Re: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
Matthew, Pat et al,
I have been advocating for some time now
[http://ltsc.ieee.org/logs/suo/msg00371.html] the development of a category
of ontologies. In addition to ontologies, this would also contain
1. morphisms between ontologies (ontomorphisms)
2. morphism factorization
3. limit/colimit constructions on ontologies, including
a. products and sums (coproducts) of ontologies
b. quotients and coquotients of ontologies.
In particular, any two ontologies O1 and O2 may or may not be related by an
ontomorphism f : O1 => O2. However, even though they are not so directly
related, they may perhaps be decomposed (limit/colimit) into relatable parts
(ontological factors or summands), say O1 = @(O11, O12) and O2 = @(O21, O22,
O23) with perhaps an ontomorphism g : O11 => O22.
In general, any collection of ontologies {O1, O2, ...} would be composable
into a limit construction L = Lim{O1, O2, ...} relatable by associated
"projection" ontomorphisms li : L => Oi all i, or a colimit construction C =
Colim{O1, O2, ...} relatable by associated "embedding" ontomorphisms ci : Oi
=> C all i. Any two ontologies Oi and Oj participating in a colimit are
indirectly relatable through the pair of ontomorphisms ci : Oi => C and cj :
Oj => C which may or may not be significant. Same comment for limits.
I will soon offer a first cut at this approach called a *classification
metatheory*.
Robert E. Kent
rekent@ontologos.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK" <Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
To: "pat hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
Cc: <standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 1:40 AM
Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
>
> Dear Pat,
>
> Some responses below.
>
> Regards
> Matthew
> ============================================
> Matthew West
> Operations & Asset Management
> Shell Services International
> H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
> Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
> Mobile: +44 7796 336538
> E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
> http://www.shellservices.com/
> ============================================
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pat hayes [mailto:phayes@ai.uwf.edu]
> > Sent: 03 January 2001 23:45
> > To: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK
> > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> >
> >
> > Hi Matthew
> >
> > <snip>......
> > > >
> > > > Obviously the interesting case is where they are referring to
> > > > different concepts. But the difficult case is where A's concept
> > > > cannot even be expressed in B's overall ontological framework, and
> > > > vice versa.
> > >
> > >MW: Surely if this is the case then the concepts are
> > disjoint, and the
> > >concepts for which this is the case can be ignored as out of
> > scope of the
> > >other ontology. Of course this argument does not apply if
> > the ontology is
> > >supposed to be an ontology of everything. In this case, not
> > being able to
> > >express another ontology means that you have not succeeded
> > yet, and you have
> > >some work to do, which may include changing your view of the
> > world (as has
> > >happened to me).
> >
> > You seem to be confusing the world itself with a way of looking at
> > the world. There is only one world ( let us hope so, anyway) , but
> > that one world might admit of several different forms of conceptual
> > description. One can have two distinct 'ontologies of everything'
> > which are both 'of everything' in the world, but which do not include
> > one another's categories. Part of what I am arguing is that there is
> > no useful sense of an 'ontology of everything' which includes all
> > ways of conceptualising the world.
>
> MW: I think I agree. What I do think is desirable is to be able to map
from
> one ontology to another. I will put it stronger than that. My primary
> motivation for being here is to understand better how you can map from one
> ontology to another. One consequence of that might be an ontology of
> ontologies to contain the mapping between them.
>
> MW: If this initiative is simply going to develop an ontology, then all we
> will have done is to create yet another ontology, which some people will
use
> for some purposes. Other people will still use other ontologies for other
> purposes, and from time to time it will be necessary to do things that
cross
> the boundaries of these two ontologies (this is increasingly difficult to
> avoid in fact). I therefore need to communicate across different
ontologies.
> Where there are a significant number of ontologies (more than 3 or 4) it
> becomes more efficient to do this by mapping to some integrating ontology,
> rather than by lots of point to point mappings, but this may always break
> down at the edges. So for me the utility of an ontology is for
> communication, and the most important feature is the ease with which I can
> map in and out of it to/from other ontologies.
>
> MW: Are we on the same page?
> >
> > > > >MW: Having said that I would be quite interested in what you
> > > > thought was the
> > > > >difference between a continuant and a space-time history.
> > > >
> > > > It took me a while to follow this myself, having been used to
> > > > thinking in a 4-d way for about 20 years now. The
> > distinction (which
> > > > I learned from Peter Simons) is roughly as follows. In the
> > > > continuant/occurent way of thinking, one refers to existence *at a
> > > > time*. This means that the four-dimensional entities simply do not
> > > > exist in this ontology. A continuant is something which
> > continues to
> > > > exist through time and retains its identity through time,
> > and is such
> > > > that (this is the characterising property) all its parts
> > are present
> > > > whenever it is present. Thus a person is a continuant,
> > since if I am
> > > > here then all my parts are here (now), while a race, say, is not a
> > > > continuant - it is in fact an occurrent - since it has parts which
> > > > are temporally distinguished: it has a beginning, a middle and an
> > > > end. The distinction is like that between a person (a
> > continuant) and
> > > > that person's life (an occurrent).
> > > >
> > > > Both occurrents and continuants 'map' into 4-d entities in the 4-d
> > > > histories ontology, but there is no principled way there to
> > > > distinguish them. The nearest you can get is to say that
> > continuants
> > > > have isotemporal parts while occurents have isospatial parts,
> > >
> > >MW: There are two key questions to ask when you are mapping
> > into a different
> > >ontology:
> > >
> > >1. What sort(s) of thing is this in the ontology I am mapping into?
> > >2. How do I distinguish the objects in the ontology I am
> > mapping into that
> > >map back into my source ontology?
> > >
> > >You seem to have answered the first of these here, and good
> > go at the
> > >second.
> > >
> > > > but in
> > > > the 4-d histories ontology one can cut 'parts' any way
> > one chooses,
> > > > including along boundaries which slant in time (i.e. which are
> > > > 'moving', as someone who thinks non-4-dimensionally would say.)
> > >
> > >MW: Quite, this is part of what makes it so powerful.
> >
> > I agree, but this cost comes at a price. There are more kinds of
> > 'thing' in the 4-d ontology, and so we need much more powerful ways
> > of distinguishing them and describing their relationships. In my old
> > paper on liquids I noted that there are two alternative ways to
> > individuate liquid-containing histories (pieces of liquid, which
> > move, vs. liquid objects, through which liquids can move; a river is
> > a liquid object, the cofffee in my cup right now is a piece of
> > liquid) and we need both kinds in order to perform reasonably
> > sophisticated reasoning. These histories intersect momentarily and
> > then separate, unlike the histories of 'solid' things with nice sharp
> > boundaries. I mention this only to indicate that there are issues
> > about how to distinguish one history from another which do not have
> > simple, elegant, answers. The intuitive topology of 4-d spacetime is
> > much more complicated than that of what might be called 3.5-d
> > space+time.
>
> MW: Quite, we recognise these. Indeed a 4D approach has been very valuable
> in allowing us to say what it is we mean.
> >
> > > > And
> > > > the defining criteria for the distinction in the other ontology is
> > > > literally incoherent in the 4-d ontology, since *nothing* is such
> > > > that all its parts are present whenever it is present:
> > the 'whenever'
> > > > here is meaningless in the 4d ontology.
> > >
> > >MW: You lost me here. This sentence does not seem to follow
> > from anything.
> >
> > I'll try again. The point is that in the continuant/occurent
> > framework, there is a conceptual distinction between a person (for
> > example) and that same person's history. The second is something
> > which is extended through time, and has earlier and later parts: it
> > can be naturally mapped into the 4-d ontology; it is what I called a
> > 'history' in my naive physics papers and what Fritz Lehmann calls a
> > 'worm'. The first, however, simply cannot be described in the 4-d
> > ontology. It is something which only exists at a time (like a
> > temporal slice through a history) but which is the same thing from
> > one time to the next (unlike a temporal slice through a history). You
> > will indeed have trouble imagining this if you insist on thinking of
> > things in the 4-dimensional framework, since it is impossible in that
> > framework. Nevertheless it seems to be useful notion, and one that
> > corresponds to a common distinction in natural language and in
> > ordinary reasoning. We commonly think of ourselves as being the same
> > person we were yesterday (though with different properties) and
> > simultaneously think of ourselves as wholly present at any given
> > instant.
> >
> > One can draw different conclusions from this idea. One possible
> > conclusion is that the 4-d ontology is perfect and that this notion
> > is therefore incoherent; another, I think more reasonable, conclusion
> > is that this concept has its uses, but only in a fundamentally
> > different ontological framework than the 4-d one. From which it
> > follows that the 4-d ontological framework is not in fact the
> > 'universal' framework that you seem to think it is.
> >
> > (One way to make the distinction is to think of two kinds of history:
> > one kind 'breaks up' into pieces along time-like boundaries, the
> > other along space-like boundaries. The problem now for the 4-d
> > ontology is that two of these can occupy exactly the same region of
> > space-time, yet be conceptually distinct. Maybe your 4-d ontology can
> > handle this: my one couldn't.)
>
> MW: It is not a matter of holding the continuant concept and/or occurances
> of it in your integrating ontology, but of being able to infer its
existance
> from what you have. So in this case (if my understanding is correct) then
> when I have a life-history in my 4D ontology when I map to a
> continuant/occurent paradigm I know I have to create both a continuant and
> an occurant. As long as I have enough information in my 4D ontology to
know
> when I should do this and I can define the rules for doing so (and this
> seems to me to be likely) then it is not a problem.
>
> MW: When I was talking about integrating concepts into the ontology, I was
> talking about rather more mundane things like cars, pumps, computers. If I
> come across an ontology that includes some such concepts, and my
integrating
> ontology has no sense of them, then I have to do the analysis to add these
> concepts to my integrating ontology. Again, I may have to be concerned
about
> how to map these concepts out into other paradigms, but in general I would
> expect that this can be defined at a fairly high level.
> >
> > > > As evidence for the idea of a continuant in intuitive thinking,
> > > > consider the claim that I am the same person I was 10
> > years ago. This
> > > > is literally false in the 4-d ontology (it can be
> > expressed there by
> > > > saying that me-now and me-1990 are both slices of the
> > me-history, but
> > > > that raises the question of what distinguishes one history from
> > > > another, since these are also both slices of completely unrelated
> > > > histories) Statements like this seem to depend on the idea of
> > > > something retaining its identity through time, even though its
> > > > properties may change. This 'locus of identity' is what
> > constitutes
> > > > the basic idea of a continuant, I think.
> > >
> > >MW: You seem to be very concerned about how concepts are
> > expressed. I have a
> > >simpler test as to whether two concepts match - do they
> > refer to the same
> > >thing (or can I infer that they refer to the same thing).
> >
> > That unfortunately begs the question, when what we are discussing is
> > what things there are for the concept to refer to. Most ontological
> > thinkers would say that when they are using continuant language,
> > they are referring to continuants, which wouldnt help you fit
> > continuants into the 4-d ontological framework.
>
> MW: I agree, you do not have to store everything, just enough to be able
to
> infer what is needed for a particular paradigm when appropriate mappings
are
> applied.
> >
> > >So for example, in
> > >the case of continuants and life histories, I can conclude
> > either that a
> > >continuant is the same as a life-history, or at least that they are
> > >equivalent, i.e. for any life-history I have a continuant,
> > and vice-versa
> > >(there may be some additional objects involved on both sides).
> >
> > They may be in 1:1 correspondence without being identical: for
> > example, they might have different properties. But in any case they
> > arent 1:1, since there are many histories which do not have a
> > corresponding continuant.
>
> MW: My mistake, it can of course be 0,1 or many to 0, 1, or many. Some may
> be in 1:1 correspondance though. The key is having a mapping specification
> between paradigms.
> >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > This kind of disagreement is
> > > > > > not a disagreement like that between C, who wants to classify
> > > > > > airplanes with ships, and D, who wants to classify
> > airplanes with
> > > > > > birds. The IIDEAS architecture is a good way to
> > approach a common
> > > > > > ground between C and D, but there really is no common
> > > > ground between
> > > > > > A and B. Its not a matter of how they classify
> > things; they don't
> > > > > > 'see' airplanes in the same ontological way. They have
> > > > fundamentally
> > > > > > different ways of thinking about the process of carving
> > > > up the world,
> > > > > > rather than different categorizations of the things
> > that you get
> > > > > > after doing the carving.
> > > > >
> > > > >MW: I am just at the end of changing my preferred way of
> > > > seeing the world,
> > > > >so I think I understand the problem here. Interestingly, it
> > > > doesn't bother
> > > > >me too much. Let me explain.
> > > > >
> > > > >MW: Until recently I used as my baseline a viewpoint that
> > > > said that there
> > > > >were individual things like you, my car, classes, and
> > > > associations, where an
> > > > >association is a relationship that understands that it lasts
> > > > for a period of
> > > > >time. I have moved to a 4D approach, replacing
> > individual things with
> > > > >spatio-temporal extents, and associations with timeless
> > > > relations. However,
> > > > >I know very well how to take something from my old model and
> > > > represent it in
> > > > >the new model, and vice-versa.
> > > >
> > > > I wonder if you really can do this, if you think hard
> > about it. I've
> > > > been living within a 4-d ontology for a long time and
> > mapping other
> > > > ontologies to it, and what I find is that many distinctions simply
> > > > vanish, rather than being 'translated'. This is fine with me, of
> > > > course, but it tends to get the other folk a little
> > upset, especially
> > > > when they have written entire books about these
> > distinctions. And in
> > > > the other direction, I find that perfectly
> > reasonable-seeming things
> > > > in my ontology, like 'moving' (sloping in space/time) boundaries,
> > > > simply cannot be admitted into the other ontologies
> > without producing
> > > > unacceptable confusions.
> > >
> > >MW: Let me take this in two parts. I agree that many
> > distinctions from other
> > >world viewpoints disappear in a 4-D ontology. On the other
> > hand I find that
> > >you can recover the concepts of other ontologies from a 4-D
> > ontology, though
> > >you need to provide the definition of how to do this for your "other"
> > >ontology so that you can do the mapping.
> > >
> > >MW: On the other hand, as you find, I do not find the
> > reverse is true. There
> > >are things that can be expressed in a 4-D ontology, that
> > cannot, as you say,
> > >be translated into other ontologies. This simply means that
> > a 4-D ontology
> > >is more capable than the others. This just makes it sensible
> > to choose a 4-D
> > >ontology to be your underlying ontology which you use as a
> > hub to translate
> > >others to and from.
> >
> > I largely agree, but unlike you I don't think the 4-d way of thinking
> > is universal. It is of wider utility, but it has its limitations like
> > any other framework. It isnt even adequate for quantum theory, in
> > fact, without some rather convoluted hacking.
>
> MW: I don't think 4D is quite a final solution either, though I would
think
> of relativity as a potential problem rather than quantum theory. I do
think
> its the best we have at the moment.
> >
> > > >
> > > > >The limitation is that there are some things
> > > > >that I can now represent that I could not before. This is to
> > > > be expected,
> > > > >and is due to the limitations in the previous model.
> > > >
> > > > And are you SURE there is nothing that you could represent before
> > > > that you can no longer represent?
> > >
> > >MW: In practice yes, strictly no. In the previous ontology
> > there were some
> > >things you could say that did not make sense (we didn't
> > bother to eliminate
> > >them with axioms) but there isn't anything valid that we
> > can't represent
> > >(though of course it will be represented differently).
> >
> > How about the observation that you and I are the same people we were
> > yesterday? How do you talk about things that might have happened
> > yesterday but didn't, or about the two different things that might
> > happen tomorrow (as in doing planning)?
>
> MW: I apply a "possible worlds" approach. The sorts of cases you mention
are
> ones we specifically consider. A major concern is the design of
> multi-billion dollar off-shore oil rigs and the like. These require a
little
> planning.
> >
> > > >
> > > > >MW: How to make these transformations is precisely what
> > the IIDEAS
> > > > >architecture is for.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > (BTW, I think that what seems to me to be
> > overoptimism about the
> > > > > > prospects of the SUO among some folk might arise from
> > > > their failure
> > > > > > to appreciate that such incompatible
> > conceptualizations can even
> > > > > > exist, let alone all have their uses.)
> > > > >
> > > > >MW: I have a simple attitude towards incompatible
> > > > conceptualisations: they
> > > > >mean we do not understand the world around us. The world
> > > > around us is not
> > > > >incompatible with itself,
> > > >
> > > > Oh come, come, this is impossibly naive for someone of
> > this century.
> > > > As a matter of fact, in the best story about the world
> > that the human
> > > > race has so far managed to produce, viz. quantum
> > electrodynamics, the
> > > > world around us IS incompatible with itself, in that we
> > have to use
> > > > two incompatible ways of conceptualizing it in order to fully
> > > > describe it.
> > >
> > >MW: My point is though that these are just theories, not the
> > world itself. I
> > >will claim that these theories are inadequate for some
> > circumstances, and
> > >physicists will agree with me.
> >
> > This is Einstein's robust view of the integrity of the 'Old One', but
> > he was ably refuted by Bohr. In fact, God *does* play with dice. If
> > anything 'really' exists, it is a spatial density of the square root
> > of a probability. This is even worse than its sounds, when one asks
> > the question, the probability of what?, since the answer to *that*
> > question apparently depends on the experimental apparatus.
>
> MW: Now you are confusing theory with reality. The quantum stuff is just
> another theory that answers some questions and poses others, it does not
the
> final definition of our universe.
> >
> > > > There is no single underlying theory of the world, and
> > > > some of the best minds who have thought about the matter
> > during the
> > > > last century have concluded that there is no way to produce one.
> > >
> > >MW: Allow me to bring you up to date. During the last 30 years or so
> > >something called string theory has been developed which does
> > things like
> > >bring relativity and quantum theory together, explain why
> > light can behave
> > >like a wave and a particle, and help to explain the very
> > early universe. I
> > >recommend the popular science book "The Elegant Universe" by
> > Brian Greene,
> > >one of the developers of the theory.
> >
> > I've read it. I also have polled the opinions of a number of working
> > theoretical physicists, and their uniform opinion is that while
> > string (actually superstring) theory is fascinating and a tour de
> > force, etc., it in fact is not(yet) an acceptable universal physical
> > theory, for a number of reasons. The chief ones are that it makes no
> > new predictions, it cannot possibly be tested against experiment, and
> > that it involves the introduction of a large number of unfounded
> > theoretical assumptions which are, to put it mildly, rather hard to
> > swallow, such as that the universe is n-dimensional for some largish
> > n (about 20 at the present time, I believe). The chief theoretical
> > worry about it, I think, is that it's not clear whether or not the
> > way that superstring theory accounts for the fundamental constants
> > (its chief claim to fame) is actually predictive, or just a
> > consequence of the underlying topological richness of the
> > mathematical constructs. Maybe with 20-odd dimensions to play with,
> > one could have found harmonics which would fit *any* empirical data.
> > This is still, I believe, an open mathematical issue. Oh, and by the
> > way, superstring theory still doesn't reconcile quantum entaglement
> > with common sense.
> >
> > But in any case, if you want to propose basing the SUO on superstring
> > theory, I think you have a lonely road to follow. Meanwhile, the
> > quantum oddities encroach ever further into the macrosopic world: the
> > existence of superposed quantum states has now been demonstrated at
> > the molecular scale (where it has direct technological consequences,
> > eg giving rise to 'ghost images' in scanning microscopy), and the
> > existence of 'entangled' particle pairs (which violate causality
> > according to Bell's theorem) has been demonstrated at kilometer
> > distances.
> >
> > >MW: So I will argue that you are the one who is naive if you
> > think that the
> > >universe could exist if it was not self consistent, even if we do not
> > >understand it.
> > >
> > > > If
> > > > anything, the world gets more and more mysterious rather than more
> > > > and more coherent; and if there is a single coherent account, it
> > > > certainly will not bear the remotest similarity to any
> > 'common-sense'
> > > > ontology of things, events and so on. The basic material of the
> > > > universe in QED seems to be a field which when multiplied
> > by itself
> > > > becomes a kind of spatially located probability. If you
> > know what the
> > > > square root of an information density is, then maybe you
> > can produce
> > > > an acceptable world-ontology; but the very basic SUO
> > distinctions -
> > > > between material and immaterial, for example - were
> > rendered obsolete
> > > > by physics over a century ago. A pure vacuum has an
> > intrinsic energy
> > > > and hence a nontrivial mass, for example. Things with mass have no
> > > > well-defined position in space, and so on.
> > >
> > >MW: Again I am not that concerned. In engineering, we are
> > happy to rely on
> > >Newtonian physics, even for getting to the moon, so whilst
> > deeper ontologies
> > >are useful for the way they can unify apparently correct but
> > conflicting
> > >ontologies, I expect that we will continue to use our common sense
> > >ontologies on a day to day basis.
> >
> > Oh, I agree entirely. My point was in response to your claim that
> > since there is only one world out there, that therefore there can be
> > a single best ontology. If you are going to retreat to 'common sense'
> > (the existence of which I am beginning to doubt), then I will just
> > repeat my insistence that there are mutually incoherent but equally
> > valid ways of conceptualising the common-sense world.
>
> MW: No I am arguing here for a layering of ontologies, with more intuitive
> ones based on more rigorous underlying ones. I see the search for the "one
> true ontology" as a matter of discovering the more fundamental layers. I
> accept that just as in physics, there may be times when there are
apparently
> conflicting theories taht are useful for different purposes (or even the
> same purpose) this is just life, and we have to map between them and
regret
> the lack of human knowledge.
> >
> > > >
> > > > >so if there are two theories about the world that
> > > > >are incompatible, I expect there to be an underlying theory
> > > > that can explain
> > > > >why both of the incompatible theories work within the range
> > > > that they are
> > > > >found to be useful. The problem is that this underlying
> > > > theory may not yet
> > > > >have been discovered. We can then identify an area for research.
> > > >
> > > > But this 'area' seems to encompass all of science, from particle
> > > > physics to cosmology and everything in between.
> > >
> > >MW: Yes, and interestingly this is just what String Theory covers.
> >
> > I think you have been led astray by the Brian Greene's enthusiasm.
> >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > If you use an IIDEAS style of resolution , you will
> > have a global
> > > > > > ontology that allows all ways of carving the world.
> > But you can't
> > > > > > just lump them all together, since A's way literally
> > doesnt make
> > > > > > sense in B's vocabulary, and vice versa; so you will have some
> > > > > > very-high-level distinctions which are basically a kind of
> > > > > > philosopher's catalog of different approaches to styles
> > > > of conceptual
> > > > > > individuation, with separate (and incommensurate)
> > > > ontologies attached
> > > > > > below each tip node.
> > > > >
> > > > >MW: I suppose you could do that, but it isn't what I have in
> > > > mind (see
> > > > >above).
> > > >
> > > > Yes. I think that you believe that there is a single, universally
> > > > acceptable, ontology, and that all others can be mapped into it. I
> > > > think this will happen only when science stops, and as I
> > dont think
> > > > that will ever happen, I dont share your optimism about
> > the Universal
> > > > Ontology (not Upper, notice!)
> > >
> > >MW: I think our position is much the same as science. There
> > are a number of
> > >ontologies (theories) some of which can be explained by others. There
> > >probably isn't yet an ontology that explains everything,
> > though I believe
> > >the search for one is worthwhile (just as long as you don't expect to
> > >discover it tomorrow). I also believe that much of our
> > current ontologies
> > >will remain useful. One of the main things we will gain from a (more)
> > >universal ontology is an understanding of the limits to the
> > ones we use
> > >currently, rather than that we would stop using them.
> >
> > Bertrand Russel somewhere has the following demonstration that naive
> > realism (the doctrine that things are pretty much what they seem to
> > be) is false:
> >
> > Naive Realism leads to Science.
> > Science shows Naive Realism to be false.
> > Therefore Naive Realism, if true, is false.
> > Therefore it is false.
> >
> > Apply this reasoning to 'common sense' and you have my refutation of
> > your optimism. You can't have it both ways: either we are doing real
> > physics or we are doing naive physics: but we can't be doing both,
> > since real physics isn't naive. Either we are trying to describe the
> > actual world, in which case we can, I guess, reasonably expect that
> > one day the human race should manage to achieve a single Grand
> > Unified Theory, since there seems to be just one world to be
> > described (but the last century ought to have shaken our old
> > confidence; and we certainly don't have it yet; and we can be sure it
> > will be nothing whatever like our common-sense view of the
> > middle-sized world) or, we can be trying to capture our intuitive
> > knowledge of everyday things, in terms that adapt naturally to our
> > intuitive mental concepts; but then the fact of there being one world
> > provides no confidence that one person's natural framework is
> > identical to another person's.
>
> MW: This is just a trick. Science shows science to be false too. To put it
> more positively, science shows the limitations of naive realism (or naive
> science). It also shows the ragne within which it can be useful. The
problem
> with whatever our most fundamental view of things is that often we do not
> know where or why its limitations are.
> >
> > Pat
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> > Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax
> > phayes@ai.uwf.edu
> > http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
> >
>