Re: Looking for a Razor and Triangles and Meanings

Re: Looking for a Razor and Triangles and Meanings
By: Sean Barker
At: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2010-08/msg00236.html

I interpreted the charge "looking for a razor" as a search for the
simplest model and/or theory -- two things I try to keep connected --
that accounts for or explains interesting features of a phenomenon,
without of course being so simplistic that only a reductionist of
the most dogmatic stripe would attempt to pretend it does the job.

Words like behavior, grounding, imagination, interpretation, meaning,
pragmatics, semantics, and many others tend to have diverse meanings,
so I like to give some indication of the class of models that I have
in mind when I use them.  From the perspective that I find agreeable,
one of the most important measures of complexity is the dimension of
the relations that one employs as models.

For instance, the concept of "behavior" is highly ambiguous until we
distinguish the category of 2-adic models of behavior, such as those
favored by the majority of self-described "behaviorists" even after
the so-called "cognitive revolution" induced them to write up their
research to the tune of a different style sheet, and the category
of 3-adic models of behavior, such as those that other theorists
judged necessary to analyze the classes of phenomena for which
folk theories commonly invoke terms like aim, goal, intention,
meaning, objective, or purpose to describe.

Well, that's enough for today ...

Jon Awbrey

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