Re: Why do you want to do that?

Re: Why do you want to do that?1.Yes, I think we do have different definitions of "individual".
We should have some more discussions about this.  I would like
to read all your papers,  Please give me the references.

2. In my latest response to Frank Manola, I identify the 
assumption you are making, which leads to your false conclusion.

I expect you will say that I am making the assumption, and drawing the false conclusion.  I think we should discuss that.

My position is that 
    { X ismem IndividualSet; } xor { X ismem ClassSet; };
is true in all contexts.

Dick McCullough
Ayn Rand do speak od mKR done;
mKE do enhance od Real Intelligence done;
knowledge := man do identify od existent done;
knowledge haspart proposition list;
http://mKRmKE.org/

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Pat Hayes 
  To: Richard H. McCullough 
  Cc: Semantic Web at W3C ; KR-language ; Adam Pease 
  Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 10:36 PM
  Subject: Re: Why do you want to do that?


  At 7:44 PM -0700 8/11/08, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
    See below.

    Dick McCullough
    Ayn Rand do speak od mKR done;
    mKE do enhance od Real Intelligence done;
    knowledge := man do identify od existent done;
    knowledge haspart proposition list;
    http://mKRmKE.org/

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Pat Hayes
      To: Richard H. McCullough
      Cc: Semantic Web at W3C ; KR-language ; Adam Pease
      Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 12:26 PM
      Subject: Re: Why do you want to do that?


      At 9:53 AM -0700 8/11/08, Richard H. McCullough wrote:

        Let me clarify several things.



        1. mKR can handle an X which is both an Individual & a Class

        in the same context.



        2. Since I consider (1) to be wrong, epistemologically,



      You have said this repeatedly, but you have never given any reason for it or tried to persuade anyone else of it. Since there have been several examples already suggested which seem to contradict it quite clearly, I would be far more interested in hearing arguments, than simply a repetition of your opinion. This is actually an ontological issue rather than an epistemological one, so epistemology is somewhat irrelevant.

      By the way, you have still not explained what you mean by 'individual'. You restricted yourself to physical individuals, which is clearly far too restrictive and in any case begs the question at issue. Do you have a more general account of what you mean?

      Dick responds:
      The theory applies equally to physical individuals and abstract individuals.
      But it's harder to define an abstract individual; I don't have a good definition on the tip of my tongue.
      I'm still going to avoid that question for now, because I don't want to invest the time to come up with a
      good definition.

      As for the clearer case of physical individuals, you are not really "hearing" my arguments,
      because you have already accepted a different conclusion. 


  Im not hearing them because you havn't given any. That's not a logical fallacy on my part. BTW, its insulting to accuse someone of being this incompetent at logic.


      I forget the name of that particular logical fallacy.
      But the bottom line is: you have assumed your conclusion is true without proof


  My conclusion, as you put it, is that something can be both a class and an individual: or, to put the same point in a different way, a class can be an individual. Now, I am not assuming this without proof: on the contrary, I have written quite detailed expositions of tightly defined logical formalisms in which classes can be individuals, in the usual sense of 'individual'. In any case, the argument is quite simple: to be an individual is simply to be an entity which is in the universe of discourse; classes (sets) can be in the universe of discourse: ergo, classes can be individuals. You apparently are using a different sense of "individual", but you have not told us what your sense is nor why this conclusion (that an RMc-individual cannot be a class) follows.


      , and asserted that my conclusion is
      false because your conclusion is true.


  I asserted that your conclusion is false because it is provably false, given the usual understanding of "individual". I am interested to discover what your sense of the word is, in order to see what your argument is like.



      I'll give you my "physical individual" argument again.


  Thanks, though you have not previously given this argument in this thread.


      An Individual is an "external" thing directly perceived by a human.


  A physical thing is external, yes, though it (obviously) does not have to be perceivable by a human. Humans cannot see sodium atoms, for example, but they are physical all the same. Im not sure what 'directly' perceivable means.


      A Class is an "internal" thing -- an abstract mental group of Individuals.


  No, it isn't. There is nothing particularly 'mental' about a class. Classes are simply collections of entities. They are abstract, if you like, but that does not make them "mental". In fact, I don't really know what you mean by a "mental group".


      A group of Individuals is mutually exclusive from an Individual.


  If what you said above were correct, this would indeed follow, but it isn't. Consider for example a flock of sheep. This is just a 'physical' as an individual sheep: in fact, you might well be able to see the flock if it is suitably gathered together. But it is a collection, a class, all the same. Or, in the other direction, consider a mental individual such as a particular act of remembering someone's name. That is an individual, but it is just as 'mental' and 'internal' as any class can be. So in both of these cases your argument fails immediately.



      Even if you allow a group to have only 1 member,
      the most you can say is that the group is equivalent to the member
      in some sense.


  I'd rather not say that, but keep the group and its member distinct.


       You can't say that the member is a group, or that
      the group is a member.


  Well, in fact you can, though I agree its not very intuitive. (Check out 'non-well-founded set theories' in the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.) But in any case, even if I concede this point, its not the point we were arguing about. To say that a group is not the same as its member is not the same as saying that the group cannot be an individual.


  Pat



      Dick


      Pat


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  IHMC               (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973   home
  40 South Alcaniz St.       (850)202 4416   office
  Pensacola                 (850)202 4440   fax
  FL 32502                     (850)291 0667    cell
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