Re: Fwd: SUO Quo Vadis
Rolf, exactly that!
> No more problems now! With this definition, "Substance" is o.k.
> What I wanted to point out is that, using designators, one does not
> address
> meaning reliably. Designators do not carry meaning; they are just
> associated with meaning (and usually with more concepts than a single
> one..).
I believe that there is now some sort of a consensus. The
designator can be Being, Thing, Substance, Universe, Cosmos,
or anything else that has a clear meaning. [I included a little
clarification of Aristotle's Categories in the end to separate
the meaning of Substance and substances (no capital s).]
Based on the consensus of the designator (Substance, if nobody
has a better designator) further a priori truths can be
asserted:
Substance:
Everything that exists is a part of Substance.
Everything except Substance itself is a proper
part of Substance.
Ontology:
If ontology exists, ontology is a part of Substance.
Ontology is not the same as Substance, and therefore
ontology is a proper part of Substance. If ontology
exists, ontology must describe a part of Substance.
There does not exist an ontology that does not describe
a part of Substance.
When ontology O 'describes' a proper part of Substance Y,
O must have causal powers upon Y, i.e., O must explain
partly or totally how Y really is. This requirement can
be found from many popular passages.
Well, does anybody disagree with this addition then?
Quoting Rolf Lindner <lindner@igd.fhg.de>:
> No more problems now! With this definition, "Substance" is o.k.
> What I wanted to point out is that, using designators, one does not
> address
> meaning reliably. Designators do not carry meaning; they are just
> associated with meaning (and usually with more concepts than a single
> one..).
>
> So, trying to achieve agreement on "the" root of ontology, it is an
> agreement on
>
> (1) the root represents anything humans can imagine
>
> (2) the designator of this root is chosen to be "substance"
>
> Humans are not able to recognize "what is out there"; they are just
> synchronizing their "internal world model" with what they experience with
>
> "what is our there".
>
> I suppose that we are in agreement.
>
> Yours,
>
> Rolf
Aristotle used Substance in two ways in Categories.
1) Substance as a designator (as Rolf points out above) for
the sum of all that exists, and he used also 2) substance
(no capital s) as a designator of proper parts of Substance.
Therefore, substances (like particular cats and dogs) have
properties like speed and position, but Substance as a whole
cannot have speed nor position simply because these can be
measured only relative to something external to the object
that is under measurement. There is nothing external to
Substance, and therefore Substance cannot have speed or
position.
<Mark>
ontological gap-----------------
\/
domain-specific-ontologies |-------| upper level ontology
formal logical based natural language based
conceptual basis is conceptual basis is human-cognitional
computation, i.e. i.e. substrate is learning and
substrate is counting and experience
logic
my *point* is that we need to be aware of this gap, and develop an
approach to understand it and develop an approach to bridge it.
</mark>
Certainly, we need to be aware of this gap. The agreement in
the very SUO might be the only way to bridge it.
Avril