Re: [xtm-wg] The Nature of Things...

["Chris Angus" <chris.angus@btinternet.com>]

Jack

You state "I believe that, in the grand scheme of things, we really ought to
be thinking about modelling the hard things;  the easy ones will fall out
quite naturally."

I think that the trouble is that people have been finding it quite hard to
model the 'easy' things well, so the idea of modelling the hard things can
seem like too much of a challenge.

I think that the rationale behind Matthew's paper was that when we construct
models (in the sense of traditional data models) it is probably a good idea
to model things "the way they are".  The paper was produced as a result of
looking at some specific modelling problems in the engineering domain (but
in no way restricted to the engineering domain).  These problems were not
specifically of a Newtonian nature but were more to do with the handling of
abstract entities.

When you start looking at other forms (e.g. non-Newtonian) of system then
other things are coming into play, notably the interplay of the metalanguage
and object language levels and a greater need for handling abstract
entities.

It seems clear to me that topic maps have to have the ability to express
things in the 'hard' domains as well as the domain that you describe as
'easy'.  But then we are not trying to come up with some all-encompassing
data model for those domains.

Chris Angus
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Chris.Angus@BTinternet.com or Chris.C.Angus@opc.shell.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Park" <jackpark@verticalnet.com>
To: <xtm-wg@egroups.com>
Sent: 24 October 2000 15:14
Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] The Nature of Things...


> Ann,
> I am v. pleased that you provide me a hook with which to elaborate on my
> view.  You point out that Matthew provides a metaphysical underpinning
> suitable for effective modelling of _engineering_ systems.  I agree. I
would
> claim that _engineering_ systems are primarily Newtonian in nature, while
> most other systems -- social, biological, political, and so forth -- are
> not.  I would say, after Rosen, that _engineering_ systems are easy, the
> others are complex, and thus, not easy.  I believe that, in the grand
scheme
> of things, we really ought to be thinking about modeling the hard things;
> the easy ones will fall out quite naturally.
> Cheers
> Jack
>
> From: Wrightson, Ann <Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk>
> > Jack...
> >
> > Yes, there are many views. Matthew's document is interesting because its
> > view provides a metaphysical underpinning suitable for effective
modelling
> > of engineering systems. As I discussed in a (much) earlier mail I think,
> > there are different views which will be appropriate to other information
> > domains, eg legal. To me, utility in metaphysical views is itself an
> > interesting and distinctive perspective brought in by information
> modelling
> > - I believe that the question of engineering-style fitness-for-purpose
for
> > "a metaphysics" would have been v. strange to most of the authors I read
> for
> > my metaphysics course at University...
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Ann W.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Jack Park [mailto:jackpark@verticalnet.com]
> > > Sent: 23 October 2000 17:44
> > > To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
> > > Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] The Nature of Things...
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Wrightson, Ann <Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk>
> > >
> > > > May I strongly recommend...
> > > >
> > > > http://www.pdtsolutions.co.uk/standard/wg10/n307/wg10n307.pdf
> > > >
> > > > - as a succinct exposition of some of the basic
> > > nature-of-things issues we
> > > > keep coming back to.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > >
> > > > Ann W.
> > >
> > > I have read with great interest the pdf mentioned above.  I
> > > would like to
> > > respond with a suggestion that there exist other points of view on the
> > > matter of metaphysics, some of which do not, IMHO, get
> > > sufficient press
> > > coverage to keep them out in the collective *minds eye*. I
> > > must point out,
> > > however, that this post, in no sense of the idea, tries to
> > > detract from the
> > > importance of the Matthew West's paper. Indeed, the paper
> > > covers a number of
> > > important issues that were also covered by C.S. Peirce and
> > > others.  In fact,
> > > there has been a class of reasoning systems based on
> > > qualitative physics
> > > that cover, with exception of modal logics, much of the space
> > > of issues
> > > discussed in West's paper. We do have the capability to do
> > > this kind of
> > > modeling.
> > >
> > > In 1954, N. Raschevsky (U. Chicago), one of the inventors of
> > > mathematical
> > > biology, began to wonder *what it's all about*.  He pointed
> > > out that we can
> > > take a living cell apart but we do not know enough about it
> > > to put it back
> > > together.  He began to wonder *what is life?*.  He wrote a
> > > paper at that
> > > time in which he began to invent a new science, *relational
> > > biology*.  He
> > > first posited that graph theory should be enough; he was
> > > looking for a way
> > > to model a canonical living thing.  He was reacting to
> > > reductionist thinking
> > > ;   He never really completed that work, though he later
> > > wrote a book about
> > > extensions to set theory (_Organismic Sets_) that he thought
> > > would provide
> > > the tools.  Raschevsky's student Robert Rosen later
> > > discovered category
> > > theory and posited that to be a sufficient mathematical
> > > structure on which
> > > to build relational biology.  His book _Life Itself_ detailed
> > > his thoughts
> > > on this topic, covering what he called the *modeling relation* -- the
> > > relationship between the world of actual events and the world
> > > of inferences.
> > > A web site:
> > > http://views.vcu.edu/complex/
> > > is devoted to his work.
> > >
> > > Ann W. earlier mentioned the notion of Information Flow, due
> > > to Jon Barwise.
> > > I consider that an insightful idea; information flow is based
> > > upon category
> > > theory.  Recently, Robert Kent has taken that work to an XML
> > > dialect he
> > > calls IFF <Information Flow Framework> (http://www.ontologos.org).
> > >
> > > The thrust of this post is to point out that some scholars
> > > are concerned
> > > that reductionist frameworks may not offer the tools we need
> > > to represent
> > > and discuss the metaphysics of the universe as it really
> > > exists.  Is there a
> > > connection between this notion and the needs of XTM?  I think
> > > there is, but
> > > I also *know* it will not -- perhaps,indeed, should not -- be
> > > addressed
> > > until quite possibly XTM v 3.0 or beyond; I'd like to think
> > > we could agree
> > > to explore such a path in the mean time. Bernard Vatant,
> > > others, and I have
> > > been conducting a kindof discussion along these lines over on
> > > the other
> > > topic maps mailing list and now at Bernard's new
> > > quicktopic.com web site.
> > > Jack
> > >
> > >
> > >
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