Incidentally, for me Ontology embodies everything - knowledge, learning,
ethics.  I am in the world therefore I know, learn and progress in the world.
 I am in touch with my knowledge, learing and progress/development in the
world as I live/emerge and develop myself in the world.  I am and use my
knowledge of/in the world  to develop myself.  Alon
>-- Original Message --
>Date:         Tue, 2 Aug 2005 12:25:23 +0100
>Reply-To:     Chris Keeble <[log in to unmask]>
>From:         Chris Keeble <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Thank You.
>To:           [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Hi Alon: 
>
>Thank you.
>
>For me to fully understand what you are 'saying' I have to make some
>assumptions about YOU. A movement in me inspired by an intrinsic desire
for
>'relationship', (in the sense of 'bringing back' something from you), to
>create a shared 'knowing'. 
>
>I have only a tiny fractal of you: your 'voice'. It is expressed in language
>that describes the fragment of an idea. 
>
>To understand you fully I have to 'see' YOU somehow through this fragment
>of
>'you', transmitted through a blurred electronic key hole. 
>
>I know for sure that this is impossible and I recognise that I do not 'see'
>YOU. 
>
>I have also to decode the key language terms. 
>
>Let us take a favourite amongst the AR community: ontology. 
>
>As I understand it, (which will effect your communication with me), I
>recognise the term (borrowed from philosophy), where an 0ntology is a
>systematic account of 'existence', (often confused with epistemology, which
>is about knowledge and knowing). It seems to have shifted to mean a
>'description' of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an
>individual or a community of individuals. It is conveyed by the commitment
>of a person through their observable actions to 'an ontology'. 
>
>Relationships must therefore bear the ontological commitments between
>individuals through agreements to use the coherent sharing of vocabulary,
>though not a shared base of knowledge. Thus, individuals (epistemologically)
>could only ever 'know' partially: despite a commitment to a common ontology.
>
>
>There are implications.
>
>What one knows how to do, may also be done: in accordance with the supreme
>value of the autonomy of the individual. 
>
>We know how to do many things, and we know increasingly how to do many more
>things. Humankind knows how to construct atomic bombs, so they are made
and
>we are disposed to use them. Humankind knows how to clone Humans so they
>are
>cloned. 
>
>Thus, knowing 'how to do' is not separated from 'being able to do'. 
>
>If this knowing 'how to do' does not find its measure in a moral norm, it
>becomes a power of destruction. (Terrorism is based on this modality of
>Human self-authorization, not on the teachings of the Koran).
>
>Thus, individual ontology, whilst compelling to the individual, separates
>us
>as the primacy of individual choice is pursued. 
>
>The ardent appeals to 'WE ought to...'collapses. 
>
>The self-righteous individual emerges, undermining the very relationship
>required to sustain their ontology. 
>
>The thirsty autonomous individual remains forever searching within itself,
>unable to satisfy its own thirst: for if it could, why did it ever become
>thirsty in the first place.
>
>We are condemned to isolation from each other; for what would unite us:
>common human anxieties, electronic mail, a central heating system?
>
>God bless, Chris (Keeble)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alon
>Serper
>Sent: 02 August 2005 09:11
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Suffering
>
> 
>
>Hi Chris
>
> 
>
>I should like to think of it as well-being, personal gratification and
>improved/good
>
>quality of life/living and trying to have less suffering and greater
>gratification
>
>and agreeable/meaningful/contributing existence for ourselves.  I think
this
>
>is commonly human.  How - is personal as our history, experiences,
>background,
>
>present and future is unique to us as individuals.  Alon
>
> 
>
>>-- Original Message --
>
>>Subject: RE: Suffering
>
>>Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 08:38:41 +0200
>
>>From: "Hoelson, Christopher Norman (Prof) (Vista Campus)"
><[log in to unmask]>
>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>, <[log in to unmask]>
>
>>
>
> 
>


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