On Mar 16, 2007, at 10:32 PM, paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On 3/17/07, Christopher Menzel <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> What might be nice (but possibly impossible) is to agree on some
>>> frame of reference or common definitions of the terms used in
>>> this thread and others. Without such, I fear this community will
>>> be doomed to argue the very basic tenets of ontology without
>>> arriving at consensus.
>>
>> I whole-heartedly agree. The thing is, the frame of reference in
>> which those terms are defined is settled and fixed, namely,
>> mathematical logic. There should be no issue of their meanings in a
>> mature community devoted to ontological engineering. Knowledge of
>> basic mathematical logic -- minimally: formal languages, model
>> theory, proof theory -- is as fundamental to ontological engineering
>> as the calculus is to electrical engineering, and no one can be
>> considered a serious practitioner of the discipline without it.
>
> offensive' statements like the one [above]... (01)
Suppose you were to announce that you intended to build a bridge over
a wide river and that you had your own "qualitative" understanding of
bridge construction and such relevant concepts as mass and mechanical
resonance. Would you find it offensive if you were told that the
meanings of those terms vis-a-vis bridge construction had already
been fixed by modern physics? The only reason I can imagine for such
a response would be that you were under the misimpression that bridge
building isn't really an engineering discipline grounded on physics
but on something far more subjective and intangible, something about
which there can be various, equally valid viewpoints, none of which
is really open to criticism. That would be an interesting (and
incorrect) view. It would also not get many reliable bridges built. (02)
The goal of ontological engineering is to be able to exchange and
robustly process distributed information on high-speed computer
networks. The way that information gets into computers -- in the
ontological engineering paradigm -- is by means of one or another
formal representation language. The only way of guaranteeing that
the language in question has the required representational capacities
is by providing it with a rigorous model theory. The only way the
information represented is going to be reliably processed is by means
of (among other things) a sound underlying proof theory. This is why
knowledge of basic mathematical logic -- formal languages, model
theory, and proof theory -- is *fundamental* to ontological
engineering. Ontological engineering is (or, at least, is becoming)
a technical, scientific discipline built upon rigorous and advanced
mathematical underpinnings. If one purports to be doing ontological
engineering, then one's work must clearly feed directly into the
above goal by the stated means. (03)
There is certainly plenty of room for nontechnical discussion that is
relevant to ontological engineering. Notably, there are many
important antecedent philosophical (or at least quasi-philosophical)
issues that must be addressed about how best to represent certain
features of the world. But it questionable how effectively one can
address these issues in an ontological engineering context without
understanding the technical fundamentals of ontological engineering
itself. (04)
This is not at all to cast any aspersions on what you do. What you
do is no doubt intrinsically interesting, which is justification
enough; and it may well have direct IT applications, but through a
different paradigm -- and there are certainly other approaches to
managing and processing information than the ontological engineering
approach. (05)
This is not an attempt to restrict discourse to a "partial" point of
view. It is an attempt to focus discussion in a forum allegedly
dedicated to ontological engineering whose function and purpose seem
to me to have become perilously unclear. (06)
Chris Menzel (07)
ps: Please interleave comments rather than top-posting. (08)
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