But I find the variety in how terms are used is largely due to people using them to convey *different* concepts, and not due to any variable 'connectivity' that could be measured. My guess is that the reason you can come up with exceptions for any abstract category assignment is that you're interested in how nature is both highly orderly and indefinable.
Making things *look* hopeless isn't the point of course, though that throws lots of people off the track. It's that when you can narrow down why something is impossible it often shows you wide open doors for other things. That's what physics did with it's classical theory that kept dividing by zero... over and over. It was really worth concentrating attention on that!! Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 9:57 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > you kept coming back > > with the additional levels of distinctions that a careful > application > > of categories to physical things must encounter. Do you > have a method > > of doing that, or is that part of the method of the Cyc data format > > somehow? > I don't have an algorithm for that, but it seems mechanical enough. > Imagine taking the scientific literature from a field and > converting it > into a set of machine readable assertions and propositions. Now take > that large and dense set of assertions and propositions and > combine it > with a large common sense ontology database and logic engine > like Cyc. > It seems to me one ought to be able to do some strong automated > consistency checks, find terms that aren't well connected to > other terms > (probably suggesting they are under-described), terms that > are handles > for deconstructable composites of other ideas, and relative vague > connections to other ideas thanks to Cyc's general and > domain-specific > databases. > > I'm really just brainstorming about how to approach semantic > data mining > to find, for example, terms that are reflexive and ways that > they might > reasonably fail to be. I'm certainly not trying to suggest as a > general approach to understanding complex systems.. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
