SUO: Re: SUO Comment #2
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I would like to follow up on the earlier remarks
that I made along the general lines of this thread:
> I am wondering if it is possible to embody our ontologies
> within a conceptual framework in which, just for starters,
> the maximal number of the following sorts of relationships
> among interpretive options and ontological/conceptual terms
> are permitted and supported by the system:
>
> <Option 1> : "activity" -<- "process"
> <Option 2> : "process" -<- "activity"
>
> <Option A> : "activity" -<- "activity class"
> <Option B> : "activity occurrence" -<- "activity"
>
> By "maximal number" I mean that each agent, interpreter, user,
> or whatever is constrained only by the requirement of logical
> consistency among his/her/its choices.
>
> I think that something like this, at least, will be required
> if we want to realize that old dream of Leibniz that started
> this business -- to devise a common medium for resolving our
> disputes and our misunderstandings through a computationally
> effective means.
>
> Anyway, that's what I rechnen.
Now, I know that this seems like a hopeless task, bound to lead
to all sorts of confusion, but I think that most of us already
function in the midst of a similar chaos, and yet, over time,
we do learn to sort it out reasonably enough, more or less,
and so there is hope that we can devise similar capacities
in formal terms and even implement them in computer media.
For example, I refer you to the cases of the "sign relations"
A and B that I outlined at the outset of the "Sign Relations"
thread. Rudimentary as it is, this is a germinal example of
a very important property of certain linguistic expressions,
one that is exhibited by all "natural languages" that I ever
heard tell of, and one that is very relevant to our present
circumstances. This is the "interpreter-indexing" (I-I)
property of certain signs, expressions, texts, theories,
corpi, oeuvres, works, lives, or whatever, where one has
to know who's talking in order to know what's being said.
Thus, we commonly have situations like this:
A : "I" = "A"
A : "U" = "B"
B : "I" = "B"
B : "U" = "A"
And yet, short of being caught between the bases
of a "who's on first" routine, people seldom get
confused at all by all of this I-I business.
It is in respect of this I-I property that we can expect
each particular person that is participating in the activity
of a discussion to maintain a sensible "point of view" (POV),
as critiqued internally, without requiring everyone to speak
the same "languange" (even within the same natural language),
or even to share the same conceptual/syntactic framework.
So, the Big Questions are:
1. How do we manage to do this, and can we teach it to a rock?
2. What is the geometry of this space, whose points are views?
[ A glossy etymology on the theme of a rock:
| 'silicon' <- Latin: 'silex' = flint, quartz, pebble; akin to
| 'shell' <- Greek: 'skallein' to hoe, to rake, to scrape;
| 'Scylla'? -- Nah, now I'm just guessing ...
]
Happy Peirce's Birthday, Everybody!
Jon
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