RE: Fwd: RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment
As usual Pat makes good points.
Can I suggest that we follow Pat's suggestion below (I know John Sowa
suggested otherwise in a previous message - but in my experience 3d and 4d
tend to lead to misunderstandings). I think this will be helpful.
PS. the '3-d/4-d' terminology has something of this problem, by the
way, since it suggests that one view restricts itself to 3-d things
but the other only describes 4-d things, both of which are false.
That is why I rather like the deliberate artificiality of terms like
'endurantist' and 'perdurantist'.
I suspect that you find this to be a kind of academic affectation,
like the unnecessary use of Greek letters, but it does in fact have
an important utility in deliberately purging the discussion of these
shreds of 'intuitive' presumptions that are in fact *not* shared, and
so get in the way of, rather than contribute to, the discussion.
Regards
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of pat
hayes
Sent: 28 August 2001 01:14
To: Adam Pease
Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: Re: Fwd: RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment
>Matthew,
> Ian's just pointed out to me problems with my response. SUMO
>could handle a 4d view but only in a trivial way by a knowledge
>engineer putting everything he cares about under the notion of
>Process and thereby throwing out the existing SUMO notions of
>identity that work on Object. That's not a good solution. I can
>see merit in both 3d and 4d views and the challenge is how to let
>them coexist in a meaningful way.
> The good news is that this has driven home to me the actual issue,
That is indeed good news.
> and maybe, now that I can state it quite succinctly, we can make
>real progress.
Adam; this has been a matter of open discussion in the extended
literature for at least a century; several books and many papers have
been written on the topic, and more recently still it has been
discussed in excruciating detail in these SUO emailings, often in
fact quite succinctly. Matthew and others have explained why highly
practical considerations drove them to adopt one view over the other,
and gave several detailed examples. To claim that now YOU have
finally achieved some comprehension, that therefore WE can make real
progress, is at best an unfortunate choice of words.
>I believe the issue can be stated as follows:
>
>Joe has a left arm.
>Joe had a left arm at age 10.
>Joe had a left arm at age 20.
>Is Joe's arm at age 10 the same object as Joe's arm at age 20?
>A 3d view says yes.
>A 4d view says no.
>
>The practical issue is that each view has merit in different
>situations so how do we create a formalism that allows us to express
>facts in either viewpoint and yet map between them in a way that
>doesn't result in some inconsistency.
Right. Or, more generally, to allow each of them to be used where
appropriate, and allow them to coexist. Might I suggest that now you
have understood what the issue is, that maybe you would be so good as
to read some of the earlier discussion of the issue in the SUO
archive?
>Is this an accurate assessment?
Not quite. The problem can be illustrated by asking what you mean by
'object' in the fourth sentence of your example, above. (It isn't
enough to say that it means whatever the word "object" means in
English, since that is exactly what we are arguing about here.) Both
views could reasonably say that they refer to the same *object*, but
they would understand this differently. The 3-d view would say that
this means they are identically the same entity, of a kind that
endures through time, retaining its identity but changing its
properties. If TTT denotes Joe's arm at 10 and WWW denotes Joe's arm
at 20, then on this view, TTT=WWW, where that is logical equality,
and this indeed follows from the fact that TTT= (Joe's arm) = WWW.
The 4-d view would be that 'the same object' at different times
refers to two different entities, the temporal 'slices' of a
temporally extended entity (which might itself be called 'Joe's arm'
and thought of an 'object'). On this view, TTT =/= WWW, but then
neither of them *is* Joe's arm itself, on this view; they are
temporal parts of Joe's arm, which is what a phrase like "Joe's arm
at 10" ought to describe (on this view; the 3-d , endurantist, view
rejects the notion of a temporal part of an enduring thing as
incoherent.) Both views allow the existence of a single thing which
could be called 'Joe's arm' and both could admit that this thing is
what is called in ordinary English an 'object'. But they would
axiomatize this differently; and this difference in axiomatisational
style has repercussions throughout the rest of the axioms (wherever
time and change are involved, at least.).
Adam, this discussion illustrates a very important point. It is often
misleading to discuss ontological issues in ordinary langauge. Even
the slightest use of ordinary-language terms implicitly invites the
participants in the discussion to utilise their own preferred reading
of the meanings of those words. So for example, if you were to try to
resolve a quarrel between a perdurantist and an endurantist by using
words like 'object', all you will achieve is that they will seem to
agree (since they are using the same word) but in fact continue to
disagree (since they are understanding it differently). We all know
that people in fact largely agree with one another when what they say
is couched in ordinary language; it does NOT follow, however, that
they are agreeing on a common ontology. And the evidence is very much
against it, as this example shows.
Pat Hayes
PS. the '3-d/4-d' terminology has something of this problem, by the
way, since it suggests that one view restricts itself to 3-d things
but the other only describes 4-d things, both of which are false.
That is why I rather like the deliberate artificiality of terms like
'endurantist' and 'perdurantist'.
I suspect that you find this to be a kind of academic affectation,
like the unnecessary use of Greek letters, but it does in fact have
an important utility in deliberately purging the discussion of these
shreds of 'intuitive' presumptions that are in fact *not* shared, and
so get in the way of, rather than contribute to, the discussion.
>Adam
>
>
>>X-Sender: apease@ks.teknowledge.com
>>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
>>Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 10:06:49 -0700
>>To: "West, Matthew R SITI-GREA-UK" <Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>,
>> "'pat hayes'" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
>>From: Adam Pease <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>
>>Subject: RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment
>>Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
>>Sender: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
>>Reply-To: Adam Pease <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>
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>>
>>
>>Matthew,
>> Comments below:
>>
>>At 09:11 AM 8/22/2001 +0200, West, Matthew R SITI-GREA-UK wrote:
>>>Dear Adam,
>>>
>>>Let me collect the critical bits and dump the rest.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > >MW: Where did I say it is impossible? I am saying something
>>> > >about our current knowledge, not about what is possible.
>>> >
>>> > Pat has been quite forceful in asserting that we can't come up with a
>>> > single consistent ontology. Some other folks have also
>>> > asserted that we
>>> > shouldn't be working on creating a single ontology. Maybe I
>>> > responded too
>>> > strongly as to your position. One message in which you appear to say
>>> > this(aggreeing with Pat, my emphasis in '*') is
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > >From: "West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK" <Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
>>> > >
>>> > >MW: However, I don't think I would want to argue for a 4D
>>> > view INSTEAD OF a
>>> > >continuant/occurrent view, or a Piercean view (which I take
>>> > to be different
>>> > >again - subject to correction by John). Rather I think we
>>> > should develop
>>> > >each and relate them to each other, rather than the current
>>> > process of
>>> > >trying to merge them into one.
>>> > >
>>> > >MW: Pat said some time ago that it is probably ***not
>>> > possible*** to merge
>>> > >them,
>>> > >and most of the discussion since has been convincing me he
>>> > is right. Equally
>>> > >people clearly do use different metaphysical paradigms in
>>> > developing various
>>> > >ontologies, and I doubt if that is about to stop, what ever
>>> > we do here, so
>>> > >relating these different paradigms would be a general
>>> > service (and we might
>>> > >learn something).
>>> >
>>>
>>>MW: OK fundamental principles/beliefs first.
>>>
>>>1. We live in a world/universe that is what it is. In theory
>>>it is possible to create a model/ontology that mirrors it.
>>>Therefore a single ontology is possible (theoretically).
>>>
>>>2. Our knowledge of the world is incomplete. In practice we
>>>have a number of different views of the world that are limited
>>>and each is probably useful for particular purposes.
>>>
>>>3. Some of these views are compatible, some are not. E.g. 3D/4D
>>>as above, or wave and particle theories of light.
>>>
>>> > [snip]
>>> >
>>> > > > Let's say that we do fail to
>>> > > > come up with a
>>> > > > single consistent ontology, then we'll wind up with a set,
>>> > > > plus a clear
>>> > > > understanding of what the real incompatibilities are.
>>> > >
>>> > >MW: Yes, but the current merging process transforms as well
>>> > >as incorporates the source material. This can both miss and
>>> > >mask incompatilibities.
>>> >
>>> > The position I would take however is that the merging process
>>> > is evaluating
>>> > and then correcting any incompatibilities. If there is a specific
>>> > incompatibility in the SUMO proposal (i.e. axioms that allow
>>> > us to deduce
>>> > both P and (not P)) we'd love to have that pointed out.
>>>
>>>MW: But you have not incorporated valid alternative views. For example
>>>you have no 4D view of the world in the SUMO. You have selected 3D
>>>and that's it. I don't think you can merge a 4D and 3D view. You can
>>>only have them as alternatives, with perhaps a (partial) mapping in
between.
>>
>>The definition of Process
>><http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/SKB.jsp?req=SC&name=Proce
>>ss&caseSensitive=on&skb=Merge-WordNet> does allow for Object(s)
>><http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/SKB.jsp?req=SC&skb=Merge-
>>WordNet&id=51> to be participants in the process. I don't think
>>3d and 4d are necessarily as incompatible as you assert them to be,
>>but let's work it out.
>>
>>Maybe we can work this through concretely. Let's come up with some
>>statements in English and I'll try to formalize them. Then we'll
>>have three possible outcomes
>>
>>1. I'll show how they can be modeled with terms from SUMO
>>2. we'll find that there is some error or gap in SUMO and we'll
>>add the appropriate definitions
>>3. we'll find that there is a genuine incompatibility between the
>>two paradigms that can't be bridged, and we'll define precisely the
>>logical forms that are incompatible.
>>
>>>MW: The issue is not so much one of consistency (both P and (not P)) as
>>>accuracy
>>>- does the ontology reflect how the world/universe is, and over what
range
>>>is it a good reflection. 3D and 4D ontologies operate over different,
>>>overlapping ranges.
>>>
>>>MW: You could argue that doing this would make them part of one ontology,
>>>and I would agree to some degree. However, I think it is more useful to
>>>see them as different ontologies with mappings, largely for the reasons
that
>>>John puts forward.
>>
>>If we really do find that they can't be mapped to each other, then
>>I'll be happy to have the outcome that we define two different
>>theories that can be plugged into the rest of SUMO.
>>
>>Adam
>>
>>>Matthew West
>>>Principal Consultant
>>>Shell Information Technology International Limited
>>>Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
>>>
>>>Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
>>>Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
>>>Internet: http://www.shell.com
>>>http://www.matthew-west.org.uk
>>
>>Adam Pease
>>Teknowledge
>>(650) 424-0500 x571
>
>Adam Pease
>Teknowledge
>(650) 424-0500 x571
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