SUO: RE: Lifecycle Integration Schema
Dear Jon,
See comments below.
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawbrey@att.net]
> Sent: 05 September 2003 18:28
> To: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE
> Cc: SUO
> Subject: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
>
>
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> LIS. Discussion Note 16
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> JA = Jon Awbrey
> MW = Matthew West
>
> JA: So I think I have a way of understanding the statement that
> a state is just a complex property of a system. Some people
> will call that system-thing the "reified system".
>
> MW: It is that which takes on the state.
>
> JA: Yes, the picky point that I think some people are trying
> to make is that the data of experience or the results of
> measurement are what we really have on hand, whereas the
> system-thing is in the bush, as it were, at some remove
> from immediate impressions, the object of possibly many
> competing hypotheses that we form to explain why the
> data are as they are.
>
> MW: I'm not one of them, as you have probably guessed.
> As noted below you can have any individual object
> you want as long as you can demonstrate it has
> a spatio-temporal extent.
>
> JA: Yes, I have no qualms about pretending a hypothesis here
> and there, but the question is whether the specifics of
> a given hypothesis explain the data better than the many
> competing alternatives. This is a stricter test than
> demonstrating mere consistency or the projection of
> a possible extension in space and time.
>
> JA: Morever, data can vary widely with changes among different bases
> or frames of reference, whereas real objects are associated with
> functions that remain invariant through transformations from one
> frame to another, so it is a non-trivial step to relate the data
> to the object.
>
> MW: You seem to have some idea that there are some "real" objects.
> What do you consider these to be?
>
> JA: I am working on the hypothesis that there is a reality.
> I have not always been so realistic, but reality is
> a persistent, if not always patient teacher, and
> a sequence of recurring impressions of the type
> that is commonly referred to as brute reactions,
> the "dent" or "dint" of recalcitrant experience,
> or just plain "hard knocks", have willme, nillme,
> conduced me to adopt the hypothesis that there is
> some kind of objective reality that produces these
> impressions on my sphere of pathic, felt experience,
> and which Reality or Nature ought to be my objective
> to know better, if I have a clue what is good for me,
> and so I am following out the consequences, practical
> and theoretical, of that hypothesis, at least, until
> some more viable alternative commands my attention.
>
> MW: OK. I agree there is reality. I was thinking in terms that
> the objects we discriminate relate to our theories of the world,
> and they might be different, but they are still what we extract
> from reality.
>
> JA: It is always a bit tricky to say this right. If we say
> "reality is just a concept", that all of its objects are
> "concepts" or "constructs" or "fictions" or "hypotheses",
> that is a scion of colloquy, a slip of loose talk that will
> eventually get us into trouble if we, or most likely others,
> take it too literally. Better if we say that our knowledge of
> things is conceived, constructed, pretended, preposed to refer
> to a substance beneath the superfices that appear in
> experience, ...
>
> MW: Agreed.
>
> JA: moreover, that a great many of the signs that we use to
> convey and store
> this knowledge are of an artificial proxy, in stead of a
> natural kind.
>
> MW: Not sure what this means.
>
> I am just referring to the fact that general theories of signs from
> the times of Hippocrates and Aristotle forward have recognized both
> the analogies and the differentia between "artificial signs", those
> that we make, and "natural signs", for example, smoke as a sign of
> fire, or laughter as a sign that our delirium is not too serious.
> This is a bit of backpropaganda that I'm strutting out here to
> reinforce my earlier remarks about the connections among all
> types of signs, whether they form in nature or in nurture:
MW: OK. I guess we would see natural signs as consequences.
>
> JA: Yes, the world is there. I will make that hypothesis.
> If we knew it directly as it is we would have no need
> of approximately iconic models or logical formalisms.
> But we got kicked out of that garden a long time ago.
> So now it is only in the medium of concepts, models,
> signs, and thoughts that we have any representation
> or any knowledge of the world, and it is only by
> collating, critiquing, and reconciling the vast
> variety of our different accounts of the world
> that we are able to form anything approaching
> an adequate model or competent picture of it.
> There is nothing dispensable about this fact.
>
> JA: Maybe I can convey the importance of this if I explain that
> all of the following brands of information involve the same
> dynamic array of problems at this primary level of analysis:
>
> 1. Sensory data.
> 2. Measurements.
> 3. Identifiers.
>
> JA: Yes, the precise values in each case are arbitrary in any
> absolute sense,
> since they depend on sensor specs and aberrations, frame
> of reference,
> history of the naming faculty or the hash code generator, scale of
> measurement, topology of nearby space, and so on. This is exactly
> why "systems identification" is such a non-trivial problem and
> why we can only get a grip on ontology through comparative
> and relative operations on the pile of bits that the data,
> measurements, and identifiers would otherwise remain.
>
> This has a bearing on several of the clauses in your
> treatment of things,
> possible_individuals, and abstract_objects, as I have already
> pointed out.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
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