Re: facts of reality, context, possible worlds

KR is strictly reality-based.  It reflects my understanding of how humans form concepts of reality.   My "prerequisites" are a minimal set of concepts used to measure reality.  Space and time are measures of changes in the properties of existents. 

Kant and some particle physicists claim that consciousness creates reality -- i.e., that their mathematical models ARE reality, and that experimental measurements are only approximations of that reality.  I say that experimental measurements ARE reality, and mathematical models are only approximations of that reality.
============ 
Dick McCullough 
knowledge := man do identify od existent done
knowledge haspart proposition list

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: wsng 
  To: 'RDF-Interest' 
  Cc: 'Richard H. McCullough' 
  Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 4:23 AM
  Subject: AW: facts of reality, context, possible worlds


  Richard H. McCullough wrote:
  > I said:
  > "tabula rasa" specifies the meaning of isa, has, person, sex, male
  > (and existent, attribute, action, relation, proposition, haspart, do,
  ...)
  > You said:
  > Your tabula doesn't seem to be entirely rasa then :)
  > 
  > No, it's not entirely "rasa".  I added a few things (sex, male) to
  enhance efficiency.
  > But everything else in the list above is "rasa".  
  > That is, those concepts are prerequisites for "talking about reality".

  This sounds like a Kantian approach to knowledge acquisition;
  Kant also put a special emphasis on time and space, which are,
  in his opinion, 'built-in' into the human mind.

  However, later philosophers showed that while you need
  some prerequisites to turn perception into knowledge,
  you don't need to select the Kantian set of prerequisites
  (his 'a priori's).

  A nice example is the current subatomic particle physics.
  Suppose you measure the momentum of an electron. As
  Heisenbergs uncertainty principle states, you can't at
  the same time determine the electron's location. The
  electron movement action somehow happens 'everywhere', 
  just with different probabilities for each place.
  If I understand it correctly, in KR you would have to write:
  at space=world {electron do move with momentum=...}
  which is not false, but also doesn't capture the way
  particle physicists think about space. AFAIK there
  are physics theories where time/space dimensions are
  blurred even more, but 

  Note that RDF also had to select some prerequisites to capture
  knowledge, but they are related to a certain way of thinking 
  (categorization, description by properties, deduction), 
  not related to a certain way of looking at the 'real world' 
  (time, space). Also, AFAIK this set of prerequisites wasn't chosen
  because people think it is the best way to reason, but because
  this way of thinking can be formalized and 'automated'.

  Wolf Siberski
  (siberski at learninglab de)