SUGGESTION: Bible Tech 2011

My homepage today came up with Bible Tech 2011. I went to check the schedule for it to see if it was interesting. Which led me to http://blog.orthotomeo.com/category/examples/ a project for which there will be a presentation. This is the type of argument mapping that I've suggested for Logos in the past. But this page has examples that I think would make others interested as well. Take a look at the project. [Yes, I do have reservations regarding this project while thinking it interesting].

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George Somsel

My homepage today came up with Bible Tech 2011. I went to check the schedule for it to see if it was interesting. Which led me to http://blog.orthotomeo.com/category/examples/ a project for which there will be a presentation. This is the type of argument mapping that I've suggested for Logos in the past. But this page has examples that I think would make others interested as well. Take a look at the project. [Yes, I do have reservations regarding this project while thinking it interesting].

Yikes ! I would have reservations as well though probably not the same as yours. My reservations are regarding the flow chart. I absolutely hate flow charts. When I was learning to program I generally skipped most of that. To some they are apparently meaningful, but to me they are simply confusing. Give me a WORD any day of the week.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/216956#Comment_216956

To some they are apparently meaningful, but to me they are simply confusing. Give me a WORD any day of the week.

To me it is a matter of matching the tool to the task. Graphic organizers are a key part of contemporary education so if I wish to communicate with the younger generation I have to be fluent in their form of communication. As for the word - I've published a fair amount of poetry for which the word is the artistic medium ... I have respect for it as well, when used appropriately.

It is actually some hermeneutical assumptions that give raise to my reservations.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/216975#Comment_216975

It is actually some hermetical assumptions that give raise to my reservations.

I didn't get that far. The moment I see a flow chart I turn off.

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/216982#Comment_216982

I didn't get that far. The moment I see a flow chart I turn off.

This used to be a discussion in my beginning programming classes - why use flowcharts (they seemed to be dying, anyway) or pseudocode/structured English. Part of the answer, as George pointed out, was the person doing the design. Some individuals are more verbal (most programmers?) and some more visual (those who like flowcharts). Unlike you, I fell into the latter category - I found flowcharts (though dated) to be a more useful design tool than flowcharts or pseudocode.

That might explain the differences between you and MJ.

Andrew Potter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/216975#Comment_216975

MJ., could you elaborate on some of your reservations about hermeneutical assumptions?

I've not yet blogged directly about my hermeneutical assumptions, although I've hinted at them in these two posts.

http://blog.orthotomeo.com/2010/12/09/going-beyond-cold-propositional-logic/

http://blog.orthotomeo.com/2010/12/11/thoughts-on-terminology/

I'm trying to keep hermeneutical assumptions to a minimum. I feel they can skew our interpretations. The only conscious hermeneutical assumption I'm making with the Orthotomeo project is that theological systems are reasoned systems. That is, people (and God) make statements about the nature of reality (God, Universe, World, HUman nature etc.). These statements are in turn used as the basis to make other statements and AFAIK, a reason is aways given.

For example.:

Statement: The ten commandments says "thou shall not kill"

Line of Interpretation 1: This means people should not kill under any circumstances. This leads to the statement: Pacifism is the preferred ethical stance.

Line of Interpretation 2: Actually Murder is meant, killing in the context of self-defense is allowed. This leads to the statement: Pacifiscm is not required by God.

The statements and reasons given can be anything. Even a poem or a picture. If the user can uses these means to communicate a point then as far as I'm concerned it counts as a reason. With the Orthotomeo project I'm not trying to force people to think a certain way, instead I'm attempting to document the way people think. As far as the robustness, logic and persuasive power of the various arguments are concerned that's another story.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217009#Comment_217009

MJ., could you elaborate on some of your reservations about hermeneutical assumptions?

Yes, if I also get to backtrack and give you more credit for flexibility than I had gleaned from the examples.[:)]

A bit of context: I am in the process of reading an advance copy of The Information: A History, A Theory and A Flood by James Gleick. Which means I have Father W. J. Ong, S.J. on my mind. Which means that I have the difficulty of an electronic information age individual's capability of reading the text with an oral mentality on my mind. I had, perhaps incorrectly, translated your "thing" into "statement or series of statements" - declarative statements no matter how conditional.

As I find some aspects of Jewish interpretation particular fascinating, I immediately began to wonder how one would represent stories interpreting stories. I can obviously fit the interpretations based on the 7 rules of Hillel (or similar schemes) into the model. But I am stymied as to how one handles a fictional narrative as theological reasoning. Yet Ong is convincing that an oral society thinks in the concrete rather than the abstract so that the story is in fact valid reasoning.

Seeing poem/story/music/art as thing 2, however, is easy to handle - I am very pleased you made provisions for it.

My second concern is a natural outgrowth of being Catholic. We tend towards the "both ... and..." rather than the "either ... or ...". My favorite image for theological thought is a window in which the sides represent opposite/different positions that we can not reconcile - think of the question "Why does God permit evil?". With theology we can make progress narrowing the window i.e. limiting the possible answers but we can never point directly to a declarative answer. In this sort of situation a single element of reasoning can lead to two contradictory statements/things. T1-->R-->T2 and T1-->R-->T3 doesn't convey the entanglement of T2,T3. I specifically chose the word "entanglement" because of its use in physics - I want to imply that any change in R in either chain effects both T2 and T3.

My short answer would be that having reviewed the examples, I have reservations about my ability to designate the framework within which my R resides. I have reservations about my ability to link separate but interdependent results of a single reason applied to a single thing - especially when those results are "contradictory" in Western logic systems.

When I wrote my original post, I had erroneously thought the model required more conversion of Scripture and experience into propositions ... which might have sent me into my private rant on Locke. As I read more of the site, I realize that I was wrong on this issue.

Andrew Potter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217014#Comment_217014

MJ,

thanks for your input. This is the kind of dialog I need for developing the Orthotomeo Project. In the next day or two I'm going to write a post in the blog to respond to this issue. if you don't mind I'd like to make a few quotes from this thread. In short, I see no reason that my concept would not be able to accommodate what you have described. In fact locating and analyzing areas of "entanglement" is one of my goals behind the project. I wrote about this in this post http://blog.orthotomeo.com/2011/01/25/documentation-dependencies-and-comparisons/

I now realize more clearly that my explanations and examples are not getting my concept across as I had hoped. Initially I planned on doing many more examples to demonstrate things from various perspectives. After doing a couple of them I realized that I need an actual working system. That's what I'm concentrating on now by the time Bible Tech rolls around I should have more examples in a live system.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217111#Comment_217111

you don't mind I'd like to make a few quotes from this thread.

I wouldn't mind at all. I will definitely watch your project with interest - and probably run some smaples through the model. Said samples being from narrative theologians, early church fathers such as Ephrem the Syrian and a rabbinic case or two.Nothing like trying the model to see how it fits.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217126#Comment_217126

Andrew - I couldn't quite let go of this. I've created a diagram based on http://www.shemayisrael.com/parsha/bonchek/ and "penciled in" bits of other lines of reasoning from my Logos collection. Is this what you have in mind or do I misunderstand you? Note: the green cloud indicates a non-existent subdiagram; The texts brought into the discussion have a white background while those that are the result of the reasoning have a blue background (well it was blue before I created the gif.[:)]).

I would have taken this to your site if I had known how to include the diagram. But because I have requested argument mapping multiple times in Logos, I figured I had a good backup excuse for posting here.

Andrew Potter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217379#Comment_217379

This is cool MJ. I've posted this at my site: http://blog.orthotomeo.com/2011/02/01/a-test-case/

I will need a little time to digest this. It may need some rearranging but its looking very good.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217379#Comment_217379

I've created a diagram based on

Note: this is no longer the current draft of the diagram.

Andrew Potter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/217648#Comment_217648

Several issues have been raised in this forum which I've attempted to address in three new blog posts. The issues include the use of propositions and statements, the use of flowcharts and what MJSmith refers to as entanglement. With these posts I hope that I can explain more clearly what the hopes of the Orthotomeo Project are.

Andrew Potter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/218972#Comment_218972

I've created a revised diagram based on the example from MJSmith.
A Test Case Revisted