RE: SUO: Re: Logic & Programming Languages
John,
. While I agree with a fair bit of what you say, I feel our
ability to communicate with, and by implication, understand perspectives of,
other beings isn't so dependant on their physical attributes.
. Cases of Dolphins communicating with humans, saving them
from drowning or shark attack, leading ships away from reefs, etc, are well
known. I admit this may not be so easy for fish, who have no reason to have
interpreted mammalian dependence on air (unless from observations of
dolphins, whales, etc.), tho' sharks may have noted this with certain types
of prey.
. So I suggest, by extrapolation, it's more a case of having
had to consider similar issues of whatever type. I think the validity of
this perspective is also borne out by the underlying aspects involved in
racial and interpersonal conflict. I believe they are often borne of one
party's lack of appreciation of the concerns (ie. Issues) of the other.
. I believe this perspective makes the problem more generic,
and more readily solvable in many cases.
Cheers Graham Horn
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-----Original Message-----
From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
Sent: Thursday, 26 July 2001 14:22
To: Seth Russell
Cc: Sergio Navega; Chris Menzel; cg@cs.uah.edu;
standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Logic & Programming Languages
Seth,
Just a comment on one crucial point:
> > > >And, exactly who made up this game, and when?
> > >Well shucks it started with Aristotle, didn't it?
> >
> > He was the first to systematize patterns of inference. But to suggest
> > he made them up -- in a way that implies he was free to make up other
> > principles than the ones he did -- is just silly.
>
> I think if Aristotle were a highly intelligent insect from another planet,
> then these patterns of inference he made up (discovered?) would be
> unrecognizable to us as such.
There is a major difference between content and form. Dolphins are
highly intelligent creatures that communicate in a language that humans
have so far been unable to decipher. But what makes it so difficult
for us to understand is not the form, but the content. Dolphins
communicate with each other by signs that refer to their water
environment and their method of detecting position by sonar. Their
means of perception and the things they communicate are so remote
from our world that we have no starting point for doing the decoding.
Gorillas and chimpanzees, however, have bodies that are similar to ours,
and they live and move in environments that are also accessible to us.
Therefore, it is much easier for us to communicate with them and to
teach them our sign language.
The basic point I would make is that the logical forms used by
intelligent insects, apes, dolphins, and humans would necessarily
be equivalent -- because the fundamental requirement for any kind
of sound reasoning is to derive true statements from other true
statements. The subject matter, however, may be totally different.
We have no idea what the dolphins are referring to when they
communicate. But one thing that we can say for sure: when they
make inferences, their inference patterns would be equivalent to
some subset or superset of ours.
John Sowa