Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.0 General; H.1.1 Systems and Information Theory Free Keywords: Differential Linguistics, Cynicism, Cyrenaism, Stoicism, Lexical Clone, predicative definition.
1 The word "Egoism" comes from Latin ego – "I". [1 {Egoism}]
2 Redundancy is a concept in information theory. The presence of redundancy in the recording of statements from any
source of information manifests as the possibility of recording those statements in a (on average) more concise way,
using the same symbols (that is, exchanging one code for another that uses the same alphabet). [2 {Redundancy}]
3 The method for creating a Lexical Clone is described in more detail in my articles [
Now, in the present article, I elaborate this further by saying that Egoism is the manifestation of an immanent striving in points of accumulation to become the limit point. This means that, from now on, Egoism has an ontological justification.
The Philosophy of Differential Cynicism. Egoism is the basis of Cynicism, and Cynicism is one of the three pillars on
which my Philosophy of Differential Cynicism rests – the other two being Stoicism and Cyrenaism.
I. In my article Differential Linguistics at NIST TREC I said that the founding fathers of Cynicism are Ecclesiastes and
Jeremiah. Indeed, these Old Testament philosophers supposed
- that there exists only one limit point, and that all people are subject to an immanent striving towards it
- and that attaining this limit implies the impossibility of continuing to describe that which has become the limit
by the same terms used to describe that which hasn't yet become it [
II. From Stoicism my Differential Cynicism has derived its Cosmology11 and its Ethics12: - the Universe in Differential Cynicism is presented as a finite manifestation existing as something and striving to organize its parts into an expediently placed Nothing; - in reality, in observations and sensations, there exists only something, which changes in time; - there exists an unchanging Nothing, in eternity; - there exist two beginnings – something and Nothing; - the development of the Universe takes place cyclically – from Nothing to Nothing; - an individual's relation to the Universe, to everything and to other individuals (that is, an individual's Ethics) depends solely on himself, and is defined solely by himself [1 {Stoicism}, 8, 9, 10, 12] III. Cyrenaism has influenced the formation of the Aesthetics13 of Differential Cynicism: - no thing is objectively just or beautiful, since that is defined by means of generally accepted concepts, - happiness is impossible in so far as it is a limit - and as a consequence one must independently choose the justice and beauty that is statistically most appropriate to one's pursuit of happiness, which is itself unattainable. [1 {Cyrenian school}]
But a Cynic always seeks for objectively justice and beauty as long as one is a part of the Universe – otherwise one does not exist into the Universe14.
The Role of Differential Cynicism. The practical role of Differential Cynicism in the search for information lies in its
incentive to search for that information which is Egoistically required and statistically most appropriate. Or, to use the
popular terminology of those who like to write about the Web on the Web, in the personalization of information
searches.
8 Limit is a mathematical concept, indicating that a certain variable, in the observed process of its change, is approaching
a constant value. [2 {Limit}] I believe that the limit is Aristotle’s "the best".
9 The limit point of a set, a point of accumulation is a point in any environs of which there is at least one point of a given
set different from itself. [1 {Limit point}]
10 A point of accumulation is a point x in a topological space Х⊃М, of which any environs contains an infinite number of
points of the set M; where the environs, neighborhoods of point x in the topological space X is the set U⊂Х , for which x
is an internal point. In other words, the neighborhoods is a set which contains an open set containing x. [2 {Point of
Accumulation, Environs, Topology}]
11 Cosmology is a domain of science which studies the Universe as a whole and cosmic systems as parts of that whole.
[1 {Cosmology}]
12 The core of Cynical Ethics lies in the Cynical appraisal of what will happen if something is included into the
composition of one's self. [
As a Cynic and an adept of Differential Philosophy I say that the single and true meaning of a word exists only for – and can only be found by – an individual who has become Nothing. But since, according to the theory of Differential Cynicism, there are no such individuals, no word, consequently, has or can have the only true meaning! To search only for the generally accepted meanings of words is, therefore, a complete waste of time. And for this reason the Berkeleyan Semantics I have elaborated is based on an awareness that the meaning of a word is a probabilistic quantity.
Consequently, I use the Compatibility instrument [
Description of the Runs Submitted
In the process of searching for textual information in CLEF WiQA I used, in order to create Lexical Clones of those ostensibly seeking the information, a selection of Wikipedia articles given as the answer to a question posed on CLEF WiQA. Then I operated a search by means of questions that had been synonymically expanded beforehand, together with these Lexical Clones of Wikipedia texts. But since the task was announced on May 24 and began on June 19 I was unable to put into practice a fundamental rule of Differential Linguistics – that information must be sought in the paragraphs of a text, not in its sentences. Indeed, I was just physically unable to find the time to break the Wikipedia texts down into paragraphs, and looked for the information in sentences. As a result, the search for information in CLEF WiQA by means of the Lexical Cloning method was reduced to finding sentences containing the very same words as in the question. This, of course, cannot under any circumstances be called an information search.
Results Plus Analysis of the Results.
It is possible that, if CLEF WiQA continues and I can dispose of more time, I will be able to put my Lexical Cloning method to full use.
Conclusion.
It is evident that, in the search for textual information, the creation of Lexical Clones is redundant. Indeed, even if one takes for a given that there exist a science capable of describing a person's Egoism, it is obvious that such a description needs to be translated into Natural Language. And such translation, as practice shows, is very ineffective.