There are many things in this world that are not just black and white. In fact, there are probably more things that are or could be considered belonging to “fuzzy sets” where the truth or the exactness of an issue is hidden or unrevealed. For example, there are literally hundreds of churches and or philosophies of life in this world, and to say they are all wrong and only mine is perfect and correct is asking for challenges from all directions.
At one time, mathematicians and scientists boasted that they were the only logic or knowledge base that was exact. Then a scientist found an area of his science that produced a different answer every time he made a calculation. The result led to others and finally a confession that science and the stuff of science may not always be exact. And the mathematical concept of a “fuzzy set” was coined for the first time. Now many are ready to say that “absolute truths do not exist.” The concept is vital in developing artificial intelligence and recognition technologies because our world, as it exists, consists of fuzzy sets. Another term that may be used in place of fuzzy sets is “approximated reasoning.” I take exception to the statement that “absolute truths do not exist.” They may not exist in the context of science and worldly knowledge, but absolute truth exists in the realm of our creator, for He is the author of all truth.
Returning to the concept of fuzzy sets, there are a few examples that were given in an article On “Fuzzy Sets” by Oleg Atbashian and Yulia Latynina: “We say that some countries are ‘free’ and some others are ‘dictatorships.’ But if we begin to refine our arguments, we will often find out that ‘free’ countries lack certain freedoms. Another example, some women are ‘beautiful,’ and some others we call ‘ugly.’ As we refine our argument, we may find that the ‘ugly’ woman has a shapely chin, an attractive nose, or there’s something about her eyes. That’s because beauty and freedom are fuzzy sets. And if your goal is infinite precision, you’ll find neither beauty nor freedom.
“Some things don’t need to be precise as a matter of fact most things are not precise.
“At one time India had a tradition of self-immolation of widows in the husband’s funeral pyres. The British colonizers could say, as modern intellectuals do, that this was just a different cultural tradition they had to respect. But the British disrespected local traditions and put up gallows next to the funeral pyres. Anyone who tried to throw a widow into the fire was hanged right next to it. That was the end of the burning of widows.
“The Maori in New Zealand had a cultural tradition of cannibalism. A young warrior would not obtain a proper social status until he’d cut off the head of a man from another tribe. Once again, the British could start talking about the drama of mutually misunderstood cultural values, but they chose to ban cannibalism and head-hunting.
“The Aztecs had a tradition of human sacrifice. But the narrowminded bigot Hernando Cortes, who conquered Tenochtitlan, was not a multiculturalist and so he told the priests, their hair covered in dried human blood, to knock it off. That almost cost him his life, and his victory. In this sense, the problem with the modern world is not the strengthening of Islamism. It is the weakening of the West, which keeps refining, calibrating, and redefining itself to death.”
We should cease seeking for precision in a world of fuzzy sets. As theoretical physicist Feynman once said, “it is really quite impos- sible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.”
The fact of the matter is in our human knowledge base we try to name everything; every species of plants, bugs, birds, animals, bacteria, every inanimate object has a name. Is there anything on this planet that hasn’t a name? If you can find something, you may be given the honor to give it a name, whether it belongs to a species of insects of one kind or another, or even if it is an unknown plant, animal or whatever. Finding something yet undiscovered is every scientist’s dream. You might think that to be highly unlikely to happen on this planet in our day, yet it is happening most every day. However, it is much easier to identify a new “fuzzy set.”