Thanks! (01)
Carl (02)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vinay K. Chaudhri" <Vinay.Chaudhri@xxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Summary on language and ontology (03)
>
> I attach the article here.
>
>
>
> Carl Reed OGC Account wrote:
>
>> 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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