Azamat, John, all, (01)
AA> ... the task of ontology is to give us the overall
> structures, uniformities, patterns, laws and constraints
> within which all the many changes in the world take place... (02)
JS> I don't disagree. My only point is that it might take us
> millions of years to get a complete answer. We certainly
> don't have anything remotely resembling a final solution
> today -- or even a good outline of a final solution. (03)
Isn't there a middle way? How about an upper ontology for
human-universal pragmatics (if I may risk miscommunication with
that choice of words...)? Something like this :- (04)
The upper ontology asymptote we might first seek would be one
which frames the overall structures, uniformities, patterns,
laws and constraints in the human knowledge discovery and
creation process as we currently find it, so as to better enable
collaboration (better than the previous version, that is)
between all the various overlapping and intermingled bodies of
people presently on planet Earth. (05)
Surely, as John might say, small groups of people often work
most effectively together by totally ignoring their neighbours.
But we do have global problem-areas, from global e-commerce
through global resource management.perhaps to global
e-government. And scary though such notions often are, there
are many pressing realities clamouring for attention, and many
existing examples in how to divide and balance powers. (06)
It may be that some lattice such as John proposes is the best
route to such a pragmatic facilitating mechanism. But it may
also be that there is a more direct route, somewhere... (07)
Christopher (08)
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