I would agree with both Pat and Adam as long as the practical project
members have explicit alignment on their working assumptions about the
client's problems and requirements, and related resources, likely events,
and agent commitments. (01)
IFF these assumptions are not valid, some focused time on the semantic
distances may have high payoff (depending on the appropriate uses of tools
and collaborative environments). (02)
Hopefully, this extends this discussion... (03)
Bob (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick Cassidy
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 9:33 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What do ontologies have to do with meaning? (05)
I agree with Adam that this question seems to be an odd topic for a
workshop.
For me the practical answer is very simple, and to go beyond that doesn't
seem to have much purpose. It may be true that a lot of people who are just
starting to create ontologies don't really grasp how one specifies
conceptual content using axioms to define predicates -- but that would be a
topic for a tutorial, not a workshop.
It is hard to avoid the question completely because in discussions of
knowledge representation generally and ontology in particular, the term
"meaning" is used a lot, expected to be interpreted in its intuitive sense,
but it is natural for readers to wonder if there is a specific definition.
When I say "meaning" I mean this: a text carries information that allows
an intelligent reader (human or machine) to make alternative **choices**
based on the structure of text -- words, images, and and format. The
document content symbolizes conceptual structures in the mind of the agent
that created the text. The more information a text has, the more choices
are enabled, and the more
(quantitative) meaning the text has. The information content depends on the
intention of the agent constructing the text, since it might not be
interpretable by any other agent (if, e.g., encoded in a private code). The
"meaning" itself is ***the set of conceptual structures in the mind of the
creating agent that are symbolized by the text and its format***. When the
agent reading the text determines that the symbols refer to a specific set
of conceptual structures, and these are the same as the conceptual
structures in the mind of the creating agent, the reading agent has
correctly interpreted the "meaning". An agent can determine the meaning of
some parts of a text and not others.
Determining the meaning (conceptual structures) of any part of the text
enables the reading agent to make choices based on
that information. An ontology provides a formal set of symbols
for conceptual structures which, if used by both the agent creating a text
and the agent reading a text, allows the reading agent to reproduce the
conceptual structures which were in the mind of the creating agent and were
encoded in those symbols. The predicates get meaning by their definitional
implications using axioms, which provide symbols whose relation to
fundamental conceptual structures is widely understood.
To contrast this, we know that file transfer protocols can take a file
on one computer and create a copy on another computer.
When the protocol creates an exact copy and the action of the receiving
computer does not depend on any element of content of the file, the computer
does not use any element of "meaning" encoded in the file.
But as soon as the computer reading a file can make some **choice of
actions** depending on the content of the file, it has interpreted the file
in some way and can be said to have used some element of "meaning" in the
file. This can be very trivial, as when a transfer protocol converts cr-lf
line ends to lf or vice-versa. In such a case, the computer has interpreted
one part of the format, which is (or could be) part of the meaning of a
file. So there is a continuum of meaning, from the very trivial to the very
complex.
At a slightly more complex level, a computer might receive a file
labeled "invoice" and because of that label, search for the fields labeled
"amount due" and "pay to", and then print a check in the amount due to the
payee named.
The computer has then interpreted some elements of meaning encoded in the
text. If the computer also scans the line item fields in the invoice to
determine whether the items received are those the invoice says were sent,
it is interpreting other elements of meaning in the invoice. (06)
This is a very practical use of the term -- the meaning of a text is the
set of conceptual structures that the creating agent intends it to
symbolize, provided that the agent has encoded that meaning (the conceptual
structures) correctly. (07)
I don't think we need a conference to debate these issues.
If it gets much more complicated than the above, then, as Adam says, the
discussion would get too philosophical and distract from the practical
tasks. (08)
Pat (09)
====================================================== (010)
Adam Pease wrote:
> Folks,
> I'm kind of surprised at the workshop text. This is an issue that
> has been debated at length for decades in computer science, and over a
> century if one expands to semiotics. Some researchers like Rodney
> Brooks take a strong situatedness view that symbols must be ultimately
> grounded in the physical world to have meaning. Others take a "brain
> in a vat" view that meaning, and by extension, intelligence, need not
> be situated. Ultimately I view this as an interesting but
> unresolvable philosophical debate, without much impact on practical
> ontology building, and on which I wonder whether much additional light
> might be shed. Building systems, whether situated or not, is unlikely
> to address this issue. In fact, I'd venture that this is the sort of
> topic which can have a substantial negative impact by distracting from
> the practical tasks of building and using ontologies.
> I'll go back to my grumpy guy cave now :-)
>
> Adam
>
>
> At 07:21 PM 6/3/2004 -0400, Internet Business Logic wrote:
>
>> Hi All --
>>
>> In case you have not already seen it, there is a very interesting
>> call for workshop papers [1].
>> The workshop theme begins:
>>
>> "What do ontologies, as used in the semantic web and elsewhere, have
>> to do with meaning? In particular, where do their predicates get
>> their meanings? Semantics, no matter what formalisms are applied to
>> it, is ultimately a cognitive phenomenon: it refers to the meaning
>> that symbols have for human beings. ...."
>>
>> This is a question that is also raised at a nuts-and-bolts level in
>> [2], where a technical, implemented answer is attempted.
>>
>> Any thoughts or pointers about [1] and/or [2] ? Peter -- is this a
>> suitable topic for an extended discussion on this forum?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> -- Adrian
>>
>> [1] http://fois2004.di.unito.it/workshops.html
>>
>> [2] "Semantic Web Presentation" at www.reengineeringllc.com
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Internet Business Logic -- online at www.reengineeringllc.com
>>
>> Reengineering LLC, PO Box 1412, Bristol, CT 06011-1412, USA
>>
>> Phone 860 583 9677 Mobile 860 830 2085 Fax 860 314 1029
>>
>>
>>
>>
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--
=============================================
Patrick Cassidy (012)
MICRA, Inc. || (908) 561-3416
735 Belvidere Ave. || (908) 668-5252 (if no answer above)
Plainfield, NJ 07062-2054 (013)
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