Re: Properties, classes, and possible worlds
Chris,
You wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 21, 2000 at 04:57:39PM +0200, Christopher Spottiswoode wrote:
> [> ...]
> Himmel, another Chris!
No it isn't. Well, at home my first name is not abbreviated. Though, true,
they don't have to append the polysyllabic surname... :-{ Anyway,
I am happy to be distinguished polysyllabically from all you Chris'.
I speculate, but I trust it is not significant that you don't expect your
readers to be as patient with your name as they may have to be with your
admirable doggedness with logics and possible worlds... ;-)
> > [Matthew West had written:]
> > > I have learnt a great deal, whilst probably understanding less than
> > > half of what you have said, and if I go through the e-mails and pick
> > > up all the references, I think I have a 5 year reading list.
> >
> > Considering that many of those references are not available online,
> > and that not everyone has access to such specialized print libraries
> > or has such book-buying budgets, much of those 5 or more years would
> > not be spent learning logic or building ontologies.
>
> Though I should hope the implication here is not that contributors to
> the discussion should refrain from citing references!
Far from it! On the other hand:
> Regarding
> access, that is no doubt an unfortunate problem for some folks, but not
> for all. However, I am certainly willing to send copies of papers that
> I possess to anyone who cannot otherwise obtain them.
Ah, you have exposed me there, Chris, with a neat finesse!
Actually ... and now I get more serious ... For my part, I prefer your
in-line tutorials ("your" in the plural), as they are evidently
deeply-founded ... and necessarily aim to be relevant to a SUO project.
Getting even more serious: I am also content - at this stage of my own
poor development - with my feeble excuse (of physical inaccessibility) for
not spending more time reading up the classical literature on modal logics.
You see, my own (practitioner's) position on possible worlds is that plain
old simulations (what-ifs, scenarios, pick your own favourite variety) are a
far more accessible and manipulable way of formulating, building, displaying
and exploring relevant possibilities. (In my own SUO-comparable development
I am using what might superficially seem yet another extended ER
formalization. And no, don't groan, as any sense of deja vu would be a help
rather than a hindrance.)
A major proviso with simulations, as everyone knows of course, is that the
assumptions or *context* of the simulation/possible-world must be clearly,
accessibly and flexibly stated. That position, it seems to me, is quite
consistent with John's. John? (Or are you still trying for all your worth
to swat Chris academically-diplomatically? For my part, I am blunt with my
opinion that no fancy-dressed subjunctive is required for the relevant,
accurate and extensible expression of the hypothetical.)
In line with that stance, my duly-architected present strategy - until
persuaded otherwise - is that a SUO should at this stage aim to be a mere
starting-point for further maximally-canonical growth in some kind of
groupwise and market-based self-booting hence exponentially-growing process
(Phew! - but do please reread that aim...). And I judge, with more than a
merely ritual gesture towards Occam's Razor, that that "Boot SUO" can very
happily dispense with modal logics as they seem to me to be, ... or to be
trying to be...
Nonetheless, do please keep trying, Chris, (and despite Jim's most
appropriate chivvying of this Group...) to help us towards deeper insights!
TIA and best regards,
Christopher