NOTES
historically and linguistically we divide the world into tangible things, which we think of intuitively as real, and intangible things, to which we're less sure about
in pre Socratic/Aristotelean ontology, Heraclitus and Parmenides - who are not in contradistinction but are complementary - recognised the paradox of existence
Heraclitus expressed a doctrine of permament change (fluxist), and Parmenides taught the non-existence of change and motion in reality (substantialist). fundamentally they say the same thing - when the former describes the experience of reality over time and the latter the experience of absolute reality of this moment, so the classic paradox of ontology is thus described: that of both being and non-being in the same subject - nothing remains identical to itself outside this instant, where it is absolute in its identity
Aristotelean ontology first codified the law of contradiction by postulating that the world is separable into subject-object orders and that the representations of the world that flow from this basis are logically comprehensible as ontological descriptions of the world
an essential problem intrinsic in this description is that the logic employed is founded on the absolute condition, rather than the principle of dynamic change, which, by necessity, always remains externalised in this ontology
the distinction between the tangible and intangible, is suspect since through differently situated inspections we find that the classic paradox is embodied because all supposedly solid, substantial objects become more ephemeral, distributed and transitive. the whole edifice of the universe seems more constructed from interactions between smaller, simpler phenomena that are themselves only patterns of interactions between even simpler phenomena: our division of the this universe into objects, properties and structures is a strategy designed to help us negotiate it, rather than as a true description of reality.
(the universe is not divided into hardware and software: there is only software)
through the descension through levels of inspection the further problem of the ontological problem of the unity of the object needs to be addressed
cases
1. COMPLEX OBJECT/COMPONENT SYSTEM expert system a) expert system b) expert system c)
expert systems a), b), c) (conceptual interfaces), describe the object/system differently, but cannot formally describe how the object is one and the same ontological problem is how to ensure the commensurability of descriptions of the same object/component system as one possible entity within a unique topology
2. COMPLEX PROCESS (of becoming-object/system) expert system a) expert system b) expert system c)
objects are descritions of the instantations of processes at t(1) dynamic processes are always becoming+ over time t —>t(n) through the procedural nature of ideation, prototyping (beta, alpha), developmental suppression, realising radical potentia, diffusion, redundancy, further revision, adaptation, re-appropriation, etc
3. SUBSTANTIATED OBJECT/PROCESS "man" "medium" "white" "double" "at table" "now" "sitting" "wears ring" "types" "is written"
descriptive set/taxonomy of Categories, the most general of things, for saying something of something at t(1)
semantic ontologies make complete descriptions of a thing, statements are made according to different categories ( substances, qualia, quantity, location….)
the http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/categories.html Aristotelean model of categories is monodimensional as it begins by stipulating the most fundamental and universal category, matter or substantia, and bifurcates, terminating with a specific set of cross categorical relationships that situate an object in a descriptive framework that looks like a simple data structure tree
the model only makes sense if a differentiation is maintained between the essential and the contingent predicates, and that potentia will become substantia, ie becoming actual through phasal development the law of contradiction (A cannot be B unless it is B) is upheld, and matter and form are conceievd of as inseparable and ontologically linked because matter functions as an objects potential and form acts as an objects actuation, the making of the object it actually is
similarly, scalar hiearchies of nested extensions combined with orders of intensional complexity eg. [physical world[chemical world[biological world[social world[mental world]]]]] are measured in orders of magnitude and with the apprehension of some integrative level through the failure to deal with some phenomena - eg. understanding physics through biology - which makes for a new discourse, a new integrative level [meta]…the specification hierarchy predicates the observer at the innermost level, unique as an embodiment of the various classes defined, as in [dissipative structure[living system[mammal[man[white[middle-class[aging lothario["jonathan"]]]]]]]] aristoltelean in form and generative of anthropological myths as a model of developmentsee http://www.nbi.dk/~natphil/salthe/hierarchy_th.html scalar
"Because no animal ever plays the role of an observer, one may assert that they never enter into relationships with neutral objects."
Jacob Von Uexkull http://www.zbi.ee/~uexkull/ , in "The Theory of Meaning", Semiotica (42)-1982
the later http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/brentano Brentano's multi-dimensional ontology posits a concept of substance based on non-overlapping substantial differences (such as location and qualia) so avoiding the need to distinguish between substantial and accidental forms. furthermore there is no need for a theory of individuation (as upheld by the Aristotelian concept of matter) as there is more than one edge of substantial difference, then these edges can themselves individuate a thing - so in this new multidimensional ontology the problem of coupling matter and form no longer exists see http://www.tu-berlin.de/fb1/kogwiss/technikphilosophie.htm
this is still situated in an Aristotelean tradition as an engaged cultural practice, but the Brentano model can be developed by thinking of systems as being multidimensional on various levels:
the cognitive level - by which the system is conceived according to which expert system is applied the formal level - by which formal concepts are applied to it (which are applied by the varying cognitive perspectives) the evolutionary level - by which the system proceeds the various stages of development etc
because the system develops in time, and may never be closed, the various levels described are all subject to latency and dynamical relationships that may post hoc chart this or that concordance or outcome (eg object) for this or that period of time, but won't individuate the system kairotically because the framework posited is one that asks for the purpose of its application at the moment of formalisation…this is why a philosophy of technology will fail if it sets about describing only "thinghood" http://www.tu-berlin.de/fb1/kogwiss/Buffalo.htm see
to clarify, systems are more usefully defined as essentially multisubjective (ie; from different cognitive perspectives) and temporally located, and only naive ontologies use subject/objecthood - furthermore, a philosophy of technology fails if it attempts to describe its subjects in terms of a transcendental object ontology or concepts derived from tools (things) http://www.dualnature.tudelft.nl/programdetails/nwodualnature.htm see
science originated as "experimental observation" - standards etc under which the subject-object separation is enlarged by way of "observer and observable" paradigm, related to the logic of predicatives in theory, however, the number of properties are infinite - therefore the experimental observation is shoehorned in to the ontology of things-as-essences at the core of Aristotle leading to the development of standards and the implementation of negligible observables. this paradigm enforces the separation of experimentation from environment, so that reality is adapted to the ontological structure of science #1 1 and not vice versa (so systems became more importantly causal, environment acausal)
so, for example, contemporary semantic ontologies are minimum sets of terms used in a specific domain, definitions for those terms and defined relations between the terms and they can range from simple controlled vocabularies to structurally complex representations employing descriptive logics see http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/semantic/ discussion
examples include the ongoing http://www.cyc.com Cyc project attempting to build a huge semantic net that would cover the commonsense knowledge of an ordinary human; in biology the use of semantic ontologies that allow for database annotations to be standardized, and makes sophisticated queries possible for humans and computer - the GO http://www.geneontology.org/ Gene Ontology has emerged as the de facto standard for gene product annotation; and the Web Ontology Language http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/ OWL which is a semantic markup language for publishing and sharing ontologies on the World Wide Web is developed as a vocabulary extension of RDF (the Resource Description Framework) and is derived from the DAML+OIL Web Ontology Language (it is the ontology used by the semwebbot application http:space.frot.org spacenamespace and http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ FOAF friend-of-a-friend homepage linking software;
furthermore all machines built in this adapted version of reality are established under this ontological intervention - technological innovations are material instantations of this logic
whats interesting is that the collapse of the big meta narratives under the weight of scientific knowledge and technological proliferation, and this collapse being the distinction of the post-modern era, hasn't concommittantly caused the collapse of the underlying (naive) ontology > object orientated programming
1. posits that the theories of natural science embody our best source of knowledge about the world and entail ontological committments which, for each science, are merelogical, further defined in a theory of correspondence (between the sciences), and, at a meta level, formed into canonical expressions (expressable in first order logic) "to be is to be the value of a bound variable" - which expresses the necessity to examine what predicates hold the bound variables in its canons - this is his criterion of ontological committment - which has, for example, influenced the paradigm of object-orientated software in database ontologies. both Quines theory of correspondence and information sciences concern for a canonical backbone of taxonomical reference are kind of formulations of an ontological Esperanto