Re: D1. Summary: Separate computer science ontology from philosophical ontology
Avril,
I agree that such a book, if it exists, would be in that
enormous library.
> ... but the point was to show that it is not impossible.
> another way to formulate it: if a theory exists now, then
> it exists also in the library of Babel.
I never claimed that a perfect ontology is impossible. But note
that the time to generate all those books on a supercomputer and
to dismiss the ones that are obvious gibberish would be greater
than the age of the universe.
Science has progressed very far during the time that writing
systems have been available (about 4000 years). That seems to
be a much more efficient method of finding good ontologies than
the random method.
But note that I said it's extremely unlikely that science would
find a perfect (or nearly perfect) ontology within the next
few centuries.
That is extremely optimistic compared to the Babel method.
John