Re: lattice of ontology
John,
At first reading your points have a penetrating and convincing quality,
mainly due to the original style of writting. But after some meditation one
can find as not so strongly found as it could be.
You touched the issues of survivability, continuity and discontinuity of
language, and as a main course, TOE, a trillion dollar question.
At present time, when our life is entangled with the unimaginable
complexity, where a small and negligable cause may end up in unforseen
consequences for the whole social structure, ''successful survivability''
can be provided only by good models and integrative theories about the
environment, instead of relying to errors and testing. Here comes out an
inevitable conclusion, UFO is our ultimate Redeemer.
Passing to the second issue.What is said here.
AZAMAT:
''The unity of nature implies the unity of the world, while the
unity of reality implies a unified framework ontology.''
JOHN:
''That's false. The unity of a continuum implies that *no* discrete
finite language can even begin to be adequate.''
You droped a hint that i do some slip-ups typical for BS, while allowing
them youself.
As for continuity and discountinuity, there are many confusions as to which
thing is discrete and which is continuous. According to the traditional
definitions:
1. that one having common boundary among its separate parts is the latter
one (like time, place, and all the physical quantities and geometrical
magnitudes);
2. that one which parts don't join at any boundary is the former one (as
numbers or multitudes and speech).
So speech, vocal, spoken language as a kind of language, because of
consisting of separate and measurable syllables, is a discrete phenomena
(like number). In fact, language as such, internal, scientific, logical,
mathematical, or ontological, is not a priori a discrete phenomenon.
Next, all the discrete quantity such as the magnitudes of geometry (lines,
surfaces, solids) and physics (mass, force, motion, space, time,
temperature, etc.) are measured my discrete multitudes via specific
mathematical and physical procedures. That is, continuous magnitudes are
commensurable with discrete multitudes, although they make different generic
kinds of the ontological class of quantity. Even by mistake the UFO formal
language will be attributed to discontinuous languages, it is still
commensurable with the continuum of things.
If i somehow answered to your fundamental questions, we can pass to your
last the most real issue of TOE. You said:
''Unless you claim that physicists are doing the only
ontology that could be true, you don't have a believable claim.''
This is from your rich collection of rhetorical tricks. Although by first
profession I am a physicist-theorist, this example was used as a use case
and no more, to remind the general tendency in the fundamental science to
unification of natural forces and phenomena. We both understand that
physical TOE is just a theory about physical entities, nothing else. The
real TOE is UFO dealing with all kinds of beings and relationships.
Since we can argue here in cycles for a long time, i want to propose you a
concrete evidence of my position. There is a draft of the book ready for
publishing, which is titled as ''Standard Ontology for Machines and People:
How To build a Virtual Aristotle (or a Real Theory of Everything)''.
On showing the interest, I am ready to email you the whole material
formatted as PDF Doc. before printing. Also, I encourage to step forward any
members of this honorable still being committed to the great SUO idea to be
the neutral arbitrators.
The arbitrors will receive the copy of the book (for this I only need to
have personal requests send on my email).
There is a high chance, as i feel your deep inclination to generalizing
theories, that on careful reading the material, you may start thinking that
this tremendous scientific problem admits of solution, and it is not a pipe
dream. The matter may take a month, which seems nothing comparing to the
trillion price of the issue of UFO.
Best,
Azamat
http://www.eis.com.cy
PS: a one day delay is connected with being us in different time zones. When
you start creative activities my mind is switching to dormancy.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>
> To: "Azamat" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
> Cc: <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 2:36 AM
> Subject: Re: lattice of ontology
>
>
>> Azamat,
>>
>> JS> People have been successfully understanding
>> > the world and one another for thousands of years...
>>
>> AA> The statements taste as a mixture of exalted romantic
>> > humanism seasoned with a piece of propaganda.
>>
>> On the contrary, successful survivability is the ultimate
>> proof that any species has developed an adequate response
>> to the challenge of existence. In the long run, *that* is
>> the ultimate test that matters. All other words are just
>> that -- mere words.
>>
>> That is true:
>>
>> > That the unity of nature is the most fundamental ontological
>> > principle had been eventually confirmed by Einstein's field
>> > theory, not mentioning recent achievements in theoretical physics.
>>
>> But the fact is that we don't have any such "Theory of Everything",
>> and the only thing we can claim is that none of our current theories
>> of physics will survive except as approximations to any such TOE.
>>
>> Furthermore, we also know that any theory of physics about how
>> the continuum works (expressed in differential equations or other
>> mathematics about an uncountable continuum) can *never* be translated
>> without loss into discrete statements in any Boolean logic, any
>> natural language, or any language that remotely resembles what we
>> are familiar with.
>>
>> > The unity of nature implies the unity of the world, while the
>> > unity of reality implies a unified framework ontology.
>>
>> That's false. The unity of a continuum implies that *no* discrete
>> finite language can even begin to be adequate. An infinite lattice
>> of discrete theories is the *simplest* approximation that might
>> begin to be adequate.
>>
>> You must be able to answer these two fundamental questions:
>>
>> 1. How can any discrete language approximate a continuum?
>>
>> 2. How can you can derive values (i.e., the modal auxiliary
>> "ought") from physical facts (i.e., the verb "is")?
>>
>> Until you can answer questions #1 and #2, you haven't even begun
>> to formulate a realistic claim for the possible existence of a
>> single unified theory that is anything different from a TOE that
>> uses differential equations (or some similar infinitistic language)
>> to characterize a continuum.
>>
>> Summary: Unless you claim that physicists are doing the only
>> ontology that could be true, you don't have a believable claim.
>>
>> John
>>
>