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Re: [ontac-forum] Re: The world may fundamentally be inexplicable

To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Smith, Barry" <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 19:10:27 +0100
Message-id: <6.2.3.4.2.20060111190453.03ed6da8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>John Sowa:
>Yes indeed.  Once we accept that point, the major issues to be
>discussed are:  how big is the core, how many hubs will there be,
>how are all these things related to one another, and most of all,
>how do they relate to legacy systems, which will coexist with
>the brave new world for many years, if not decades.
>
>The biggest battles arise when people want to put their own pet
>theories into the core.    (01)

John, is this not what you are now doing?    (02)


>   Murray Altheim, who has had a great deal
>of practical experience in these matters, listed the following
>five requirements for the core:
>
> >  1. a means of establishing [subject] identity
can you formulate this in English?    (03)


> >  2. a facet, or property relation    (04)

this seems to me to be entirely too general; do you mean:    (05)

we distinguish between independent entities (such as people) and 
dependent entities (such as color, weight, ...)?    (06)

> >  3. the class-instance relation    (07)

I propose that we distinguish classes and types (universals, kinds -- 
choose your favorite synonym); a class would then be the extension of a type    (08)

> >  4. the superclass-subclass relation (which I later redefined
> >     to be based on a mereological or collection basis, ala Cyc)    (09)

the mereological (part-of) relation should be distinguished from the 
supertype-subtype relation, which should be distinguished in turn 
from the superclass-subclass relatin    (010)

there is no type <things weighing greater than 10 grams on John Sowa's desk>
but there is a class    (011)

> >  5. a means of expressing context    (012)

This is the most difficult one. Let's go for the low-hanging fruit. 
(Items 1.-4. are already fairly clearly worked out, after all.)
BS     (013)



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