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SUO: Re: SUOP Topic :> Definition Of Definition




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SUOPT :> Definition.  Note 7

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| Hit The Ground Running Head
|
| Let me tell you what I had in mind by raising this topic.
| It was not meant to start another one of those recursive,
| diverting, consummately frivolous navel engagements that
| unpragmatic axiomatics is so susceptible of devolving to.
|
| SUOPT :> Definition 02.  http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11652.html

In hindsights, I probably should have listened more carefully
to the part of the story that came after the chuting was over,
and when the shooting started.  I wasn't very good at phonics.

YAH.  SUOPT Outline.           http://suo.ieee.org/email/thrd1.html#11635
IRT.  SUOPT :> Definition 06.  http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11752.html

JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa

JS: I would like to cite two of the greatest procedures documents
    of all time:  The Ten Commandments and the US Constitution.
    Those documents are exceptionally short for the amount
    of influence they have had over the centuries, and
    both of them are singularly lacking in definitions.
    As evidence, see:

WTP: U.S. CONSTITUTION
     http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

JS: The absence of definitions has not diminished their importance, but it
    has led to a voluminous literature consisting of case histories and new
    interpretations of the original texts in terms of those cases.  If you
    examine the history of interpretations in detail, the wisdom of *not*
    including definitions becomes apparent:  it would have been impossible
    for the original authors to invent definitions that could have stood
    the test of time.

JS: As it turns out, the wording of both documents has been remarkably
    resiliant because the meaning of the texts has evolved along with
    the meaning of the terms in those texts.  And the case studies
    in law courts (secular and ecclesiastical) have proved to be
    a very effective way of updating the interpretations of both
    the original texts and the words they contain.

JS: I recommend that we adopt a similar policy:  Draw up a short
    list of guidelines for SUO procedures and avoid wasting time
    on the definitions of the terms.  Inevitable questions will
    arise, many of which we could not have anticipated in advance.
    The proper time to make the interpretations more precise is
    in answer to the actual questions that arise.

JA: omegad!!! are you telling me that arnold 'can' be potus!?

John,

Your statement perfectly illustrates one of my points,
to wit, that there is evidentially no agreement, even
about what an ostensibly simple term like "definition"
means, and by this "means" I say most emphatically and
pragmatically, *what it means in practice*, and that is
one of the reasons why we have trouble figuring out what
is best to do by way of actually arriving at our espoused
aim, end, goal, heart's desire, object(ive), setpoint, ...

Not only do we lack agreement on "what X is" -- call that an "ontological"
matter if it makes the issue, er, question seem more important -- where
X = X_1, X_2, ..., X_j, ... in a very long list of moderate X's that
I would be, well, not exactly happy but at any rate duty bound to
enter into evidence, each of which conditions of uncertainty has
a detectable effect in rendering our action equally uncertain,
vacillating, wobbly, X-tremely X-trivial, yarless, in a word,
"zip", but this Working Group doesn't have even the roughest
consensus on the practical basis for making such decisions.
I understand, well, I have become familiar with people's
capacity for hypernotizing themselves into a state of
denial about the very existence of the a foresad state,
not to mention -- and "mention it not" is off course
the tacit normative law of our land -- a state of
denial about the state of denial about the state
of denial, about the ..., until long past the
past*time when denial overflows all of its
banks and still the "Ship Of State" (SOS)
remains all at sea, and  we the people
sea it not.

But, of course, this is all just a fuss about words.

Vision Test.  Can you find the Definition in this jumble of words? --

| Clause 2.  No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have
| attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a
| Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected,
| be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
|
| http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

But I do not think our Foreparents foresaw what would happen
when the State of Denial was made the Zeroth Star of the |_|.

Also Sprach 0*,

AKA,

Jon Awbrey

Extra Credit Question.

In reguard to knowledge representation:
Do you know who your Representative is?

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