Re: Ontological commitment: cultural Bias and Euro/Anglo Saxon centrism

Hi Milton,

Brilliantly put.

Your reminder that Quine isn’t the only ontological tradition worth 
citing really resonates.

Yes — Sanskrit, Buddhist thought, Greek/Latin all offer precise 
epistemologies, and I’d add Chinese, Japanese, and ancient script 
lineages (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja, Cuneiform, Hieroglyphs) to that list.

These systems aren’t just “extra references” — they are living 
demonstrations that KR can be expressed spatially, symbolically, and 
mathematically without the narrow ontological commitments usually cited 
in Eurocentric academic loops.

One of my design goals for K3D is exactly that: map Braille, Cuneiform, 
Kanji, Yoruba, Indigenous relational grammars, and other literacy 
systems into spatial KR nodes so that every script is a first-class 
citizen in the House/Galaxy architecture.

We want Braille bumps, cuneiform wedges, and Sanskrit sandhi to exist in 
the same environment as English RDF triples.

Thanks again for making the cultural bias explicit.

I’d love to keep aligning with your Mandala framework to ensure the KR 
we’re building doesn’t silently exclude entire ontological worlds.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel

On 12/3/25 1:00 PM, Milton Ponson wrote:
> I quote from an earlier email by Paola as a rebuttal to my post about 
> KR being a domain of mathematics the following  snippet:
>
> /_3. Cultural Bias and Eurocentrism_/
> /_
> _/
> /_Many widely used systems were created in Western institutions during 
> specific historical periods._/
> /_Thus they often reflect:_/
> /_
> _/
> /_Western cultural priorities_/
> /_
> _/
> /_Colonial perspectives_/
> /_
> _/
> /_Christian or Euro-American worldviews_/
>
> Yet when we look at the following page and the references, it seems 
> that only Eurocentric and Anglo-Saxon perspectives are acknowledged.
>
> https://philpapers.org/browse/ontological-commitment
>
> Many other cultures have takes on epistemology and ontology and also 
> ontological commitment.
>
> In simple terms. Language is used to communicate. We can communicate 
> about things that exist and things we can think of or create in our minds.
>
> E.g. Sanskrit is very useful in precisely describing things. It is 
> also a main vehicle used in Buddhist philosophical texts.
> But there are many other cultures with "precise" languages, including 
> ancient Greek and Latin.
>
> I am very reluctant to call Quine's definition the accepted standard.
>
> And it so happens that a generalized MATHEMATICAL framework can be 
> created that includes Quine's interpretation as an option.
>
> That is exactly the idea behind my mandala graph theory.
>
> For KR for AI I  can agree that ontological commitment is necessary 
> precisely because of the intrinsic nature and objective of AI.
>
> But knowledge can be represented mathematically and linguistically 
> without the type of ontological commitment needed for AI.
>
> Milton Ponson
> Rainbow Warriors Core Foundation
> CIAMSD Institute-ICT4D Program
> +2977459312
> PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
> Aruba, Dutch Caribbean