Re: Re: Why do you want to do that?]

Thanks, Denny, for retrieving Pat's email.  Here are his examples.

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.

1. flock of sheep.
1a. What is the context?
I am a farmer, sitting on my front porch, looking out over my acre of land.
I see 10 things near the old oak tree.
So far, the thing hierarchy is
begin hierarchy h1;
Thing;
/    i:thing_01;
/    i:thing_02;
/    i:thing_03;:
/    i:thing_04;
/    i:thing_05;
/    i:thing_06;:
/    i:thing_07;
/    i:thing_08;
/    i:thing_09;:
/    i:thing_10;
end hierarchy h1;
1b. Classify the things.
I partition the things into classes, based on their properties.
Partition is a mental operation which produces the classes.
The classes are mental groups.
My farmer context lets me recognize:
thing_10 is my dog;
thing_03, thing_05 isu chicken;
thing_02, thing_04, thing_06, thing_07, thing_08, thing_09 isu sheep;
dog, chicken, sheep iss animal;
Now the hierarchy is
begin hierarchy h2;
Thing;
/    animal;
//        chicken;
///            i:thing_03;
///            i:thing_05;
//        dog;
///            i:my dog;
//        sheep;
///            i:thing_02;
///            i:thing_04;
///            i:thing_06;
///            i:thing_07;
///            i:thing_08;
///            i:thing_09;
end hierarchy h2;
1c. Now I think about whether the sheep are a flock.
To avoid disrupting the nice physical structure of h2, I will
view a "flock" as an abstract set [of sheep] whose spatial
locations satisfy an appropriate proximity constraint.
I see that constraint is satisfied, so I add the propositions
flock_01 is set of sheep with space=proximal;
flock_01 is all sheep;
My new hierarchy is
begin hierarchy h3;
Thing;
/    group;  # abstract
//        set;
///            flock;
////                i:flock_01;
/    entity;  # physical
//        animal;
animal;
/        chicken;
//            i:thing_03;
//            i:thing_05;
/        dog;
//            i:my dog;
/        sheep;
//            i:thing_02;
//            i:thing_04;
//            i:thing_06;
//            i:thing_07;
//            i:thing_08;
//            i:thing_09;
end hierarchy h3;

There you have it, my flock of sheep.

I've got errands to run, so I'm going to sign off now,
and do Pat's 2nd example in another email.

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: "Denny Vrandečić" <dvr@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de>
To: "Richard H. McCullough" <rhm@pioneerca.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:20 AM
Subject: [Fwd: Re: Why do you want to do that?]


> Hi Dick,
>
> here is the mail by Pat with the examples I refered to.
>
> Cheers,
> denny
>

Received on Tuesday, 12 August 2008 22:36:08 UTC