Re: SUO: The Story So Far - Request for vote
Nicola, Adam, Mike, et al.,
The following conditions are OK with me as stated:
>>1. Let's carefully (and painfully) distinguish between axioms and
>>primitives that achieve (reasonably large) consensus and axioms/primitives
>>that do not;
>>
>>2. When there is no consensus, let's isolate the alternatives and ask the
>>supporters to i) explain, ii) motivate and iii) formalize both of them;
>>
>>3. If enough explanation/motivation/formalization is achieved (up to a
>>certain minimal degree) for both alternatives, then:
>> 3.1 create a new branch in the ontology library
>> 3.2 go on specializing the two branches in parallel, depending on the
>> interest they
>> receive.
>>
>>4. Else proceed by considering only the alternative that was best
>>explained, motivated, and formalized.
But I also agree with Adam:
>I agree completely with this process. If there are theories that someone
>is willing to formalize, and they prove to be incompatible with other
>formalized theories then we'll be at a point where we can either get
>consensus to adopt one or agree to adopt both "branches" as alternatives.
>
>I have some disagreement with the points you make earlier in your message
>but as long as we agree on the actual proposal, I should probably quit
>while I'm ahead! :-)
The earlier points will still need some negotiation. In
particular, I believe that there is no inherent conflict
between the needs of modern science and the need to support
ordinary language. As I said in the note to Aldo G., the
identity conditions that Nicola was proposing were equally
incompatible with modern physics and ordinary language.
And all of modern technology can be viewed as special
case approximations to Quantum Electrodynamics.
John Sowa