re: Do hypothesis have a legitimate right to exist in a formal ontology
or should the ontology be used solely as a factual basis to feed some
form of inference machine to form further hypothesis? (01)
Duane,
Our primary interest in ontologies is to represent architectures,
specifications & designs - you could well call these hypothesis. This
would seem to be the subject of this ongoing debate on intention, so
this would put me firmly in that camp. We are not trying to discover
the state of the world but to specify how systems (systems includes
business, communities, ants, missions, computers...) do an should work
and should work together. This, of course, requires a good model of the
real world we touch - or at least the aspects of that real world that
impact such designs. The architecture or design is the conceptualized
state of affairs. (02)
In such a domain the concepts of the design are the tools we work with
and these tools need both precision and a fit for the user - rich
concepts that people in the domain can use to design and architect their
systems. So defining the ontology of architecture and design is, to us,
the point. Having that provide good tools that resonate with the
understanding of what is being specified as well as have a well defined
and consistent world view provides the connections between facets' of
architecture that, up to now, have remained somewhat disjoint. This
provides a different use case from the ontologies focused on real-world
analysis (Such as, perhaps, the medical ontologies). (03)
So I would say yes - a formal ontology can live in the realm of
hypotheses as an interpretation of or anticipation of a "possible
world". (04)
-Cory (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Duane
Nickull
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 1:19 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Cc: bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Logic, Datalog and SQL (06)
>> I agree with everything that Kathy said up to the following sentence:
>>
>>> I think ontologies need to be able to represent probabilistic
>>> relationships like these.
>>
>> I certainly agree that such relationships should be represented
>> somewhere, but the question of where they should be represented is
>> another issue.
>>
>> For years, I have maintained that the base ontology (i.e., what is
>> usually called the "upper level") should have very few detailed
>> axioms of any kind.
>>
>> In fact, I would be delighted to have a base ontology that contains
>> nothing but a type hierarchy plus the minimal constraints that
>> everybody can agree to without reservation. (07)
<Duane>
Nicola Guarino summed this up nicely: (08)
"a conceptualization is a set of extensional relations describing a
particular state of affairs, while the notion we have in mind is an
intensional one, namely something like a conceptual grid which we
superimpose to various possible state of affairs" (09)
Questions: (010)
Do hypothesis have a legitimate right to exist in a formal ontology or
should the ontology be used solely as a factual basis to feed some form
of inference machine to form further hypothesis? (011)
Should ontologies be strictly limited to only "universal truths" and
"aspects" (assuming they are represented as a contextual viewpoint) or
should they include probabilistic relationships? (012)
I have heard arguments on both sides for these questions. Too bad most
ontologies don't define ontology. (013)
</Duane>
--
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Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee *
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