Thread Links Date Links
Thread Prev Thread Next Thread Index Date Prev Date Next Date Index

Re: SUO: Re: World's largest individual organism




John Sowa said:

As your comment indicates, any such discussion includes intentional
terms, such as "if I want to talk about" or "to represent ... as ...."
I believe it's desirable to apply formal logic to the task of
defining ontology, but I also believe there is no truly "objective"
way of that doing that.  The person who is defining the ontology
must always make some selection from the continuum for some purpose,
and that purpose must be included in the formal theory.
---

I agree wholeheartedly up to the last sentence.  Not because I disagree per se,
but becuase I have no idea how one might include the purpose in teh formal
theory. It seems somewhat at a different level, outside the formalism.  Can you 
shed light with an example?

Mike