SUO: Re: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
Matthew, how does your proposal distinguish actual lions from merely
possible unicorns? As I understand you, both of these 'occupy' time and
space, according to your usage -- but only the former occupy 'our'
space/time. Is that right? If so, how is this stated in the object language?
In particular, how does the Express language standard
(or some contemplated extension of it) make the distinction?
Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey@att.net>
To: "SUO" <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
Cc: "Matthew West" <matthew.west@shell.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 07:40
Subject: SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
>
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> LIS. Discussion Note 51
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> 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/
>
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