1 / 72

The Ontology of Measurement

The Ontology of Measurement. Barry Smith ONTOLOGIST.cOm. For individuation or delimitation of individuals, I think we can do better than the fig tree with the adventicious roots hanging down. How about a "sea of mountains"? That is what I usually use.

osric
Download Presentation

The Ontology of Measurement

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Ontology of Measurement Barry Smith ONTOLOGIST.cOm

  2. For individuation or delimitation of individuals, I think we can do better than the fig tree with the adventicious roots hanging down. How about a "sea of mountains"? That is what I usually use. Second, as I hope you realize, the animals in cages are a veal farm, not a zoo. The labels, if they are labels at all, would label individual inmates, not kinds. Incorrect details undermine your credibility and distract people like me from your main points. If you want to talk about kinds of animals in a zoo, with labels, why not use a picture of kinds of animals in a zoo, with labels! Lastly, some animal rights people are offended by veal pens, you might be doing that deliberately too I suppose. Minor point, the "road sign" is obviously (to me) not a "road" sign for driving, it is almost certainly a trail sign for hiking.

  3. The world knows colour

  4. The world knows no redness, greenness, blueness, …These types do not reflect joints in reality

  5. The world knows no mild hypertension, moderate hypertension, severe hypertension, … These do not reflect joints in reality

  6. The world knows no Poland, Belgium, Utah, Bavaria, …These do not reflect joints in reality

  7. The world knows no nation-state, parish, census tract, township, legal jurisdiction …These types do not reflect joints in reality

  8. what we think we know what the world knows what we know

  9. The world is largely a system of continua, both on the level of instances and on the level of types But what we know (at least as expressed in language) is always in a sense digital rather than analogue

  10. All of the mentioned entities arises because of our parcellings, griddings, apportionments, segmentations, ...= partitions

  11. Partitions A partition is the result of drawing a (typically complex) fiat boundary over a certain domain Partition

  12. GrGr A simple partition on the level of individuals

  13. GrGr

  14. GrGr

  15. partitions can be extended

  16. partitions can be split and merged

  17. partitions can be split and merged

  18. partitions can be split and merged

  19. A partition can be more or less refined

  20. one partition can be skew to another

  21. Perspectival realism Perspectivalism Different partitions which are skew to each other may be equally veridical representations of the same reality

  22. We can apply partitions to other partitions Cerebral Cortex

  23. Advanced Database Methodology for the Collation of Connectivity Data on the Macaque Brain Klaas E. Stephan, et al., Phil. Trans. Royal Society London B, 2001 Mereotopology of Neuronal Partitions

  24. link: Granular partitions http://ontologist.com

  25. An ontology is a partition, or a complex partitions, on the level of types

  26. Partitions can be created both at the level of instances (Poland vs. Germany) and at the level of types (nation-state vs. colony) Types and instances

  27. focusing primarily on types (dog, nation, leaf, cell, lung, lake …) whose instances have their own complete bona fide boundaries An ontology is a partition at the level of types

  28. = objects which exist independently of our partitions (objects with bona fide boundaries) bona fide objects

  29. bona fide partition of individuals bona fide partition of types

  30. a bona fide type classification

  31. But there are also fiat partitions

  32. = of our referring, perceiving, classifying, counting, measuring, mapping activity GRIDDING ACTIVITY Fiat partitions are artefacts of our cognition

  33. Artist’s Grid

  34. e.g. they are artefacts for counting 1 2 3 4

  35. Better: Numbers belong to the realm of partitions Frege: “Numbers belong to the realm of concepts”

  36. how many numbers? Without partitions

  37. fiat objects = objects created by partitions Partitions can sometimes create objects

  38. fiat partition at the level of types

  39. this tail this torso fiat partition at the level of individuals

  40. Kansas

  41. Ontology of Maps

  42. types represented in an ontology

  43. domestic cow breed: Brahman domestic cow breed: HOLSTEIN species: Bos TAURus

  44. (all scientific language is built around mappings of this sort between instances and types) A label in the zoo is a mapping between an animal instance and an animal type

  45. California Land Cover

  46. a map is a mapping between points in reality and the types represented in a legend California Land Cover x

More Related