SUO: Re: Policy On Substitutions
Jon Awbrey wrote:
>
> Robert Meersman wrote:
>
> > But my memory definitely fails me on the usefulness
> > of all this for our ontological pursuits.
>
> Remember what I said somewhere in the middle of that bout of logorrhea --
> I found this to be a very effective remedy, in my case, at any rate, for
> resolving my "ontological insecurity" (OI) about the status of variables.
> It also serves to place all of those ad hoc, hokey, syntactic mechanisms
> for substitution in a more general context, one that is quite a bit more
> elegant from a formal, combinatorial POV, if you like that sort of thing.
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Robert,
In the midst of writing my aside on the exchange
between John Sowa and Phil Jackson on the matter
of "Language, Thought, Ontology", I was reminded
of what is probably a more generic answer to the
question that you raised above, and perhaps this
will be a more pertinent answer to those who did
not share those particular "pangs of youth" over
variables & the "ontological worry" (OW) thereof.
The bigger question that I believe I can see here, thus
the broader answer that I believe I can make here, goes
to the heart of what I will elect to call the principle
of "reconstitution and reconstruction entering formal &
computational theories into outer nature" (RAREFACTION).
What the "principle of rarefaction" (POR) entails is this --
I mean, aside from exemplifying the circumstance that the
recursiveness of codes need know no immediately curtailed
bounds on the density of the compression that it achieves --
that we actually have so little to do with the objects of
any ontology, in and of themselves, in the utter richness
and the most likely overwhelming wealth of complexity and
of subtlety with which real phenomena commonly present us,
but that that with which we mostly have truck are but the
mere signs of a passing show, of objects and of phenomena.
And so, starting from the "data of the senses" (DOTS) and
working our way up to more elaborated designs in the mind,
we have the job of re-constrewing and re-constructing the
form, nothing more than form, nothing less than form, the
shape of things that come before our senses and our minds.
Now, one of the best ways that we have to reconstruct the
forms of outer nature within the frame of our inner signs --
that which I call "ideas", so long as you understand from
context that I am not speaking of any platonic archetypes
in this case, though I may indeed, on a suitable occasion,
in another frame of mind, speak of these as real entities --
is to form a diversity of collections of these signs, and
by forming continue them? -- To write,-- to speak,-- much
more; and by a speech to say we endure the mind-ache and
the thousand natural schlocks that flash is air to,-- tis
a re-constitution devoutly to be wished. To write,-- to
speak,-- To speak! perchance to think:-- Ay, there's the
rub!
Where was I!? Oh yes, we have this ability to capture the "forms" --
the very forms, no more, no less -- of the objects that are dreamt of
in our ontologies, in the forms of various classes of signs and ideas,
among the most important of these being the brands of classes and the
classes of classes that we dub "equivalence classes" and "partitions".
And thereby hangs a longer telos than I can reach the end of today ...
Until Then,
Jon Awbrey
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