural languages as concrete names, collective names,
and abstract names. Then most existent general and upper
ontologies, like the OWL and SUO, can be assigned to the CC or CCC schemas,
closing the bottom with nothing or nonentity, the top with the concept of
individual thing or entity.
Evidently, we need to consider the things in the right
order of their presentation, neither as an equal-order separation nor in the
inverse order, commencing from the concrete objects, properties, and events,
and specific relations to the abstract ontological classes of substance,
state, change, and relation. The order of things here makes all the
difference; after all, a young woman personality may be quite different
depending on the order of occurrences of her life experiences: becoming a
mother, a college graduation, and becoming a wife.
We have to lift up
Entity or Thing or Being as the topmost class of all classes complemented with
the concept of nothing (the null class as part of everything, which has
nothing to do with absurdity). The ultimate class of thing or entity will
then denote a single, unitary ontological category having as its parts the
entity classes and the relationship classes, as well as all the infinite gamut
of their instances and occurrences. We thus attached to the scientific way of
considering reality as the whole class of entity consisting of entity classes
and relationship classes, all together constituting the nature and essence of
the individual things in the real world. So to have a
universal ontology, you have just follow the C/C/C descending model of
the world, where sets and individuals are only instantiations or
representations of the entity-universal, that is, they must be considered of
much lower rank in the ontological status.
Note when sets and
individuals are recognized as basic as universals, we are doomed to create
redundant entities and relationships, i.e., an imaginary world of nonexistent
things, while trying to construct a formal general ontology language, like
GOL, an otherwise interesting project.
So it looks that your
second reading is closer to the point.
Regarding you entity
classification (or rather object?), maybe it would of use at your top to
divide objects into two wide categories, material, spatial substances and
nonspatial, conceptual objects, and somehow include the
term 'representation' as well, before 'icon'.For more particulars, visit
my website: 'Standard Ontology for Global Intelligent
Cyberspace'.
Regards,
Azamat
Abdoullaev
EIS Intelligent
Systems LTD
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 3:59
PM
Subject: RE: Idealism vs Materialism :
Idealism and the Differentiating Element
Azamat,
>You are raising intriguing
questions regarding meaning and processible ontologies. I hope my short
contribution will make the picture clearer.
Thanks for the kind words. From
what you wrote signs we may share some ideas from the semiotics realm and
connecting this to what you called “ontological linguistics”, - a new phrase
for me, but if its subject matter is “ontological grammar, syntax, and real
valued semantics) this sounds like the issues that the development of such
things as OWL struggle although you might have to spell out what you mean by
and real valued semantics.
AA>In the ontological
language, real meaning is fixed as the semantic values of signs, determined
by the entities and relationships in the real world.
Are you talking about relating
signs to the set-theoretic (logical) aspect of an ontology?
That is using signs in the ontology construction
as a formal logical system composed of its
objects-primitives, classes, individuals, and properties, logical syntax
(notation techniques, formation and transformation rules), and formal
semantics (model theory), such as the OWL is doing?
Another way of speaking about
this is to imagine using “sign meaning” to develop a
“meaningful” primitives Entity, Thing etc. the kinds of objects with
fundamental definitions, axioms and those “real-world semantics” you
mentioned. This allows a common
interpretation by humans and systems of the ontological
theory and its truth conditions in the world of things,
entities, or beings.
BTW, given that
we want to discuss signs and symbols our ontology will include concepts like
“contentbearing objects: such as in the small taxonomic part shown below
(just to connect to the linguistic part of ontology)
•
Entity
Physical
Object
ContentBearingObject
Icon
SymbolicString
LinguisticExpression
WrittenLinguisticExpression
Text
Sentence
Phrase
Word
Morpheme
Regards,
Gary Berg-Cross
-----Original Message-----
From: azamat
abdoullaev [mailto:abdoul@cytanet.com.cy]
Sent: Mon 3/21/2005
4:11 PM
To: Gary Berg-Cross
Cc:
standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: Idealism
vs Materialism : Idealism and the Differentiating
Element
Dear Gary,
You are raising intriguing questions
regarding meaning and processible ontologies. I hope my short contribution
will make the picture clearer.
To have correct understanding of knowledge,
meaning ought to be viewed as a meaning relation between signs
(symbols, words or ideas, thoughts) and things in the real world. Any
relation by nature is two-sided or bi-directional (from signs to things as
well as form things to signs). The ontological perspective comes out
here as most fundamental; for it is mapping the real structures to the
sign structures (which include conceptual structures). This is the
subject matter of ontological linguistics (ontological grammar, syntax,
and real valued semantics), which shouldn't be mixed with its complement,
linguistic ontology. In the ontological language, real meaning is fixed as
the semantic values of signs, determined by the entities and
relationships in the real world. Once the sign structures with their
associations in a certain domain knowledge are sorted out as truly
conforming to the ontological structures, you can enjoy a
machine-processible ontology.
The second issue is inherently connected with
the successful resolution of the first one.
Materialism-Idealism distinction is the
result of an innate tendency of the human mind to all sorts of dichotomy
and duality. This opposite division is a bad heritage of classic
metaphysics, born by the confused polarity of all things as abstract,
ideal realities (froms, ideas) and material, physical realities. The
practice of modern science is inclined to deny as the only reality either
ideas or matter, where one exists as subordinate to another. The task
of general formal ontology is to view the abstract entities and
the concrete things as two parts of one real world, as two distinct
domains of reality, the universe of matter and the universe of mind,
somehow interrelated to each other. And the concepts of mind and
matter should be synthesized not within materialism or idealism but rather
within a general ontological theory encompassing both parts
as distinct levels within an all-comprehensive hierarchy of
things.
After all, to comprehend the general rules,
principles, and mechanisms of such relationships
(ideality-actuality) is the challenging undertaking for all
who signed up for ontology classes.
Regards,
Azamat Abdoullaev
EIS Intelligent Systems LTD
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 4:35
PM
Subject: RE: Idealism vs
Materialism : Idealism and the Differentiating Element
This discussion, along
with Re: nature -> "human brain" -> "language terms" ==>>
knowledge ?,
has wandered
over considerable ground but a question was raised
along the way about “how then we should model
meaning?.”
One issue was can
"knowledge" ("reality" yes, but not "knowledge") exist independently of
the brain?
A simple counter
question occurred to me, “if such knowledge can[t be defined how why are
trying to build processable ontologies ? Isn’t that a
endeavor to capture meaning outside of the
brain?
John Sowa covered
this in passing, noting that our computer applications include
“knowledge”
JS> First,
knowledge is certainly codifiable in a way that
solves a great many
problems. Every program ever written
does that, and there are
an enormous number of very
successful ones. But each of those
programs solves a
particular special case. The problem we face
is to
relate those special cases by general principles.
JS>And
that is where the difficulties lie.
Peirce’s distinction between REAL and TRUE may be helpful to some
of us in ontological community discussion with an aim
to building up usable knowledge .
Perice "The real, then, is that which, sooner
or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which
is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and
you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this
conception essentially involves the notion of a community, without
definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge" (CP
5.311).
To elaborate further this is now he addressed the distinction
between opinions on the true, and the real in "How to
Make Our Ideas Clear ":
"The
opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who
investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in
this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality" (CP
5.407). ….
Peirce continues later with
"reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general,
but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about
it," ….(that), "though the object of the final opinion depends on what
that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what
you or I or any man thinks" (CP 5.408). underlining is mine for
emphasis
Which brings me,
at least, back to John’s opinion that he accuracy of
any scientific hypothesis
JS> does not
depend
> on who or what discovered it or on any
methods of thinking,
> any techniques of problem
solving, or any apparatus that
JS> he, she, or
it might have used to arrive at the hypothesis.
I can understand
this in light of Peirce’ efforts to define clear thinking, which we need
in Ontology building.
To
conclude with yet another Peircian quote. Here’s one
he used on the path to a 3rd way between the realists and
idealist.
The
philosophical problem is to resolve two contradictory claims about the
basis of reality:
- the principal
thesis of realism - there is a reality that exists independently of
our representations of it or
- Idealism claim that what we perceive as
real dependent is upon our (usually expressed as
mental) representations of “it”.
As James Liszka observed
the clash of the two theses is nicely expressed in Peirce's
"Consequences of the Four Incapacities
":
"...there is no thing which is in-itself in
the sense of not being relative to the mind, though things which are
relative to the mind doubtless are, apart from the relation" (5.311).
Liszkae called this 3rd way a discursive
realism to distinguish it from the later effort of
Rorty or Foucault, in which there is neither a
privileged discourse, nor can any representational system that can
mirror a reality external to such a system - what
might be called the discursive idealism. Someone may
able to drawn up the realism to idealism continuum, which seems to be as
embedded in our discussions as the ontology
continuum.
Gary Berg-Cross
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