SUO: Re: Conformance
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>JS = John Sowa
>MW = Matthew West
>PH = Pat Hayes
>
>JS: I believe that Pat's concluding paragraph should be addressed, and one way
> to start is to begin with at least two examples: one that
>conforms to SUMO,
> and another that does not. Examples are often the best means of
>forcing such
> airy discussions to get down to earth and say something sensible:
>
>JS, citing PH:
>
> | None of this discussion makes any sense at all.
> | Lets get concrete and then maybe we can make some
> | progress. Suppose I write some code and I want to
> | know if it conforms to the SUO standard. How exactly
> | do I set about trying to find out? Or, if I claim that
> | it does, how would someone prove me wrong? What kind of
> | thing would constitute nonconformance? Don't answer in
> | 'ontological' terms, ie by talking about 'using a concept';
> | that isn't well-defined enough, since there is no way to
> | even say what it means, in general, for a program to be
> | 'using' a 'concept'.
>
>Pat has just un-discovered the "pragmatic theory of meaning" (PTOM).
>Halelujah! Fatted calf, your days are numbered. I intone the hymn:
Not that it really matters, but it would be more accurate to say that
what Pat was talking about was a pragmatic theory of standards
conformance, not one of meaning. I don't think I used 'meaning'
anywhere in there, did I?
Pat
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