RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment - 3D versus 4D.
Pat,
I was just suggesting an informal way that Graham might be able to
contribute. Sure there are statements which when converted from logic to
English are very awkward, and there are innumerable statements in English
which don't capture explicitly the information needed to translate to
logic. However, many simple sentences also have simple logical
equivalents. I wouldn't think that would be very controvertial.
By the way, *many* thanks for the formal and concrete message on 3d vs
4d. I'm reading it and will respond later. It's an example of exactly the
sort of message that we need to make progress.
Adam
At 12:36 PM 8/28/2001 -0700, pat hayes wrote:
>>Graham,
>> In whatever time you do have available, we might still be able to make
>> progress with a sort of informal restricted English. As long as you use
>> terms from SUMO which are still consistent with their definitions, folks
>> that are more conversant with logic could translate them. That might
>> also have the benefit that as you see your sentences translated, you may
>> pick up logic, much as watching foreign TV with subtitles can be a way
>> to learn a new language. My statements about "Joe's arm" were a sort of
>> restricted English.
>
>Oh come come, Adam, this is nonsense. Would you really say IN ENGLISH that
>the beginning time of Joes' arm at age 10 (that's the age of the arm, not
>of Joe) was the year-function of the integer 1990?
>
>Part of the case for the endurantist viewpoint has always been that the
>'4-d' perdurantist viewpoint runs roughshod over what seem to be 'natural'
>categories in languages like English. I am a confirmed perdurantist, but
>even I will acknowledge that they have a point. My conclusion, as you
>know, is that English is a poor guide to ontological design. But to claim
>that a formal axiomatization of a perdurantist ontology is "a sort of
>restricted English" is a mockery of both positions.
>
>Pat
>
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Adam Pease
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