SUO: RE: 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: 01 October 2003 15:23
> To: SUO
> Subject: SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
>
>
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> LIS. Discussion Note 77
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> JA = Jon Awbrey
> MW = Matthew West
>
> Matthew,
>
> Deleting topics exhausted or
> exhausting for the time being,
> and continuing ...
>
> JA: We are faced with this pheonomenon, that people use words
> like "ego", "number", "quark", "unicorn", and all the rest
> of the words they use, in many different ways. Unless you
> now propose to recant all that you have been saying so far,
> and return to the fold of the 1-lithic faith, this obvious,
> persistent, recalcitrant, stubborn fact cannot be denied.
> And this evident phenomenon presents us with an array of
> problems that simply cannot be wished away, though many
> have tried, and will most likely keep on trying to do.
>
> JA: One of these problems can be called the "explanatory" problem:
> If it's really as bad as all that, just how do people manage to
> communicate at all, which they just as evidentally do sometimes,
> to some degree and extent, though of course, far from perfectly?
> And, of course, part of the task of intercommunication, between
> people, directly, or between their robotic proxies, indirectly,
> is to address the current levels of adequacy in this capacity.
>
> MW: My own view is that in the end meaning is grounded in
> ostension (pointing at things) to ground what a person
> means for some base things. In an ontology we can only
> point with words in a definition.
>
> This is a popular view of end meanings, and it is, of course,
> everybody's first theory of practical semiotics, but it only
> goes so far in the sort of setting that currently engages us.
>
> How does your ostensible definition of the term "abstract_object"
> point me to any things that provide me with enough information to
> know what you mean by it, in particular, how it applies to things
> that may be thought by some people to be pointed out by a host of
> words like "ego", "number", "quark", "starship", "unicorn", etc.?
>
> A sufficient answer must provide interpreters who are not privy
> to your personal intuitions or party to your regional sapience
> enough information that they might conceivably practically be
> able to carry out the task of classifying "all" <things> in
> or out of the category <abstract_object>.
>
> Now maybe this sounds like a lot, but we may be encouraged by
> the widely accepted belief that there are indeed many examples
> of good conceptual definitions and good operational definitions
> currently extant and generally valued as useful in real practice.
> So that should give us some hope that the task is not impossible,
> at least, in principle, whatever the facts may turn out to be in
> this or that particular case.
MW: Nothing quite like looking at the definition. And when I do I
see that it is a bit lacking if you only look at the text. However,
if you look at the EXPRESS you find that it is an ABSTRACT entity
type (not my choice of use of the term here - this is part of the
EXPRESS language) and what that means is that this entity type has
no instances except those that are instances of its subtypes, which
is another way of saying it is exactly the union of its subtypes.
MW: There are three subtypes, class - which is defined as being
non-well-founded sets, relationship, for which effectively read
binary tuple, and multidimensional_object, for which effectively
read n-ary tuple. Is that operational enough?
>
> JA: So I don't think that there's any way for serious people
> to go back on their words here, and once again dismiss
> the issue of many meanings for many significant words.
>
> JA: As I observed, most of the ontological schemes that we
> have the task
> to integrate here, in an IFF or a LOT or whatever fits
> them, contain
> a primal division between Abstract Sorts and Other Sorts
> of some sort.
>
> JA: But the very use of abstract objects involves a measure
> of indirectness,
> not to say indirection, since it interposes a number of
> abstract objects --
> algebras, arithmetics, categories, geometries, lattices,
> measures, models,
> numbers, sets, spaces of every variety, and theoretical
> structures of all
> kinds -- between the world of signs and the world of
> concrete, embodied,
> physical, possible, space-time objects, or whatever
> descriptive feature
> one wishes to attach to this latter order of existence.
>
> MW: Sure. So.
>
> I begin to lose track of thoughts from last week, but I think
> that I was
> just trying to clarify a certain use of the distinction
> between "direct"
> and "indirect", in a particular sense, "literal" versus "figurative".
> And I was trying to point out that speaking of abstract objects and
> making use of mathematical models to describe realities always
> involves a measure of analogy, figure, metaphor, or symbolism
> that is not captured by purely literal modes of interpretation.
> Just by way of pointing to an "object" example, the whole theory
> of categories is in a sense the theory of mathematical metaphors.
>
> Have to break here, getting a new furnace installed today.
> Life goes on, we should hope, despite our worst worries.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
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