Re: lattice of ontology
John said:
''But there is an infinite number of different reference frames
for different purposes by different individuals of different
species. Every one of them is *true* of that aspect of
reality that it addresses''.
The particularity of human minds is our damnation. For the real world is the
extensive networks of networks of interacting phenomena, which dynamic
changes can be explained only by universal powerful theories consolidating
all the theoretical models, accounts, schemes, and particular reference
frames. Without a single unifying theory of reality organizing human
knowledge, we can understand neither complex natural phenomena nor human
minds nor emerging complex social and technological systems, including the
Intelligent Web.
The social awareness of unifying theories and techniques of mastering
complexity is pushing the EU's Commission to set up the multimillion funds
projects for ''Tackling Complexity in Science' by drawing complexity
reseachers from all fields of knowledge and sciences, natural, chemical,
biological, psychological, economical, cultural, linguistic, and
engineering. Again, you need a common ontological framework to unify so
particular views adressing only to special aspects of the world, so that to
be able to understand the general laws and patterns of dynamic reality and
thus can generally predict the behavior of its complex entities, with the
help of powerful knowledge and reasoning systems. Otherwise, with a
multitude of unrelated particular views, schemes, theories, special models,
and specific programming tools, we are doomed to be crushed by the
complexity and unpredictability of the universe.
Lucky New Year to all and to you John
Azamat
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>
To: "Azamat" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
Cc: <standard-upper-ontology@listserv.ieee.org>; <velman@COX.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 7:19 AM
Subject: Re: lattice of ontology
> Azamat,
>
> I agree that the world is the ultimate test of reality:
>
> > Just don't neglect the world as the only true reference frame...
>
> But there is an infinite number of different reference frames
> for different purposes by different individuals of different
> species. Every one of them is *true* of that aspect of
> reality that it addresses.
>
> Following are some excerpts from George Steiner's book
> _After Babel_. That is the source of the knowledge soup.
> Any approach that ignores that multiplicity has no chance
> of coping with the way people think, talk, and write
> programs.
>
> Happy New Year,
>
> John
> _________________________________________________________
>
> Steiner, G. (1975/1998). After Babel: Aspects of language
> and translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
>
> Any model of communication is at the same time a model of translation,
> of a vertical or horizontal transfer of significance. No two historical
> epochs, no two social classes, no two localities use words and syntax to
> signify exactly the same things, to send identical signals of valuation
> and inference. Neither do two human beings. Each living person draws,
> deliberately or in immediate habit, on two sources of linguistic supply:
> the current vulgate corresponding to his level of literacy, and a
> private thesaurus. (p. 47, p. 75 of 3rd ed.)
>
> Each communicatory gesture has a private residue. The 'personal
> lexicon' in every one of us inevitably qualifies the definitions,
> connotations, semantic moves current in public discourse. The concept
> of a normal or standard idiom is a statistically-based fiction....
> The language of a community, however, uniform its social contour, is an
> inexhaustibly multiple aggregate of speech-atoms, of finally irreducible
> personal meanings. (p. 47)
>
> We speak to communicate. But also to conceal, to leave unspoken. The
> ability of human beings to misinform modulates through every wavelength
> from outright lying to silence. This ability is based on the dual
> structure of discourse: our outward speech has 'behind it' a concurrent
> flow of articulate consciounsness.... In the majority of conventional,
> social exchanges, the relation between these two speech currents is only
> partially congruent. There is a duplicity.... Thus a human being
> performs an act of translation, in the full sense of the word, when
> receiving a speech-message from any other human being. (pp. 47-48)
>