1. How to Organize Your Life: From Microsocieties to Global Social Organizations

2. Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation two humans, a monkey, and a robot are looking at a piece of cheese; what is common to the representational processes in their visual systems?

3. Answer: The cheese, of course

4. From Fodor to Gibson

5. Traditional Syntactic/Semantic Approach to Information Systems 011011 101010 00100 010001 001001 001001 00100 010011 110010 010110 1111011 011101 1 derived intentionality

6. String-Arrays vs. Objects ghjui123 xxxxx

7. Fodor’s Methodological Solipsism 011011 101010 00100 010001 001001 001001 00100 010011 110010 010110 1111011 011101 1

8. Humans, Machines, and the Structure of Knowledge Harry M. Collins SEHR, 4: 2 (1995)

9. Knowledge-down-a-wire Imagine a 5-stone weakling having his brain loaded with the knowledge of a champion tennis player. He goes to serve in his first match -- Wham! – his arm falls off. He just doesn't have the bone structure or muscular development to serve that hard.

10. Types of knowledge/ability/skill 1.those that can be transferred simply by passing signals from one brain/computer to another. 2.those that can’t:

11. Sometimes it is the body (the hardware) which knows

12. and sometimes it is the world outside which knows

13. I know where the book is = I know how to find it I know what the square root of 2489 is = I know how to calculate it I know how to recognize the presence of a tiger = by smell, noise … (in real-world context)

14. A. Clark, Being There humans can accomplish much without building detailed, internal models; we rely on Epistemic action = writing one large number above another to multiply them with pen on paper

15. A. Clark, Being There we can rely also on External scaffolding = maps, models, tools, landmarks, buildings, language, culture we act so as to simplify cognitive tasks by "leaning on" the structures in our environment.

16. Not all calculations are done inside the head Not all thinking is done inside the head

17. Types of knowledge/ability/skill 1.those that can be transferred simply by passing signals from one brain/computer to another. 2.those that can’t: -- here the "hardware" is important; abilities/skills contained (a) in the body (b) in the world

18. From The Methodological Solipsist Approach to Information Processing To The Ecological Approach to Information Processing

19. Fodorian Psychology To understand human cognition we should study the mind/brain in abstraction from its real-world environment (as if it were a hermetically sealed Cartesian ego)

20. Gibsonian Ecological Psychology To understand human cognition we should study the moving, acting human person as it exists in its real-world environment and taking account how it has evolved into this real-world environment We are like tuning forks – tuned to the environment which surrounds us, and this is a social environment which includes records and representations

21. Fodorian View of Information Systems To understand information systems we should study their manipulation of syntactic strings

22. Gibsonian Ecological View of Information Systems To understand information systems we should study the hardware as it exists embedded in its real-world environment and taking account of the environment for which it was designed and built Information systems are like tuning forks – they resonate in tune to their surrounding environments e.g. through their biological and chemical sensors

23. Ontology and the Tower of Babel Problem

24. Each information system has its own idiosyncratic terms and concepts by means of which it represents the information it receives How to resolve the incompatibilities which result when information systems (sciences) need to be merged?

26. The World Wide Web Vast amount of heterogeneous data sources Needs: dramatically better support for richly structured ontologies in databases + ability to query and integrate across different ontologies (e.g. Semantic Web)

27. How did information systems engineers proceed to build ontologies? By looking at the world, surely Well, No They built ontologies by looking at what people think about the world (knowledge mining) (methodological solipsism …)

28. Quineanism: They took ontology as the study of the ontological commitments or presuppositions embodied in the beliefs of experts

29. PROBLEM How can the Quinean cope with questions pertaining to the relations between the objects believed in different experts? The Tower of Babel problem re- appears

30. Another problem: how, ontologically, are we to treat the commitments of patients who believe that their illness is caused by evil spirits or magic spells?

32. Can we do better with the Gibsonian approach? Test Domain: Medical Terminology

33. Example 1: UMLS Universal Medical Language System

34. Example 2: SNOMED Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine

35. Blood

36. Representation of Blood in UMLS Blood Tissue Entity Physical Object Anatomical Structure Fully Formed Anatomical Structure An aggregation of similarly specialized cells and the associated intercellular substance. Tissues are relatively non-localized in comparison to body parts, organs or organ components Body SubstanceBody FluidSoft Tissue Blood as tissue

37. Representation of Blood in SNOMED Blood Liquid Substance Substance categorized by physical state Body fluid Body Substance Substance Blood as fluid

38. So what is the ontology of blood?

39. We cannot solve this problem just by looking at concepts in Fodorian fashion

40. concept systems may be simply incommensurable

41. the problem can only be solved in Gibsonian fashion by taking the world itself into account

42. and by recognizing that the same object can be apprehended at different levels of granularity: at the perceptual level blood is a liquid at the cellular level blood is a tissue

43. This implies a view of ontology not as a theory of concepts but as a theory of reality But how is this possible? How can we get beyond our concepts? answer: ontology must be maximally opportunistic it must relate not to beliefs, concepts, syntactic strings but to the world itself

44. “Maximally opportunistic” means: look at concepts and beliefs critically and always in the context of a wider view which includes independent ways to access the objects themselves at different levels of granularity

45. “Maximally opportunistic” means: look not at what the expert says but at what the expert does Experts have expertise = knowing how Ontologists can have windows on reality, by focusing on categories, and can extract some form of knowing that Gibsonianism: experts don’t know what the ontologist knows

46. Ontology must be maximally opportunistic This means: don’t just look at beliefs look at the objects themselves from every possible direction, formal and informal scientific and non-scientific …

47. Maximally opportunistic means: look at the same objects at different levels of granularity:

48. Second step: select out the good conceptualizations these have a reasonable chance of being integrated together into a single ontological system based on tested principles robust conform to natural science

49. Ontology like cartography must work with maps at different scales

50. Medical ontologies at different levels of granularity: cell ontology drug ontology protein ontology gene ontology anatomical ontology epidemiological ontology Rigidly hierachical, modular organization – with many things which can go wrong

51. There are many compatible map-like partitions many maps at different scales, all transparent to the reality beyond

52. Partitions should be cuts through reality a good medical ontology should NOT be compatible with the conceptualization of disease as: caused by evil spirits and demons and cured by golems

53. PART TWO

54. A Theory of Contexts, Settings, Environments for Social Acts X counts as Y in context C What kinds of entities are social contexts?

55. Reinach a priori ontological structures in the social realm are transcategorial : involving experiences, intentions, language, action, deontic powers, background collective habits, mental competences, records, PLUS: social environments

56. The bonds established by Reinach’s proto-structures of promise, claim and obligation … can normally arise only within miniature civil societies, within which special sorts of environmental conditions are satisfied

57. The Idea: Contexts can be Nested One Inside Another Many settings occur in assemblies: A unit in the middle range of a nesting structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and interjacent, both whole and part, both entity and environment. (Roger Barker) Compare the hierarchical organization of the human body into organs, cells, …

58. Human body Rigidly hierachical, modular organization – with many things which can go wrong Held together by physico-chemical bonds

59. Large-scale social organizations are held together by micro-social bonds as described by Reinach The whole organized as a rigidly hierarchical, modular nesting structure, with many things which can go wrong

60. Ecological Psychology Gibson: Perception :: Roger Barker: Society Barker’s Ecological Ontology of Social Reality

61. Barker on Unity of Social Reality On Reinach’s transcategoriality: “The conceptual incommensurability of phenomena which is such an obstacle to the unification of the sciences does not appear to trouble nature’s units. Within the larger units, things and events from conceptually more and more alien sciences are incorporated and regulated.”

62. Barker on Unity of Social Reality “As far as our behaviour is concerned, … even the most radical diversity of kinds and categories need not prevent integration”

63. Some biological speculation based on work of F. Gil-White

64. The complex feat of integration, which is performed almost effortlessly dozens, if not hundreds, of times every day, must be rooted in capacities established biologically (hard-wired)

65. A simple mechanism we need efficient ways to categorize people as friends or enemies each group evolves norms regarding adoption, food, clothing, marriage, dowry, inheritance, defence, language … These are signal-systems, each group marries its daughters out to those who share the same group norms Those groups survive who perform this selection process most efficiently (keep out cheaters) Their descendants have been genetically built to take up these norms efficiently into themselves

66. Extend Chomsky-like ideas on linguistic competence to social competence in general we have an effortless ability to find our way about the world of norms, of deontic powers, of free-standing Y- terms, of basic Reinachian structures

67. we must be tuned, automatically, to social reality J. J. Gibson’s ecological psychology: we are tuned automatically to perceptual reality

68. what happens when group size grows larger: from small tribes and small families to large-scale social organizations (towns, provinces, nations, civilizations) (farmyards, factories, multi-national corporation) … norms become more abstract, more general

69. As group size grows groups settle down into nesting structures (spatially distributed hierachies) and we preserve the capacity to apprehend groups at different levels of granularity within such structures which are held together via delegation and chains of command However large the groups we belong to we still need cheater-detector mechanisms in relation to our local group/cell within the hierarchy (whether in the family home or in the boardroom)

70. Austin: a promise is a sort of ritual a command is a sort of ritual issuing instructions is a sort of ritual …part of a larger story … members of an organization share a certain destiny

71. Histories In belonging to families, friendship communities, work communities, churches, we create miniature civil societies and thereby become involved in shared histories (Geschichten)

72. Wilhelm Schapp Wilhelm Schapp, In Geschichten verstrickt in chess verstrickt in marriage verstrickt in ontology verstrickt in the history of England verstrickt in IFOMIS verstrickt … the meaning of life

73. Histories sometimes customary, informal sometimes regimented, codified (IBM in- house rules, the Laws of England) the Bible, Shakespeare, the Magna Carta …

74. The global system of histories The global system of pathways across the hillside arises as an unintended consequence of many actions carried out on a local scale. Hayek: a range of cultural phenomena, including law, language, religion and the market, likewise owe their origin to an unplanned cumulation of the effects of individual decisions and actions over time.

75. What can we conclude from all of this as ontologists? Recall the Munich phenomenologists’ method of passive faithfulness to what is given in reality

76. At each level within the hierarchy of human groups we apprehend the world as containing NORMS THE ONTOLOGY OF THE COMMON-SENSE WORLD COMPREHENDS ALSO: NORMS

77. A Theory of Environments Not networks (road network, telephone network, data network, price network) But systems of nested contexts, within which two sorts of transactions take place: 1.inside the context (create miniature civil society) 2.outside the context: link one context to its neighboring context

78. A. Clark, Being There External scaffolding = maps, models, tools, landmarks, buildings … we act so as to simplify cognitive tasks by "leaning on" the structures in our environment such structures serve also to create a framework for sustaining social unity

79. CYC “Organizations are buildings”

80. Why? 1.Sheer ontological laziness 2.Physicalistic reductionism 3.Social reality is through-and-through affected by its physical environment

81. Why not physicalistic reductionism? Organisations do not have their members as parts – because the members can change and the organism remain the same

82. How to solve this problem (and why are buildings important?) Compare the way in which the physical properties of ROADS help people to obey the traffic laws when driving

83. First step: A Theory of Environments Biological environments Niches Places

84. Environments a Neglected Major Category in the History of Ontology Substances S tates, Q ualities, P owers, R oles … Processes Environments -- environments missing from Aristotle, from DOLCE, from entity-relationship models

85. Ecological Niche Concepts niche as particular place or subdivision of an environment that an organism or population occupies (TOKEN) vs. niche as function of an organism or population within an ecological community (TYPE)

86. Elton the ‘niche’ of an animal means its place in the biotic environment, its relations to food and enemies. [...] When an ecologist says ‘there goes a badger’ he should include in his thoughts some definite idea of the animal’s place in the community to which it belongs, just as if he had said ‘there goes the vicar’ (Elton 1927, pp. 63f.)

87. organizations are buildings

88. The Niche as Hypervolume temperature humidity foliage density

89. The Niche as Hypervolume temperature humidity foliage density

90. The Niche as Hypervolume temperature humidity foliage density

91. The Niche as Hypervolume temperature humidity foliage density

92. Hypervolume niche is a location in an attribute space defined by a specific constellation of environmental variables such as degree of slope, exposure to sunlight, soil fertility, foliage density... … John found his niche as a mid-level accounts manager in a small-town bank …

93. But every hypervolume niche must be realized in some specific spatial location Niche type must be tokenized in space or better: it must be tokenized in space-time

94. Human beings live in complex environments Recall Reinach’s notion of transcategorial relations Merlin Donald,The Origins of the Modern Mind: notion of external memory

95. The Ecological Psychology of J. J. Gibson and Roger Barker

96. Affordances “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or evil.” James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

97. Organisms are tuning forks They have evolved to resonate automatically and directly to those quality regions in their niche which are relevant for survival -- perception is a form of automatic resonation -- cognitive beings resonate to speech acts and to linguistic records -- cognitive beings resonate deontically

98. affordances: positive and negative features of the environment: permissions and prohibitions

99. Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger... Niche as Life World (Lebenswelt)

100. Roger Barker: Niche as Behavioral Setting Niches are recurrent settings which serve as the environments for our everyday activities: my swimming pool, your table in the cafeteria, the 5pm train to Long Island.

101. Behavior Settings Each behavior setting is associated with certain standing patterns of behavior.

102. Settings, for Barker, are natural units in no way imposed by an investigator. To laymen they are as objective as rivers and forests — they are parts of the objective environment that are experienced as directly as rain and sandy beaches are experienced. (Barker 1968, p. 11)

103. Settings Each setting has a boundary which separates an organized internal (foreground) pattern from a differing external (background) pattern. ORGANIZATIONS ARE BUILDINGS ORGANIZATIONS ARE NESTED SYSTEMS OF SETTINGS SETTINGS ARE LIKE THE INTERIORS OF BUILDINGS

104. The Ontology of Niches Niches are in some ways like the interiors of substances Two concepts of spaceship: John is in the spaceship The embryo is in the uterus The yoghurt is in the refrigerator Niches and quasi-niches Substances and quasi-substances

105. Two concepts of spaceship John is in London John saw London from the air London  London IBM  IBM John admired her car John was sitting in her car A is part of B vs. A is in the interior of B as a tenant is in its niche

106. The Ontology of Niches Niches are endurants

107. Marks of (bodily) substance i.Rounded-offness ii.Occupies space iii.Complete boundary iv.May have substantial parts (nesting) v.May be included in larger substances vi.Has a life (manifests contrary accidents at different times)

108. Corresponding Marks of Niches (i)A niche enjoys a certain natural completeness or rounded-offness, being neither too small nor too large —in contrast to the arbitrary undetached parts of environmental settings and to arbitrary heaps or aggregates of environmental settings.

109. (ii) A niche takes up space, it occupies a physical-temporal locale, and is such as to have spatial parts. Within this physical-temporal locale is a privileged locus—a hole— into which the tenant or occupant of the setting fits exactly.

110. (iii) A niche has an outer boundary: there are objects which fall clearly within it, and other objects which fall clearly outside it. (The boundary itself need not be crisp.)

111. (iv) A niche may have actual parts which are also environmental settings (hierarchical nesting)

112. (v) A niche may be a proper part of larger, circumcluding niche.

113. (vi) A niche has a life is now warm, now cold now at peace, now at war …. now expanding, now contracting

114. Marks of (bodily) substance i.Rounded-offness ii.Occupies space iii.Complete boundary iv.May have substantial parts (nesting) v.May be included in larger substances vi.Has a life; is now warm, now cold

115. Niche Construction Lewontin: niches normally arise in symbiosis with the activities of organisms or groups of organisms; they are not already there, like vacant rooms in a gigantic evolutionary hotel, awaiting organisms who would evolve into them. “ecosystem engineering”

116. Applications of the niche concept in biology, ecology in medicine (embryology …) in anthropology in economics in the ontology of artifacts in law in politics

117. Where are Niches? Concrete Entity [Exists in Space and Time] Entity in 3-D Ontology [Endure. No Temporal Parts] Spatial Region of Dimension 0,1,2,3 Dependent Entity Quality (Your Redness, My Tallness) [Form Quality Regions/Scales] Quasi-Quality Prices, Values, Obligations Role, Function, Power Have realizations (called: Processes) Quasi-Role/Function/Power The Functions of the President Independent Entity Substance [maximally connected causal unity] Aggregate of Substances * (includes masses of stuff? liquids?) Fiat Part of Substance * Nose, Ear, Mountain Boundary of Substance * Fiat or Bona Fide or Mixed Quasi-Substance Church, College, Corporation Entity in 4-D Ontology [Perdure. Unfold in Time] Processual Entity Process [Has Unity] Clinical trial; exercise of role Aggregate of Processes* Fiat Part of Process* Instantaneous Temporal Boundary of Process (= Ingarden’s 'Event’)* Quasi-Process John’s Youth. John’s Life Spatio-Temporal Region Dim = T, T+0, T+1, T+2, T+3

118. Where are Places? Concrete Entity [Exists in Space and Time] Entity in 3-D Ontology [Endure. No Temporal Parts] Spatial Region of Dimension 0,1,2,3 Dependent Entity Independent Entity Entity in 4-D Ontology [Perdure. Unfold in Time] Processual Entity Spatio-Temporal Region Dim = T, T+0, T+1, T+2, T+3

119. Gibson’s theory of surface layout Niches = systems of barriers, openings, pathways to which organisms are specifically attuned, Include: temperature gradients, patterns of movement of air or water molecules, electro- chemical signals guiding the movements of micro-organisms But also: traffic signs, instructions posted on notice boards or displayed on the computer screen

120. The idea: From Micro- to Macro: Why do juries consist of “twelve good men and true” ? Why are the Church, the Army, the Government, the University, the Corporation, the Mafia, the Communist Party, El Q’aida … organized hierarchically? THE CHAIN OF COMMAND MIRRORS THE SPATIAL HIERARCHY Large-scale social organizations held together by micro-societies

121. Nesting Many settings occur in assemblies: A unit in the middle range of a nesting structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and interjacent, both whole and part, both entity and environment.

122. Unity of Behaviour and Ecological Setting A physical-behavioural unit is a unit: its parts are unified together, but not through any similarity or community of substance.

123. The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour and Ecological Setting The behaviour and the physical objects … are intertwined in such a way as to form a pattern that is by no means random: there is a relation of harmonious fit between the standard patterns of behaviour occurring within the unit and the pattern of its physical components. Compare the way in which the processes in the body are constrained by the hierarchical organization of body, organs, cells …

124. The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour and Ecological Setting (The seats in the lecture hall face the speaker. The speaker addresses his remarks out towards the audience. The boundary of the football field is, leaving aside certain predetermined exceptions, the boundary of the game. The beginning and end of the school music period mark the limits of the pattern of music behaviour.)

125. Non-transposability This mutual fittingness of behaviour and physical environment extends to the fine, interior structure of behaviour in a way which will imply a radical nontransposability of standing patterns of behaviour from one environment to another. The physical or historical or ceremonial conditions obtaining in particular settings are in addition as essential for some kinds of behaviour as are persons with the requisite authority, motives and skills.

126. Power and Authority There are various forces which help to bring about and to sustain this mutual fittingness and thus to constitute the unity of the physical- behavioural unit through time. Forces which flow in the direction from setting to behaviour include physical constraints exercised by hedges, walls or corridors or by persons with sticks; they include social forces manifested in the authority of the teacher, in threats, promises, warnings;

127. The Unifying Effects of the Physical Environment they include the physiological effects of climate, the need for food and water; and they include the effects of perceived physiognomic features of the environment (open spaces seduce children, a businesslike atmosphere encourages businesslike behaviour).

128. Mutual Fittingness can be reinforced by learning, and also by a process of selection of the persons involved, whether this be one of self- selection (of children who remain in Sunday school class in light of their ability to conform to the corresponding standing patterns of behaviour), or of externally imposed mental or physical entrance tests.

129. Behaviour shapes Setting Influences which flow from behaviour to setting, include all those ways in which a succession of separate and uncoordinated actions can have unintended consequences in the form of new types of actions and new, modified types of settings in the future (as the passage of many feet causes pathways to form in the hillside).

130. Extending power across settings Through administrative delegation, through sub-contracting, and through the institutions of representative government the scope of effective operation of physical-behavioural units can be extended far beyond the compass of what can be achieved through the actions and perceptions of individuals in direct interaction.

131. Settings shape Persons Each person has many strengths, many intelligences, many social maturities, many speeds, many degrees of liberality and conservativeness, and many moralities, depending in large part on the particular contexts of the person  s behavior. For example, the same person who displays marked obtusiveness when confronted with a mechanical problem may show impressive skill and adroitness in dealing with social situations.

132. Aurel Kolnai a human society … comprehends the same individual over and over again in line with his various social affiliations …

133. Daily life = passage through a succession of physical- behavioural units which are as much a part of the furniture of reality as are garden-variety continuants and occurrents (such as you and me). Physical-behavioural units have parts. And they have consequences: contracts signed, orders issued, judgments passed, medals awarded.

134. Some physical-behavioural units form extended chains sustaining roles and qualities through time President George is still President even when he sleeps. The borders of Luxemburg remain the borders of Luxemburg even though they are no longer policed or fenced.

135. Physical-behavioural units are part of reality The physical setting of a physical-behavioural unit (the stock exchange building) can still exist even when no pertinent behaviour is occurring; but the unit itself (the stock market on each successive trading day) requires pertinent behaviour in order to exist.

136. A nation is what and where it is because of actions of specific sorts that occur in offices of state, in high chancelleries and in military outposts. A work of art is what and where it is because of actions of specific sorts that occur in offices of art historians, gallery directors and curators, and in restoration studios.

137. Pseudo-Histories Each of these processes of authentication can break down: confidence tricksters create fake physical- behavioral units which are, to their victims, indistinguishable from the genuine article.

138. The bonds established by Reinach’s protostructures of promise, claim and obligation … can normally arise only within miniature civil societies, within which special sorts of environmental conditions are satisfied Austin: a promise is a sort of ritual Holds of commands in large-scale organizations too.

139. Theory of roles/functions/powers of greater and lesser generality How are roles/functions/powers within a hierarchical organization themselves nested together hierarchically? Orders not issued in a vacuum: systems of external memory: records and representations procedures for authentication

140. Large-scale social organizations are held together by micro-social bonds

141. A niche may have actual parts which are also environmental settings (hierarchical nesting)  Theory of the organization of organizations: the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called IBM the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called US- Division 4B/661 of IBM (YOU ARE THE BOSS) the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called your local office (YOU ISSUE COMMANDS)

142. Ontological categories we need for a theory of large-scale social organizations 1.Independent SNAP entities 1a. Persons and aggregates of persons 1b. Material things: artefacts: buildings, roads, offices, networks (telegraph, telephone, Visa, internet) Documents: Representations and Records (of Rules, Regulations,Policies, Penalties …)

143. 2. SPQR : Dependent SNAP entities SPECIFICALLY DEPENDENT: 2a. Mental states, beliefs 2b. Physical states of persons 2c. Physical states of material things 2d. Dispositions, powers GENERICALLY DEPENDENT: 2e. Roles, offices (the office of the President …) 2e. Relations of authority/subordination 2f. Systems of rules, laws, norms

144. 3. SPAN entities 3a. Willed processes (processes produced on demand) (i) Actions – especially communicating orders, training services (educational processes):. Linguistic processes – social acts – the exercise of roles (ii) Processes in material things produced on demand: telephone and telegraph communications 3b. Natural processes 3c. Mental processes

145. 4. Physical-Behavioral Units SPAN entities: combinations of spatio- temporal regions and standardized patterns of behavior

146. SPAN: Entities extended in time spatio- temporal volumes

147. 4-dimensional environments Lobsters have evolved into environments marked by cyclical patterns of temperature change Tudor England The Afghan winter The window of opportunity for an invasion of Iraq

148. 1 spatio- temporal volumes standardized patterns of behavior