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Re: [ontolog-forum] Editor COE view of a new list of categories

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Waclaw Kusnierczyk <Waclaw.Marcin.Kusnierczyk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:59:00 +0200
Message-id: <4699D3C4.3060206@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Azamat wrote:
> John Sowa wrote: ''OWL is a very simple language, which just represents 
> triples.''
> 
> I have to agree on this statement.     (01)

I have to disagree.  OWL is a simple language (expressions written in) 
which represent(s) more or less complex structures in a domain with just 
triples.  Triples are a feature of statements in the language, and not 
of what is represented.  In particular, there may be n-ary (n>3) 
relations in the domain (which are not triples or sets of triples), yet 
they can, with some creativity on the side of the developer, ber 
represented by means of OWL triples.    (02)

Likewise, FOL is not a language which (just) represents formulas.    (03)

> Moreover it has nothing to do with a real 
> ontology, being just a formal logical language,     (04)

Likewise FOL and any other logic.  OWL involves some more ontology in 
that it speaks of classes and instances, while (the semantics of) pure 
FOL includes a single sort of entities.    (05)

> thus coming as a rather 
> ineffective standard language for ''processing the semantic information 
> about the world'', bringing more confusion than clarity.     (06)

Even if you're right about OWL, I can't see how the 'thus' follows in 
what you say.    (07)

> It is troubling 
> that many developers still building their applications on this shaky 
> standard foundation.    (08)

What is more troubling to me is that many developers do it in a mindless 
way.  You can use any language, of any expressivity, and still do silly 
things.  Constrained expressivity does not mean that what you say about 
the world is necessarily confused -- it is just a model which is much 
more simple than the modeled reality.  (Show me a model which is as 
complex as what it models.)    (09)


That an ontology (or wannabe ontology, if you prefer) is built in OWL 
does not imply that it is nonsense (as you seem to suggest), just as it 
does not imply that the ontology makes perfect sense (as many believe).    (010)

vQ    (011)

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