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Saturday, November 19, 2005

 

 The BCNGroup Beadgames

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Discussion at ONTAC forum

 

 

Barry said:

 

<quote>

 

I am not sure about 'affinity' and 'path of least resistance'. Do you

have definitions for these terms. It is not clear to me that

'intention' is a term that should belong to a top-level ontology;

does it not belong rather to the level of psychology? In any case an

intention would be an instance of the type: dependent continuant, in BFO terms.

 

As to affordances, environment, and the like (entities dear to my

heart as a stout Aristotelo-Gibsonian) see:

 

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/medo/Functions_Smith.html

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/bio/niche-smith.htm

 

<end quote>

 

 

Thank you Barry for the responses.  I am trying to provide a type of history of discussions....  for those who might wish to look into the question of "what is occurring with "ontologies"".

 

http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/211.htm

 

I also post in my own "web log" because I find the interspersing of text hard to follow in eforums.

 

 

Regarding Gibson's use of the word "affordance"..

http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/211.htm#_(Note_from_Paul

 

(Note from Paul Prueitt: 

ah, I would have only used the term “affordance” as Gibson used it.  It is noteworthy to note that Karl Pribram and I have discussed Gibson’s notion of affordance and Karl has been very insistent that Gibson refused to find the notion of internal affordance from the living system that is intention.  He feels that this distinction between how Pribram sees internal and external affordances as being quite different in many respects.  “Affinity” (for specific action) and “path of least resistant” (as in Newtonian systems) would not be “technical terms by my use of language in a common way to get at the meaning I attribute to “affordance” (as used by myself, as a type of “merge” of the use by Gibson and Pribram.)

<end Note>

 

Tom Adi and John Sowa and I would all, i feel, appreciate the subsumption of the term "intentionality" within the cell :  dependent continuant...  where this cell is formed as a cross product of a set of elementary "primes".  The subsumption would, however, be "loose".  Developing a crisp ontology about intention is part of what is required if the OASIS notion of "intention"

 

Important aspects in the (Nov 15th) OASIS draft,

 

{ visibility, interaction, effect }

lead to framework elements

{ capability, service, service description }

and

{ exchange, execution context, policy }

 

require an ontology of "intention".  What is the intention behind the request for service?  The presence of the framework cell "dependant continuant" should allow one to instrument (create a program to provide interoperability) for the fulfillment of a web service request given the need to resolve ambiguity created by ontology category and response degeneracy in the use of words. 

 

 

Do you approach the development of ontological elements using a framework of this type?  This "generalFramework theory" is "all" that I am advocating with this theory on stratified ontology, i.e. that an ontology of atomic elements that compose to any "thing" can be found (at least within the context of a field of study - like chemistry).

 

Goggle "stratified ontology"

http://www.hfr.org.uk/ternality-papers/whatgained-ab.htm   (D. K. Steward's work)

and others....  but somehow the concept is generally treated in a confused way.

again my position is at

http://www.ontologystream.com/aSLIP/files/stratification.htm

 

Adi, Sowa and perhaps a few other (Ballard, some in the former Soviet Union) have developed sets of primes that are possible universal event atoms... but somehow the problem of universal semantic primes remains open.  (right?)

 

 

 

***

 

you said

 

"Our job, surely, is to move beyond the domain of what can be loosely held."

 

and I do not find this correct, as I feel that (and John expressed something about this a little bit ago) Wittgenstein in his later years was right regarding "language as being a game of using words to point at reality"

 

By loosely held I would mean a semiotics system that allows people to point at semantics.

 

 

Is this similar to how you feel?