SUO: Re: General Design
Jon,
That is true:
> The problem of deciding which of the available distinctions we should
> single out with name-brand concepts is the problem of abduction, and
> there appear to be strong reasons why no algorithm will rescue us
> from the inevitable risks of taking chances on pure hypotheses.
But my point was that the people who have been drawing diagrams
in both Cyc and Sumo have not been focusing on the distinctions
they have tacitly assumed. I must give the Dolce designers credit
for thinking about the issue, but I have many reservations about
what distinctions they believe to be the most significant.
> That's not to say that there isn't a form of reasoning that it
> would help to formalize to the extent possible, but umpteem
> years of cluster, factor, regression, etc.-analytic methods
> have probably burned me out personally on trusting people
> who confuse the whole problem with deductive or inductive
> reasoning. So that would be my first criterion before
> I risk getting burned again, namely, the question:
> Does this method recognize the 3-phase structure
> of inquiry?
No. That recognition, which the designers of Cyc, Sumo,
and Dolce have blissfully ignored, is the primary reason
for the serious limitations in their approaches.
One reason for urging them to apply an algorithm such as FCA
(or even cluster, factor, or regression analysis, for that
matter) is to force them to look at the actual use of their
distinctions at the lower levels.
That procedure, by itself, will not produce enlightenment
in minds that have not been submitted to years of meditation
on the issues of Thirdness. But it might bring some brute
force of recalcitrant reality into their awareness.
As they say with mules, it's necessary to beat them to
get their attention. But that is only the beginning of
the process of getting them to do something useful.
John