Re: Fwd: SUO Quo Vadis
Johh,
>I would be perfectly happy to include just one axiom in
>the top note: "There exists something."
Do you allow that "something" to be "Creator" or "Absolute Spirit"
or "me and nobody but me" ?
Do you want to have UF with the "built-in" "neutrality" to conflicting (but internally consistent" philosophies),
such as "Materialism", "Objective Idealism" and "Subjective Idealism"?
>Regarding subjectivity: Please note that I did *not* use
>that word, and it is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
Irrelevant ? - I am not really sure about that ...
(all three of above mentioned philosophies could be termed as "subjective" as they are indeed result
of the "philosophical human activity" but only one of them reflects the objective reality and therefore could be termed as "objective").
Surely, one may try to unify all three of above by developing some
*generalization" but would such *pragmatic* approach be useful ?
>I used the words "goal", "purpose", and "intention" --
>all of which are implemented quite nicely in chess-playing
>programs, which do not have any resemblance to human thinking.
The words "goal", "purpose", and "intention" could be used for describing "intelligent design" and "creationism" -
do you (John) allow such usage within your UF ?
>ontology that can be applied to anything having to do with
>society, government, engineering, business, medicine, law,
>or any other human activity, *YOU CANNOT IGNORE HUMANS*.
John - do you want your UF ontology to be able to describe in non-critical fashion such human activity as religion ?
Just wondering,
Regards,
Alex
-- "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:
Avril,
Your last two notes covered two very fundamental issues,
lattices and subjectivity, and I'll address both of them
briefly. The first is about lattices:
> Lattice has always the minimal node. If some categories,
> or nodes of the lattice are not comparable, the minimal
> node describes absurdity or contradiction.
There are two kinds of lattices to consider: a lattice
of *theories*, which I discuss in the theories.htm paper.
Another kind is a lattice of concept *types*. Neither
kind has the slightest difficulty in handling those two
points. Furthermore, these are two distinct lattices,
and I would recommend *both*.
For a lattice of types, see the section on lattices
in my tutorial on math and logic:
http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/math.htm#Lattice
For the lattice of theories, the top node consists of
all propositions that are provable from the empty set of
axioms and are true of everything. That node contains
all tautologies and every other proposition such as
"Every unicorn is a unicorn" that can be proved from
zero axioms and zero assumptions about existence.
If you really insist on saying something about existence,
I would be perfectly happy to include just one axiom in
the top note: "There exists something." Such an axiom
is not necessary in general, but there are some proof
procedures that require an assumption of that form. But
I would *not* give that something any name whatever or
characterize it in any way.
At the bottom of the lattice is the absurd theory, which
consists of all propositions that are provable from a
contradiction. It contains *all* axioms and is true of
nothing.
> The third option is the only useful one: all categories
> are comparable...
To compare any two theories, you can navigate the lattice
by using the four theory-revision operators. All of this
is covered in the reference. Please read it. It's only
13 pages long:
http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/theories.htm
Regarding subjectivity: Please note that I did *not* use
that word, and it is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
I used the words "goal", "purpose", and "intention" --
all of which are implemented quite nicely in chess-playing
programs, which do not have any resemblance to human thinking.
> Human cognition in given too much value here. I was
> suggesting those kinds of a priori premises of ontology
> that hold disregarding subjective humans.
Without those concepts, we are discussing pure physics.
If you're interested in that, I would highly recommend
_The Road to Reality_ by Roger Penrose, which is an
excellent summary of the math and physics underlying
modern physics. It's an 1100-page tome, but it is not
necessary to read it all at once. It is written in such
a way that every mathematical concept is discussed with
intuitively understandable examples, so it can be read
by people who had studied math & physics many years ago
and have forgotten everything they learned.
On the other hand, if you're interested in any kind of
ontology that can be applied to anything having to do with
society, government, engineering, business, medicine, law,
or any other human activity, *YOU CANNOT IGNORE HUMANS*.
My preference would be to use Peirce's terms Firstness,
Secondness, and Thirdness. Those are purely objective terms
that can be used to define and describe purposes, goals,
and intentions. But if I can't get people to read a simple
paper about lattices, I despair of getting them to read
anything by Peirce.
John
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