Leo, (01)
> [Leo] With respect to definitions of ontologies, I hope to
> send a portion of a briefing I made at the Army Knowledge
> Management Conference in Ft. Lauderdale late Aug/early
> Sept of 2004, that takes you through the
> ontology spectrum, ... (02)
[ppy] following-up with you, on your promise to make that "set of
definitions" available. Please post at your earliest convenience.
We may even discuss some more, and get that (or some variation of
it) adopted as the "official" Ontolog terms of reference. (03)
Cheers. =ppy (04)
P.S. The latest thread on "taxonomies and ontologies" has been
equally exciting ... take a look (thread starts at:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2005-07/msg00020.html)
and weight in too, if you have a chance. =ppy
-- (05)
Leo Obrst wrote Wed, 02 Mar 2005 17:18:03 -0500:
> All,
>
> I'm in favor of the proposed charter changes: I think it brings us
> closer to what we are actually about now.
>
> With respect to definitions of ontologies, I hope to send a portion of a
> briefing I made at the Army Knowledge Management Conference in Ft.
> Lauderdale late Aug/early Sept of 2004, that takes you through the
> ontology spectrum, from taxonomy (weak and strong) to thesaurus (a
> strong term taxonomy+) to conceptual model (weak ontology) to logical
> theory (strong ontology). The first is unstandardized, the second and
> third each has a set of standards associated with them, the third and
> fourth have multiple representation languages supporting them, and the
> last has some logic behind the representation language, typically
> ranging from a description logic (OWL) to first-order logic (KIF, Common
> Logic) to a higher order logic.
>
> A logical theory is a formal ontology. The others range from informal to
> semi-formal. Other informal ontologies can be natural language sentences
> in a document. The key point about formal ontologies (logical theories)
> is that they are machine-interpretable, i.e., semantically interpretable
> by machine. The others are not, are only interpretable by human beings,
> though they may be machine-readable and machine-processable.
>
> Hope this helps a bit.
>
> Thanks,
> Leo (06)
> Peter Yim wrote 02 Mar 2005 02:10:42 -0800:
>
>>Good questions, Duane.
>>
>>Before I start to answer, let me pull out the our current
>>charter: (ref: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl#nid011 )
>>
>>//
>>= Charter of the Ontolog Forum =
>>
>> Ontolog is an open forum to:
>>
>> * Discuss practical issues and strategies associated with
>>the development of both formal and informal ontologies used in
>>business.
>>
>> * Identify ontological engineering approaches that might be
>>applied to the UBL effort (and by extension, to the broader
>>domain of eBusiness standardization efforts).
>>//
>>
>>1. ref your question about formal definitions -- we don't really
>>have definitions of an "ontology" that is "adopted" by Ontolog
>>per se. For me (who roots for the 'augmentation' camp, and not
>>the 'AI' camp), I would start from Tom Gruber's definition that
>>an ontology is a specification of a conceptualization, and extend
>>from there to say that a 'formal' ontology is a specification of
>>a conceptualization represented in a formal logic language; and
>>an 'informal' ontology is a specification of a conceptualization
>>represented and shared in a language that may, or may not be
>>fully formal and computable.
>>
>>Of course, there are people who would argue that the latter can't
>>even be called an ontology (but then ... that would only be a
>>naming issue).
>>
>>One might refer to the Tom Gruber interview on AIS SIGSEMIS at
>>http://www.sigsemis.org/newsletter/october2004/tom_gruber_interview_sigsemis
>>(an article that Bob Smith alluded me to earlier, and which I
>>have seen quoted by Brand Niemann and Mary Pulvermacher of Mitre
>>since) when he did discuss formal, informal and semi-formal
>>ontologies (see para. 3 in the article).
>>
>>As for various discussions on definitions of ontologies, as well
>>as the treatment of the big 'O' (the philosopher's Ontology) and
>>the small 'o' (the computer scientist's ontology), that have
>>appeared in our space, I recall the following, which are all
>>worth referring back to (I'm sure I have missed some too):
>>
>>(a) Slides 9~13 of the presentation by Obrst/Park/Yim
>>(2-Apr-2002) that effectively started Ontolog (or the precursor
>>of it) - ref:
>>http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2002-05/msg00005.html
>>
>>(b) definition on the W3C OWL Use Cases and Requirements (mainly
>>Leo Obrst's contribution)
>>
>>(c) wikipedia entries - both big 'O' and small 'o'
>>
>>For both of the above, see:
>>http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RecommendedReadingResource#nid04
>>
>>(d) Bo Newman's post (ref. both big and small 'O'):
>>http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2002-10/msg00034.html
>>
>>(e) Bill McCarthy's post (ref. enterprise ontologies):
>>http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2003-01/msg00017.html
>>
>>(f) see also: Robert Garigue's post:
>>http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2005-01/msg00024.html
>>
>>2. As to why 'UBL' ... that's inherited
>>
>>(a) of course, because I copied that from the original charter
>>(see above),
>>
>>(b) for those who may not be aware, the Ontolog discussion
>>actually started at the UBL TC (the original list address was
>><ubl-ontolog@xxxxxxxx> no less) in May 2002, and then spun off
>>from there (due to a mismatch of time-lines) and reconstituted as
>>the Ontolog Forum in Sep. 2002, and
>>
>>(c) the first and foremost Ontolog project, and the one its
>>members got together for, was actually to build the "UBL-Ontology".
>>
>>(d) we have been, and are still getting moral support from UBL
>>and its leadership ... which I deeply appreciate.
>>
>>3. ... Do we want to do this?
>>
>>I like it there (for the above reasons) ... but that's me. Maybe
>>we can talk about it, if people want to bring that up during our
>>Thursday (2005.02.02) planning session.
>>
>>Regards. =ppy
>>-- (07)
>>Duane Nickull wrote Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:30:03 -0800:
>>
>>>Peter:
>>>
>>>Some comments and questions inline:
>>>
>>>ProposedCharter = Ontolog is an open, international, virtual community
>>>of practice, whose membership will:
>>>
>>>
>>>> * Discuss practical issues and strategies associated with the
>>>>development and application of both formal and informal ontologies.
>>>
>>>
>>>DN - is there a formal definition of "formal" vs. "informal" ontologies?
>>>
>>>
>>>> * Identify ontological engineering approaches that might be applied
>>>>to the UBL effort, as well as to the broader domain of eBusiness
>>>>standardization efforts.
>>>
>>>
>>>DN - why would we distinguish UBL above others? Do we want to do this?
>>>(note - I have no opinion on this).
>>>
>>>Duane
>>>
>>
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