In the early days of the UN/CEFACT CCTS work, we realized that this concept
was an interesting yet possibly useless concept, especially in the context
of building a graphical representation of the taxonomies, ontologies into a
metadata registry facility. The 2 dimensional model was not sufficient
given the CCTS uses an 8 dimensional matrix to overlay context modifiers on
taxonomic nodes as well as a grounding of each node as a specialized child
of the parent ontological topic. The system has many flaws so I wouldn't
recommend reading up on it but it did raise some very interesting questions.
We had a lot of trouble explaining it given most people have a great deal of
trouble visualizing an 8 dimensional matrix. (01)
First - "distance" is not a symmetrical relationship nor is it always
transitive. In fact, the "distance" may be different based on the view. I
use distance here to denote a close approximation of what I think you are
all talking about. YAMMV. (02)
What is the real driver for defining it? I cannot really see any use cases
that make a great deal of sense although I am more than willing to concede
ignorance. (03)
Interesting discussion though. (04)
Duane (05)
On 2/9/07 1:46 PM, "Steve Newcomb" <srn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: (06)
> FYI.
>
> For a *completely* different take on "measuring semantic distance",
> see ieml.org , and click on "Dictionnaire". Although it may not be
> obvious at that website, what Pierre Lévy (Canada Chair for Collective
> Intelligence, U. of Ottawa) has done there is to propose an address
> space within which every kind of human transaction (political,
> spiritual, literary, etc ...) has a unique and well-grounded address.
> The fact that all addresses are expressed in terms of two dialectics,
> one with three poles and one with two poles, is what makes the
> distances in the space "measurable". (Although the multiple possible
> approaches to the making of actual measurements based on these poles
> is an area of ongoing research.) It's not yet completely clear to me
> how the grounding actually happens, but I'm convinced that it's
> happening in at least *some* minds.
>
> Regardless of whether it actually "works" in some particular sense or
> another, it's one of the most intriguing things I've seen. For
> example, it has forced me to question my long-held conviction that
> there's no comprehensive way to categorize relationships, hyperlinks,
> etc. Lévy's approach implicitly discards everything that's outside
> the human frame of reference (as if he were acting on the converse of
> Montaigne's observation that "nothing human was alien to him"), and
> explicitly says that, at least *within* the human frame of reference,
> everything is touched, in a knowable, groundable fashion, by his two
> dialectics.
>
>
> "Adrian Walker" <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> You wrote...
>>
>> The lack of capability of computing the distance between two
>> words/phrases/ideas still cripples all current semantic tools.
>>
>> The replacement for ontology will possess, as its major
>> term/characteristic, the ability to compute semantic distances.
>>
>> I'd be interested in your thoughts please about the semantic distance
>> proposal in [1].
>>
>> The basic idea is that, in walking an abstraction hierarchy up from A and
>> back down to B, the semantic distance is measured by ambiguity, that is, the
>> number of wrong turns you could make along the way.
>>
>> Thanks! -- Adrian
>>
>> [1]
>> www.reengineeringllc.com/Internet_Business_Logic_and_Semantic_Web_Presentatio
>> n.pdf,
>> slides 40-50
>>
>> Internet Business Logic (R)
>> A Wiki for Executable Open Vocabulary English
>> Online at www.reengineeringllc.com
>> Shared use is free
>> Adrian Walker
>> Reengineering
>> Phone: USA 860 830 2085
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/8/07, Mike Brenner <mikeb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> Bob Smith wrote:
>>>> Is this all about the old topic called "Semantic Distance" we played
>>>> with in the late 1960's and early 1970's, but now with a better GIS-OGC
>>>> sense of "Distance"?
>>>
>>>
>>> The lack of capability of computing the distance between two
>>> words/phrases/ideas still cripples all current semantic tools.
>>>
>>> The replacement for ontology will possess, as its major
>>> term/characteristic, the ability to compute semantic distances.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>
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