SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
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LIS. Discussion Note 44
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
Matthew,
Focusing on the initial distinction between
<abstract_object> and <possible_individual>:
On a little more reflection, I'm guessing that:
(1) I misunderstood what you meant by "direct",
(2) you misunderstood what I meant by "direct",
(3) all of the above.
MW: Please treat my thoughts as an initial interpretation/categorisation
to open the discussion about what you meant when you use these terms.
You may have noticed I favour a direct approach.
I have rewritten this 4 or 5 times now and will try to
see if I can make the important parts of it more clear.
The context was a discussion about the distinction
between <abstract_object> and <possible_individual>,
which you distinguish according to whether a <thing>
lacks or enjoys, respectively, the quality of existing
in space and time.
MW: | thing
|
| A <thing> is anything that is or may be thought about or perceived,
| including material and non-material objects, ideas, and actions.
|
| Every <thing> is either
| a <possible_individual>,
| or an <abstract_object>.
|
| NOTE 1. Every <thing> is identifiable within a system.
| System identifiers created by other systems and received
| as part of a data exchange may be stored for future reference
| as an identification, referring to the originating organisation
| or system.
|
| NOTE 2. Every example provided for other entity data types
| declared in this schema is also an example of <thing>.
MW: | A <possible_individual> is a <thing> that exists in space and time.
MW: | An <abstract_object> is a <thing> that does not exist in space-time.
JA: Many ontologies begin with a distinction that is at least
superficially similar to this one, and many of them also
mention the same specific difference, that of existing
in space-and/or-time versus the apparent alternative.
In many respects, then, my questions are meant for
all ontologies that build on this notion, and not
just yours alone.
JA: In this connection, I would like to call your attention to some of the
things that C.S. Peirce said about abstractions -- and if anybody ever
knew abstraction, this was the guy -- in this case using the old term
of art "hypostatic abstraction" to mean what we would normally call
an "abstract object", for example, egos, numbers, quarks, unicorns.
MW: 1. An ego would be a part of a person,
and so exist in space-time and so
be an individual.
MW: 2. Numbers are abstract, arguably sets of sets.
MW: 3. Quarks also exist in space-time, though tying
them down may be tricky, so are individuals.
MW: 4. Unicorns can be considered to exist in some possible world,
and have a spatio-temporal extent in that possible world.
JA: The things that I mentioned were supposed to be totally
unproblematic instances of things that are standardly
used in all sorts of literatures as classic examples
of abstract objects, constructs, hypostatic entities,
reifications, in the old sense of the word, whatever
you want to call them. We will have to see if there
is some way to establish cross-cultural communication
with respect to these recalcitrantly commonplace topics.
JA: I will have to think for a while about how to do this.
JA: Maybe it would be best to move on to Peirce's example.
What about "sweetness"? What kind of <thing> is that?
HAPA. Hypostatic And Prescisive Abstraction
01. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10964.html -- Cain and Abel
02. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10965.html -- Dormative Virtue
03. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10966.html -- Honey is Sweet
04. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10991.html -- Math Abstraction
05. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11022.html -- Reading Runes
06. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11025.html -- Hypostatization
D1. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10967.html -- Metaphormasis
JA: Let me just throw out this thought: Words and phrases like
"ego", "number", "quark", "unicorn", "Starship Enterprise",
along with all of the rest of the words and phrases that
we use, have no meaning at all outside of some community,
context, or framework of interpretation, so all of their
meanings and all of their specifications on any semantic
or semiotic feature, like "abstract" or "concrete", are
relative to the given community, context, or framework
of interpretation that gives them those meanings and
those specifications.
JA: In particular, the status of any term on any differential
dimension like abstract/concrete or possible/inconsistent
is "interpretive" not "absolute".
JA: It is simply not possible to integrate a genuine diversity
of communities, contexts, or frames of interpretation into
a larger whole, whether an IFF or a LOT or whatever turns
out to fit them the best, without constant reflection on
those first contingencies of the possibility of meaning.
The point that I am trying to make is this. People are free to classify
terms like "ego", "number", "quark", "sweetness", "Starship Enterprise",
"unicorn", and so on, according to the place that these words enjoy in
their informal complexes of concepts and beliefs, or "proto-theories".
And theorists of a more formal bent are still free to make up theories
almost at will, some of which theories will use of some of these words,
and some of which theories will only mention some of them in a tone that
discourages their use. That is all well and good. But it merely amounts
to a re-description of the problem -- it does nothing to solve it, except
perhaps to give an accurate description from which to begin working on it.
The problem cannot be solved by assigning each word an absolutely fixed
place in some 1-lithic ontological hierarchy, for instance, as one would
do by sorting it to one side or the other of a continental divide between
<abstract_objects> and <possible_individuals>. Thus, the classification of
a word on this score has to be "interpretive", varying according to its use
within a given context of interpretation, proto-theory, or theory, and not
absolute, fixed for all time. Nor will "name-spatialization" do the trick,
since there is still the fact that the word is perceived as being the same
word, only used in different senses in different contexts of interpretation,
and its ability to maintain connections between diverse contexts is part and
parcel of its very function, indeed, it's essential to its creative potential.
Jon Awbrey
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