DOYLC

We often use terms without fully thinking out how we are using them - particularly if abstraction is involved.  The other day I was looking at a data modeling tool, and asked a colleague "What did you put into the definition?".  It suddenly occurred to me that I was not talking about the content of the definition, but about the definition field into which I could type the content. After thinking about it some more, I realized that the definition field is a container which we are free to use as we want (at least in the tool I was working with).  So an immediate question is, how do we want to structure what goes into this field (e.g. with section headings) and what metadata about the definition do we want to put in (e.g. what person last updated it)?   Of course, the more sophisticated tools have these separate elements of the definition more explicitly segregated.  The "definition" is a set of smaller containers inside a bigger container. Perhaps this might ...

Today I spoke to the New York ERwin Modeling User Group (NYEMUG) on "Creating Great Definitions".  One question came up, which was why bother crafting definitions at all - why not simply rely on Wikipedia for them?  I suppose it could be any external source, and not necessarily Wikipedia (e.g. the Enterprise Data Management's Semantics Repository).  The way it would work conceptually would be to associate a link to Wikipedia with any term. It might be thought that Wikipedia only deals with common terms, and not specialized technical terms.  However, there are a good number of technical terms that are present in Wikipedia. My first reaction was both "yes" and "no".  "Yes" because it is simply obvious there is considerable value in Wikipedia, but "no" because Wikipedia does not understand the enterprise I work in, which ultimately supplies an enormous amount of context that influences definitions.    I will have to think about this to...

In Part I of this series (http://definitionsinsemantics.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-is-definition-different-from.html), we explored explanation defined as "bringing a mind to an understanding of a topic".   There is, however, another form of explanation, of which Aristotle said "We believe ourselves to know a thing when we are acquainted with its cause" (Posterior Analytics, II C. II para 1). One way to provide this kind of explanation is by arguing from the cause to the effect.  Traditionally this involved using syllogisms where the cause was in the major premiss and the effect was in the conclusion.  E.g. All ellipses show a pattern of positions X; the orbit of Mars shows a pattern of positions X; therefore the orbit of Mars is an ellipse. This form of explanation is very satifying, and it might seem natural to try to incorporate it into definitions.  However, there are reasons not to do so.  First, the above form requires putting the concept to be defined i...

The Dodd-Frank Act is intended to reform the financial system in order to reduce the chance of any future systemic failure.  Obviously, it is very important, and one of the most important parts of Dodd-Frank revolves around swaps.  It may be recalled that lack of understanding about Credit Default Swaps (CDS) was a big part of the financial crisis that began in 2008 - and specifically caused AIG to fail.  CDS, however, are only one species of swap.  Prior to 2008 there had been little regulation of swaps. Before we go further, there is one other piece of background for those unfamiliar with the sausage-making process of US financial regulation.  An Act of Congress is just the beginning.  Agencies of the US government must take the Act and turn it in to rules - usually many rules - and then enforce them.  This means that if there is a problem in the Act, there can be difficulties across many rules. Back to swaps.  The Dodd-Frank definition of "swap...

F.A. Hayek is well known for his battles against Socialism and Keynesianism.  Less well known is his critique of the misapplication of the techniques and language of natural science to the social sciences - an attack on Positivism made eloquently in his 1952 book "The Counter-Revolution of  Science - Studies on The Abuse of Reason" (ISBN 0-913966-66-5).  Hayek termed this misapplication of the natural sciences "Scientism".  In Chapter 3 of the book the Nobel laureate makes some interesting observations on definitions.  Hayek writes:   'Take the concept of a "tool" or "instrument", or of any particular tool such as a hammer or barometer.  It is easily seen that these concepts cannot be interpreted to refer to "objective facts", that is, to things irrespective of what people think about them.  Careful logical analysis of these concepts will show that they all express relationships between several (at least three) terms, of which one i...

In this post we continue to learn lessons from the International Astronomical Union's definition of "planet" in 2006 (http://www.iau.org/public_press/news/detail/iau0603/).  The question tackled here is whether the IAU's definition of "planet" is a quality definition.  After close examination, it seems it is not. Here is the definition: 'A "planet" [1] is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. [1] The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.'   And here is the analysis of the definition: (a) The definition is not actually of "planet" but of "planets in our Solar System".  This can be mined out of the text of Resolution 5A, which states:   "RESOLUTION 5A The IAU t...

In a previous post (http://definitionsinsemantics.blogspot.com/2011/11/evolution-of-definitions-problem-of.html) the topic of the IAU's 2006 redefinition of the term "planet" was discussed (see http://www.iau.org/public_press/news/detail/iau0603/).  There are many topics relevant to definitions surrounding this event - one of them is the problem of authority.  The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the organization that came up with the new definition of "planet".  Does this make it an authority?  It does if we define "authority" as "a source of a definition that publishes, and administers, and supports this definition".  However, the term "authority" carries emotional content also.  "Authority" can imply (a) a role of active enforcement; (b) an obligation of obedience upon the body politic.  These implications exist because "authority" is a term that defines many concepts, and some of them have to do with...