SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
LIS. Discussion Note 51
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
JA: I don't think it would be a bad idea to slow down and take some time
with this first distinction, between abstract things and other sorts
of things. One reason for doing this carefully is that there appear
to be many generic problems arising here, the sorts of things that
will probably come up again with each new distinction that we try
to draw in each new ontology that comes down the pike. If we can
work out generic solutions to a few of these generic problems,
then it will probably pay dividends in the long run.
JA: In a real sense, then, the questions that I am asking here could
equally well be addressed to every candidate ontology that comes
before the working group, and not just the LIS data-model alone.
JA: So let me ask the Big Question yet another way:
| What is the operational test of the distinction
| between abstract things and non-abstract things?
JA: The word "operational" is critical here. I wouldn't be asking this
if I felt that the explanations so far given for <abstract_object>
and <possible_individual> were giving us operational definitions
of these categories, in other words, operational tests that tell
us whether given instances of things should be sorted into one
bin or the other. For example, referring to the criterion of
"inexistence" versus "existence" in space-time is nothing but
a form of buck-passing, unless we have some reason to think
that we can find a better test for the latter distinction
than we have for the former.
MW: Well I could try it the other way round. All the things that
are abstract are set-like things, defined (in the end) by their
extension, i.e. sets and relations. Possible_individuals are not
sets of any sort and it would make no sense to talk about their
members (in a set like sense). On the other hand it would make
sense to talk about their parts, where again it does not make
sense to talk about the parts of sets (unless you mistakenly
think subtype/supertype is a type of parthood).
MW: Is that any better?
When I get confused about an issue like this, as I'm now beginning to
get about this "abstract/concrete" stuff, as I would normally name it,
it helps me to think back to all of the ways that people normally talk
about such things, at least, people who normally talk about such things
as the imaginary line between the abstract and the concrete, among which
population I number a number of my former selves. And whenever I do that,
one of the first observations that I can remember making about this issue --
and by an observation to say an occasion of speaking my thought out loud,
and I can even remember in concrete detail the place where I sat in the
Foundations of Math class in Angell Hall when I first burst forth with
this abstract observation that the distinction between abstract and
concrete is all just an ambit relative in mathematics, relative to
the interrupreter's aim, at least, and if like that, there, and
relative to that end, then where, in deed, not else.
With all that illusion of former enlightenment now flooding back into mind,
let me observe on this occasion that the resolving power of our minds with
respect to separating by degrees the point of abstraction and the field of
concreteness, or whatever else one persieves to abstract the abstract from,
is relative to our scope, and the sky in the light of which we strain to c.
The e-piphany is ended. I'll try to exegize the point more mondanely anon.
Jon Awbrey
Incidental Musement:
http://helios.astro.lsa.umich.edu/obs/angell/
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o