SUO: Re: Abstraction, Analogy, Example, Icon, Metaphor, Model, Morphism, Paradigm, Prototype, Simulation

[Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>]

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Let us return once again to Aristotle's picture of reasoning by analogy,
by example, by "paradigm" -- to use a transliteration of the Greek word
that he actually used for this "complex and mixed figure of syllogism" --
and let us now ask some questions that come to mind as we muse on its
form in relation to the objects of our present several enterprises.

|                               Comprehension
|                                     C
|                                     o
|                                    /|\
|                                   / | \
|                                  /  |  \
|                                 /   |   \
|                                /    |    \
|                               /     |     \
|                              /   R u l e   \
|                             /       |       \
|                            /        |        \
|                           /         |         \
|                          /          |          \
|                      F a c t        A        F a c t
|                        /       Abstractive       \
|                       /        Hypostasis?        \
|                      /        *           *        \
|                     /       *               *       \
|                    /   C a s e             C a s e   \
|                   /     *                       *     \
|                  /    *                           *    \
|                 /   *                               *   \
|                /  *                                   *  \
|               / *                 Arrow                 * \
|              o---------------------->----------------------o
|             X <------------------<----->------------------> E
|          Unknown                 Analogy                Effective
|          Reality                                        Facsimile

Two things come to mind as I stare at this image once again:

1.  Where have have all the signs gone?
    That is to say, where does one place
    the syntactic domain in this picture?

2.  What kind of arrow, map, morphism
    is this that is shot into the air
    from X of what we nary know where?

In lieu of answers, so far as they go:

1.  All of the nodes in this picture stand for objects,
    abstract, concrete, familiar, mysterious, or so on,
    but objects of discussion and thought for all that.
    You may assume that each such object is surrounded
    all around by the buzzing and booming profusion of
    signs that are customarily found flitting about it.

2.  Okay, it's not really an arrow of the straightforwardest sort,
    since its source is suspect on many a score, hardly coming up
    to the mark of being amendable or impable to formalization in
    all of the ways that "your average working mathematicians off
    the streets" -- who shall remain nameless on this occasion --
    would prefer to see all of its feathers pinned down.  And yet,
    if we allow for partial formalizations -- and we ought to get
    in the habit of allowing for what Reality forces on us, if we
    know what's good for us, then it is literally unexceptionably
    feasible to treat this arrow from the formative to the formal
    as an "arrow of formalization" itself.

Enough fora while,

Jon Awbrey

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ACROYMARSOBACEOWITS --

A Cumulative Run Of Your Mill And Random Sample Of
Beads And Clues Entangled Or Woven Into This Skein:

Inquiry:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00657.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00671.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00676.html

Abstractions, Universals, & Signs:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00977.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00979.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00980.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01010.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01011.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01019.html

Abstraction, Analogy, Model, Morphism:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01251.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01293.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01350.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01772.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04768.html

Hypostasize, Objectify, Personify, Reflect, Reify:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01969.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01973.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02005.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02123.html

Expostulation Epistles:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04748.html

Brouillon Projet, Les Yeux Des Argues, La Laine Des Cartes:

http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04749.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04755.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04758.html

John Sowa's World-Model-Theory Triptych:
 
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/gloss.htm
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/causal.htm
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/mthworld.gif

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