Skip to main content

How is a Definition Different from an Explanation? (Part 1)

This topic will require more than one post, because there is more than one definition of "Explanation".  That is, the term "Explanation" signifies more that one concept.

The first kind of explanation we will deal with can be defined as:

"Bringing a mind to an understanding of a topic".

This means that an explanation must be relative to the mind which is to be brought to the intended understanding.  For instance, the way we explain the solar system to an 8-year old child will likely be different to the way we explain the solar system to a college undergraduate.  The explanation offered will depend on prior knowledge, experience, developed intelligence, and probably many other factors.  Differences between defintion and explanation can be summarized as follows:
  • A definition is not intended to be proportional to any mind.  It has to be the best description of a concept that is available. This is is quite unlike explanation, where there will be many explanations proportionate to the types of minds which are to be provided with a given explanation.  
  • There can be many explanations for a concept, but there should be only one definition.  
  • An explanation may exclude difficult points (say to convey an initial understanding), but a definition must be as complete as possible.  
  • An explanation may avoid technical language.  A definition should aim to exclude technical language, but it may sometimes need to include technical language.
There is always a danger that an analyst creating a definition will treat it as an explanation.  This will likely make the definition unusable as an authoritative reference.  The analyst will probably only be guessing at the type of mind any explanation is aimed at.  It is one reason careful governance of definitions is needed (so analysts do not go in the wrong direction).  

It can be argued that there is an environment in which the definition is to be used, and that the definition should be the best for that environment - but might be vary across such environments.  For instance, the insurance concept of "Incurred But Not Reported" can be defined within the environment of Insurance Company X, without any intent to be used in any other insurance company.

An issue here is that if a definiton is the best for a particular environment, how can this satisfy the vision of the Semantic Web which would seem to have common definitions of concepts across the entire web?  However, this is an issue beyond comparing definition to explanation.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Create Your Own Social Networking Site

Create Your Own Social Networking Site JCOW: Ethical Hacking Top 10 reasons to choose Jcow:- 1. Handle more traffic - Clean codes and Dynamic caching can lower the CPU load and  speed up your website. 2 Make your site more interactive - Well designed Jcow applications help you members to connect and communicate with others more effectively. 3 Add questions to the Registration Form - You can add new member fields, which will be displayed to the registration form, profile form, and the member browsing form. 4 Easily share stuff - Within the AJAX sharing Box, your members can publish status,  photos, videos, and blogs. 5 Customize and Extend your Jcow Network - A Jcow network consists of core apps(like "Friends" and "Messages") and optional apps(like "Blogs" and ""Videos"). You can enable/disable optional apps. You can also develop your own apps. 6 Every profile could be Unique - Members can customize their own profile theme and  add music play...
Post a Comment
Read more

Latest Notepad Tricks 2015 !!

By these  Latest Notepad Tricks 2015   you will be having great fun. You just need is to copy the code from here and paste in the notepad and save it with extension “ .bat ” .  1 Notepad trick to Test Antivirus :- By using these trick you can easily test your antivirus working perfectly or not. X5O!P%@AP[4PZX54(P^) 7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD- ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H* save it as test.exe and run the file and check if your antivirus detects it then your antivirus working perfectly otherwise change your antivirus. 2 Make A Personal Log-Book or A Diary :- Copy the below code and paste it in notepad and save it as “ log.txt”. .LOG Now every time you open this log file you will have all the log details with date and time. 3 Constantly Repeat Any Messages :-  This is one of the  Latest Notepad tricks  that will repeat any of messages on computer screen repeatedly.Just copy the below code and paste in the notepad and save it as “ message.bat”. @ECHO off...
Post a Comment
Read more

Selecting a minister who is prime: The British Elections

 #10 Downing Street is the British equivalent, in London, of our White House. And there is a mad scramble among seven contenders to sit in it. n the United Kingdom, for the first time in five years, the people are going to the polls. It will happen two weeks from today, and the country with a population just shy of 70 million, a nation that has been out greatest ally almost since the day after we whipped them in our great Revolutionary War and sent them packing, except for the unpleasant time they burned down Washington DC of course, does things a bit differently than we do.  Current Prime Minister, David Cameron They have no president, and what they have, the prime minister, is not elected like our president is. In fact, in the House of Commons, their lower, popularly elected house of 650 members, the people cast the votes for the members of some seven to twelve different parties. The party that gets the most votes usually will then be asked by the Queen to form a government. And t...
Post a Comment
Read more