SUO: Re: Comment On Procedure
Horn, Graham wrote:
>
> Jon,
>
> . Thanks for that. I suspect you have
> spoken for many people's experiences.
>
> . One thing that left me without an ability to make anything
> of some time ago, was when you said something that the reason
> I (I think it was directed at me) should take your word for
> it because you were the sum total of your experiences, and
> had been there and done that, etc.
Not sure I recall what it was, but it sounds like I was
just quoting one of my brother's favorite catch-phrases:
"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt ...", and so on,
which I think that he got from Bart Simpson, one of his
favorite cartoon characters on TV -- this does not dare
to be an argument from authority, even the authority of
one person's experience, of course, but it is more like
an invitation to share experience, or a simple point of
information, intended to be taken with a grain of salt.
> . As with many people, I like to convince myself of things
> by looking at the "evidence", and making up my own mind.
Still, of course, it is very difficult for one to summarize
the many years of painful trial and more painful error that
it takes to become, not so much convinced of what will work,
as pretty darned sure of what one, personally, just sees no
need to keep trying again, especially in view of all of the
other much more promising options that there are yet to try.
And yet I have been trying to do so, all along the path, as
there are a few positive lessons that I have learned during
my times, where I had some problem that I eventually solved,
at least to my own satisfaction.
> . I admit I am slowly making my way through John Sowa's paper
> on Mathematical background (as time permits), and am finding
> it most useful. Perhaps then I will be able to follow some
> of your more advanced arguments.
>
> . In the meanwhile, I am hoping the SUO will be developed
> in a way that maximises the readability to ordinary people
> able to grasp logical thought processes without necessarily
> requiring a prior knowledge of esoteric logic languages, or
> at least with the selected language explained in simple terms
> most (ie. say 60%+) people can understand.
>
> . That said, I firmly believe a practical ontology is feasible,
> even if it needs some careful definition of how to handle some
> inherent and (apparently) unavoidable internal inconsistencies
> arising out of differing perspectives and so on.
>
> . I forget whether it was you, but someone recently said
> that they believed mathematics was an empirical science,
> rather than a logical one.
I do not think that it can be a choice between experience or logic.
But there have been many people -- maybe this is even the dominant
view still -- who claimed that math was purely deductive in nature.
That has not been my experience.
> I tend to favour a middle-of-the-road path.
> Some of the principles were empirically derived,
> but, some were then proven logically; and from
> there yet other principles were logically derived.
> The point is that I see logic as being inextricably
> related to mathematics, and suspect that the same
> path applies, and that there will never be a single
> integrated and entirely internally consistent ontology
> capable of handling all valid perspectives.
This makes some kind of rough and ready sense to me --
I am usually quite happy enough, for a while, anyway,
when I can find some patch of a formal model or some
piece of a mathematical structure that covers any bit
of real phenomena.
Jon Awbrey
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