- From: John F. Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net>
- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 16:11:08 -0400
- To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion <ontac-forum@colab.cim3.net>
- CC: semantic-web@w3.org, editor@content-wire.com
Folks, All this discussion resembles the parable about seven blind men examining an elephant. Each one examines one part in detail -- the trunk, the tail, an ear, a side, a leg, the underside, or the back -- and draws conclusions that are diametrically opposed to any of the others. Language has even more sides than an elephant. When we're doing math, science, or business, we do use the logical side. But frequently in science and very frequently in business, we are at a loss about the meaning of some observation or puzzle, and we have to fall back on vague intuitions. The hardest part of science is *not* deduction from axioms, but the *discovery* of axioms that are suitable for precise deduction. If all we had was logic, we would never be able to analyze and talk about the typically vague intuitions that lead to some of the greatest discoveries. But if we didn't have the ability to do logic, we could never explore the consequences of those intuitions, and we'd be cheated in business by any shyster who could. Following are a couple of quotations: "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." Albert Einstein "If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability." Vannevar Bush We cannot understand language if we don't recognize that logic is part of every natural language. But we cannot use logic effectively unless we recognize that our precise axioms were derived from some initially vague intuitions. John Sowa
Received on Saturday, 27 May 2006 20:11:52 UTC