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Re: [ontolog-forum] Summary on language and ontology

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Vinay K. Chaudhri" <Vinay.Chaudhri@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:41:02 -0700
Message-id: <443C226E.3000500@xxxxxxx>

I attach the article here.    (01)



Carl Reed OGC Account wrote:    (02)

> Appears that you need to be an ACM member to access this article - or 
> am I missing something?
>
> Carl Reed
> OGC
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vinay K. Chaudhri" 
> <Vinay.Chaudhri@xxxxxxx>
> To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 1:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Summary on language and ontology
>
>
>>
>> Hello All:
>>
>> This point was quite eloquently made by Drew McDermott in his seminal 
>> technical note
>>
>> Artificial Intelligence Meets Natural Stupidity
>>
>> This article makes a very interesting read, and is available at:
>>
>> 
>http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1045340&type=pdf&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=69268953&CFTOKEN=42244022
> 
>>
>>
>> Vinay
>>
>>
>>
>> Adam Pease wrote:
>>
>>> Folks,
>>>   My thanks to Patrick for persevering with this discussion, and 
>>> taking the time to organize it for everyone's benefit.
>>>
>>> Adam
>>>
>>> At 12:03 PM 4/11/2006, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greetings!
>>>>
>>>> Adam Pease and I continued our discussion off-list and we both 
>>>> think that the results of that discussion may be of broader interest.
>>>>
>>>> I asked Adam to be more specific about what he means by: "meaing is 
>>>> contained in the formal mathematics?"
>>>>
>>>> The reason I asked that is I was interpreting the "terms," 
>>>> "linguistic names" to be meaningful in and of themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Adam responded with the following explanation:
>>>>
>>>> ***
>>>> The meaning of '+' has a formal definition (at least thanks to the 
>>>> Principia Mathematica).  The issue of grounding '+' to language or 
>>>> thought is orthogonal to its formal meaning.  The meaning of the 
>>>> arithmetic symbols is no more and no less than their formal 
>>>> mathematical definition.  So it is with terms in a formal ontology.
>>>> If I define
>>>>
>>>> (=>
>>>> (instance ?X Human)
>>>> (instance ?X Mammal))
>>>>
>>>> or in conventional logic notation
>>>>
>>>> Human(x) -> Mammal(x) ,
>>>>
>>>> unless I make additional formal statements, this is identical in 
>>>> meaning to
>>>>
>>>> Foo(x) -> Bar(x)
>>>>
>>>> The meaning of the terms is not in the linguistic names of the 
>>>> terms, but in its formal mathematical definition.
>>>> ***
>>>>
>>>> What was the "A ha!" moment for me was realizing that Adam meant 
>>>> that in the formal statement Human(x) -> Mammal(x), that Human(x) 
>>>> and Mammal(x) only have the meaning that is defined by the 
>>>> operator, ->. The meaning of the terms is defined by the operator 
>>>> in formal statements.
>>>>
>>>> Granted that with a single formal statement we don't know much, a 
>>>> cumulation of formal statements "define" the terms or linguistic 
>>>> labels. Each part of the complete "definition" of a term is defined 
>>>> by the formal operators in the statements in the ontology.
>>>>
>>>> Where I was going off-track was in thinking that the terms or 
>>>> linguistic labels had more meaning than was being defined by the 
>>>> formal operator.
>>>>
>>>> When I posted the foregoing to Adam, he pointed out that defining 
>>>> meaning was not limited to operators. I had just assumed that but 
>>>> he suggested the following to make that clear:
>>>>
>>>> ***
>>>> We're getting very close here.  The only refinement I'd suggest is 
>>>> that it's not just logical operators like '=>', 'and', 'or' etc. 
>>>> that give terms meaning, but also relations and functions, as well 
>>>> as the entire relationship (which includes another or several other 
>>>> terms).
>>>> For example (using SUO-KIF and existing SUMO terms):
>>>>
>>>> (=>
>>>> (and
>>>>   (instance ?X Head)
>>>>   (part ?Y ?X))
>>>> (exists (?Z)
>>>>   (and
>>>>     (instance ?Z Organism)
>>>>     (part ?Y ?Z))))
>>>>
>>>> The formal meaning of "Head" is provided by a number of axioms, but 
>>>> even in this axiom, it's not just the logical operators of '=>', 
>>>> 'and' and 'exists' that provide that meaning, but the entire 
>>>> statement, including the relationship to "Organism" formed by the 
>>>> entire statement, and the use of the particular SUMO relation "part".
>>>> ***
>>>>
>>>> Note that Adam's original point about the linguistic label "Head" 
>>>> still obtains. The label has no "intrisic" meaning, only formal 
>>>> meaning as defined.
>>>>
>>>> Hope everyone is having a great day!
>>>>
>>>> Patrick
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Patrick Durusau
>>>> Patrick@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
>>>> Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
>>>> Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
>>>>
>>>> Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------
>>> Adam Pease
>>> http://www.ontologyportal.org - Free ontologies and tools
>>>
>>>
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>    (03)

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