SUO: Re: Conformance
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JA = Jon Awbrey
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'.
JA: Pat has just un-discovered the "pragmatic theory of meaning" (PTOM).
Halelujah! Fatted calf, your days are numbered. I intone the hymn:
| Consider what effects that might conceivably
| have practical bearings you conceive the
| objects of your conception to have. Then,
| your conception of those effects is the
| whole of your conception of the object.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'The Maxim of Pragmatism', CP 5.438
PH: 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?
JA, citing PH:
| 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'.----------------------^^^^^
This whole discussion has been about the meaning, indeed, the meaningfulness of words
like "conformance", "consistency", "implementation", "model", "semantics", "standard",
and so on. If they don't mean anything, why the heck should anybody care about them?
I am just recognizing one of the sources of the whole idea of operational definition.
Jon Awbrey
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