Pat, (01)
This
> seems to me to illustrate a wise observation by Doug Lenat: you might
> have to have an upper ontology, but which one you have doesn't really
> matter a damn, because there's very little useful to say at the upper
> levels, and whatever you really want to say at the middle levels,
> where all the actual content is, can be made to fit with just about
> any upper level you like. (02)
This is oft quoted, but I think has more to do with marketing than
science. In fact, we showed in 1999 on the HPKB project that about 1/3
of the terms in proofs and answers on a large test were from the Cyc
upper ontology. I would agree that several reasonable upper ontologies
could be constructed, at least three have, and possibly any given middle
level content could be reformulated to use a different upper level, but
that doesn't mean that the upper content isn't immediately useful in any
practical inference. Try doing without saying that one event happens
before another, for example. That's upper level content bound to be
present in any number of practical inferences. (03)
Cohen, P., Chaudhri, V., Pease A., and Schrag, R. (1999), Does Prior
Knowledge Facilitate the Development of Knowledge Based Systems, In
Proceedings of the Sixteenth National Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI-1999). Menlo Park, Calif.: AAAI Press.
http://home.earthlink.net/~adampease/professional/cohen-aaai99.ps (04)
Adam (05)
Pat Hayes wrote:
>> Weighing in with Ingvar...
>>
>> If I want to describe an organization*, is it the people, the facilities
>> or the notion of an entity that performs some function in accordance
>> with internal guidance* and external laws*? The ideas in the guidance
>> and laws may be reduced to energy on phosphor or symbols in ink on paper
>> but it's the ideas that matter. How do I describe the idea of a design*
>> produced by the organization* that satisfies a customers mission
>> statement* as they compete in a economic marketspace* to reach their
>> annual goals*
>>
>> * = subclass of Concept
>
> Well now, I understand all of the above until that last claim. This
> seems to me to illustrate a wise observation by Doug Lenat: you might
> have to have an upper ontology, but which one you have doesn't really
> matter a damn, because there's very little useful to say at the upper
> levels, and whatever you really want to say at the middle levels,
> where all the actual content is, can be made to fit with just about
> any upper level you like. I know a fair amount about organizations,
> designs, mission statements and annual goals, and enough about
> economic marketplaces and internal guidance to follow what others are
> saying, but I'm damned if I know anything worth writing down about
> Concepts. And indeed, if I were asked to come up with a name for a
> superclass of all those *'s, my reaction would be that they have
> nothing whatever in common. I fail to see how an organization can
> possibly be said to be a concept, in fact, or for that matter a
> mission statement (I have actually held mission statements in my
> hands at various times). Of course we can speak of a concept of an
> organization, but that's not the same as the organization itself. Can
> a concept have legal rights? Some organizations do.
>
> Pat Hayes (06)
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