SUO: Re: Math?
Jean-Luc,
That's a good point:
> You will NEVER MEET if you don't play on the
> same ground!
And I would add that both grounds are legitimate
playing fields in their own rights, and many of
us play different games on different fields at
different times.
That is also my response to Radu's note with
the title "Knowledge Soup or Lattices" (which
I hadn't got around to writing).
My papers on knowledge soup address one topic:
the enormous complexity and seeming disorganization
of what is in the human mind. My proposals for
using the lattice of all possible theories address
a different topic: how is it possible to organize
an ontology or a knowledge base that would enable
a computer system to deal with the complexity
that people naturally handle?
Those are two different games, and the operator
"or" between them is misplaced. There is no need
to choose: one is a fact of life, and the other is
a proposal for dealing with it in computer systems.
And by the way, thank you very much for citing the
book by Dennis Werner, "How Animals and Intellectuals
Think":
http://www.dennis.floripa.com.br/Contents.htm
I have only had a chance to read a few sections and skim
the rest, but I very much like Werner's approach. His
ideas are quite consistent with what Peirce had to say
on these issues, and I wish that Werner had read more
(some?) of Peirce's work and incorporated his views
into the book.
My only comment about the title is that it doesn't
make it clear that intellectuals are also animals,
and they basically think in the same way as other
animals. However, their greater verbal abilities,
while frequently an advantage, have the disadvantage
of promoting more confusions (as many of the email
notes on these lists demonstrate). Werner, of course,
is aware of these points, and he does a good job
of clarifying them.
John