Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Notational Standards
discussion à
The next generation knowledge tools
Dick,
RB> I have been suggesting for sometime that Paul seek to organize his community with respect to some set of foundational "defining questions" ...
That's a good idea
RB> The quote that "human knowledge" is far from self-consistent > was taken from Doug's closing remarks on his 20 year findings > -- and I agree with him.
The following comment, derived from something Doug Lenat said, is close to what I was saying about "knowledge soup":
But I want to emphasize that you have to distinguish three totally different kinds of things:
1. The world (or the universe) as it is in all its glory.
2. Any particular theory about some aspect of the world.
3. The total mass (or soup) of data, facts, theories, beliefs, hypotheses, etc., of any single individual or group (such as a school of thought, a religious sect, or a scientific discipline).
Consistency or inconsistency is a property of statements or theories (such as #2 or #3), not of the world (#1).
Any theory in #2 must be consistent, if there is any hope of using it for any purpose whatever.
But the total soup of data and hypotheses about the data is always incomplete. Complete consistency is impossible to achieve unless and until all science at every level of detail has been completely finished and codified. No finite being or group of beings can achieve such a codification in any finite length of time.
RB> The hurdle to be jumped within our school is the notion that only scientific theories deserve the name "theory"...
That's a straw man. Logicians define a theory as nothing more nor less than a collection of propositions, without any value judgments of any kind. Scientists usually require at least some supporting evidence before calling such a collection a theory. Many nonscientists talk about theories in a negative, deprecating way. I fail to see any "hurdle" to be jumped.
RB> John observably refuses to use the classical term "metaphysics" in favor of positivist use of "abstract"....
How many times do I have to tell you not to caricature what I say? Look at Chapter 7 of my 1984 book, which has a quite a bit to say about Buddhist logic and philosophy, and my Knowledge Representaiton book of 2000, which makes some comparisons of Heraclitus and Lao Tse.
RB> I ... accept far more of Quine, than John finds acceptable.
I read a very large percentage of Quine's voluminous writings. And the fact that I find him misguided on some points does not mean that I haven't learned a great deal from him on others. If you want to say anything about my comments, please quote the relevant passages verbatim.
RB> The lyceum and academy of Greece within which Aristotle and Plato taught and wrote were not concerned with the "science > of human behavior". They were there to teach presumedly exalted modes of reasoning.....
This statement is misguided and it is hopeless to attempt to correct it. Fact is that in the millennium from 600 BC to 400 AD in Greece and surrounding areas, the amount of ferment, discussion, and argumentation from all points of view was incredible.
During that time, the same roads that carried silk from China and spices from India also carried merchants, soldiers, scholars, and priests of every conceivable persuasion. Many people have observed remarkable coincidences in the ideas of four remarkable minds around 500 BC: Heraclitus in Asia Minor, Zoroaster in Persia, Gautama Buddha in India, and Lao Tse in China. Also around that time, Pythagoras went to study in Egypt where he was inducted into the Egyptian priesthood and mastered their system of math. There is also some indication that he visited the Babylonians to learn some of their math before going to Croton on the Mediterranean (as distinguished from my home in Croton on Hudson).
Summary: To demonstrate the value of your software, you have to show some solid results.
I have *ZERO* confidence in any hype that tries to distinguish the hype from "a burning field of strawmen" -- to use a phrase that was applied to a talk by Jerry Fodor.
John