ONT Re: Effective Logical Formalism
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ELF. Discussion Note 2
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa
Gary, Jack, John, Murray, et al.
I will revive this line of inquiry about L_base, RDF, S/CL, Topic Maps, XCL --
and all those ilks of logical filiations that may in the fullness of time be
spun from the spinnerettes of our global arachnephiles, but I will resurrect
it here, under this bigger umbrella, all the better to attend to more generic
issues about the species of elite or elective logical framework that SUO will
need to do its thing.
Murray wants me especially to read through L_base and XCL with him:
http://www.w3.org/TR/lbase/
http://www.altheim.com/specs/xcl/1.0/
But I will only do that if joins the SUO or Ontology List and
promises to not spindle, fold, and mutilate my brain too much.
But for now, here is where we left off:
JS: No problem:
JA: I wish you wouldn't say that -- it only makes me worry more --
but I will take the tack of assigning your use of "no problem"
to the same "pragmatic equivalence class" (PEC) as the typical
mathematical use of "clearly" or "obviously".
JA: At any rate, well, at 'my' rate, let me go through this real slowly,
as I think that these things are important, but I know that they can
be tricky, so don't go deleting the record of progress -- I am being
optimistic -- as both my LTM and my STM are not what they used to be.
JA: When you say "r(x, y)" is a false statement,
this is to say that r is false of <x, y>.
Do you really not see a problem here?
JS: The statement "r(x,y)" can be translated
to the following statement in English:
"r is a relation and r is true of x and y."
JS: That statement is false.
JA: Are you saying that things like "Joe_SixPack(x,y)"
would be false statements?
JS: Yes, because the ordered pair (x,y) is not in the extension of Joe_SixPack.
JA: Okay, I knew there had to be some kind of explanation.
JA: The expression "r(x, y)" is really more complex than it seems.
It is really a conjunction of two pieces, r_1 and r_2, where:
r_1. "r is a relation"
r_2. "r is true of the ordered pair <x, y>"
JA: Now, what is the CL_status of your paraphrase in English?
Is this an equivalence that CL stands by in formal terms,
or is it just an informal language explanation of intent?
JA: You have already said that individuals and relations are not marked in syntax,
so what is the CL_status of the statement r_1, that says that r is a relation?
Jon Awbrey
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