Re: Whole and Parts (and boundaries)
John,
Below my short comments on you comments of my comments...
Azamat
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@BESTWEB.NET>
To: "azamat abdoullaev" <abdoul@CYTANET.COM.CY>
Cc: <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>; <cg@CS.UAH.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 4:14 AM
Subject: Re: Whole and Parts (and boundaries)
> Azamat,
>
> The following statement is a mathematical abstraction.
> It is not physics, it is not biology, and it is not
> a "common sense" view of any practical application in
> engineering, politics, or geography:
You guessed wrong, saddly wrongly. I am surprised that a scholar of your
calibre doesn't know that the following is a completely real statement
having nothing to do with any mathematical abstraction. It is all Physics
and it is all about ontological terms 'continuous', 'in contact', 'in
succession', and contiguous'. Namely, 'Things are said to be in contact when
there extremities are together'. 'A thing that is in succession and touches
is 'contiguous'. The 'continuous' is a subdivision of the contiguous', etc.
Please read book v and book vi of Physica, the Holy Book of Formal
Ontologist.
>
> > So there are at least two wholes which terminal parts
> > (or extremities) are either contiguous, in contact,
> > in succession, or continuous with one another.
> > And one of the entity is bounded by another.
>
> Mathematics is a very important subject. If you want
> to do mathematics, that's an honorable thing to do.
> But it's not ontology, and it's not "common sense".
>
> Although I like mereology, topology, and their combination
> in mereotopology, I would be extremely cautious about
> making any claims about their relevance to any application
> without a great deal of experimental evidence and testing
> of claims.
By contrast, I don't like this sort of innovation. Parts and wholes have
been among basic elements of ontological language for thousands years. I
believe that indroducing here special names for them are hardly a great deed
and progress.
>
> > For illustration, take the physical objects marked by
> > spatiotemporal discontinuities....
This expression is not my favorite, but if you know the meaning lying behind
the term, its internal connection with 'things', 'contiguity' (in space and
time), 'unity', 'together' (being in one place), 'apart' )being in different
places), it become quite powerful and telling expression as synonymous with
general classes of things such as time, space, object, condition, event,
process, etc.
>
> That oversimplification is typical of armchair philosophers
> who spend too much time inside buildings constructed by
> other people and filled with artifacts designed by people
> for very specific purposes.
Having three professional specialties, theoretical physics, mathematics, and
fundamental ontology, I never considered myself among this category of
scholars, also deserving respect.
I suggest that you take a
> walk in the woods and try to count "the physical objects
> marked by spatiotemporal discontinuities."
I propose that you get my recent knowledge product, 'The World Directory of
Entities', the full ontological list of all the basic items and classes of
things in existence. The definition of forest, types of trees, and plant
parts are also included.
Try to
> determine the spatiotemporal discontinuities that mark
> leaves from twigs, twigs from branches, branches from
> trunks, trunks from roots, and roots from soil. Consider
> aspen trees, where a large hillside may be covered by
> what looks like a forest, but is actually a single
> organism with a single root system and multiple stems
> that on the surface look like separate trees.
>
> > As for the issue of Vagueness, which is not really a big
> > issue when you use it in the sense 'obscure': something
> > not clearly comprehended, expressed, without clarity and
> > distinction. Other thing when you mean something which is
> > undetermined, unspecified, undefinable like our many senses,
> > feelings and concepts. Here you have the point. But again
> > we need to find the boundary which limits or defines the
> > vague and undefined terms, senses or concepts so that
> > to make them crystal clear and understandable.
>
> Some questions about the last sentence:
>
> 1. Who is the "we" you are speaking about?
>
> 2. What "need" are you talking about? When I walk
> in the woods, I don't feel any "need" to distinguish
> separate organisms or to find boundaries. I just
> enjoy the experience.
Well, if you raise an objection, I suggest a better formulation: '... we,
except John Sowa, need (he doesn't need) to find the boundary which limits
or defines the vague and undefined terms, senses or concepts so that to make
them crystal clear and understandable.'
>
> 3. Why do you feel that concepts must be made "crystal
> clear and understandable"? For what purpose?
>
> I'd like to quote another observation by Whitehead:
>
> Human knowledge is a process of approximation. In the
> focus of experience, there is comparative clarity.
> But the discrimination of this clarity leads into the
> penumbral background. There are always questions left
> over. The problem is to discriminate exactly what we
> know vaguely.
>
> Essays in Science and Philosophy
>
> As Whitehead says, clarity is the result of approximating
> and abstracting. Nature is more complex than we can
> possibly comprehend. Trying to make nature "crystal clear
> and understandable" does not make it more true; instead,
> it falsifies nature by forcing it to conform to our tiny
> little concepts.
>
> John Sowa
>
You are so after applications, I wonder how you are going to impart world
knowledge to these machine creatures, while being so hostile to a crystal
clear explanation of things, transparantly clear arguments, easily
understandable rules of language. Or as Locke had it 'Vague...forms of
speech ...have so long passed for mysteries of science'.
All the best
Azamat Abdoullaev
http://www.encyclopedic-intelligence.com