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Re: [ontolog-forum] Current Semantic Web Layer pizza (was ckae)

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Mills Davis <lmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:20:01 -0400
Message-id: <C881F7AD-5393-4176-B5D3-103137754DEE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Here is a link to a paper by Kim Veltman: 


This paper argues that the computing community (and semantic web crowd in particular) has been overly fixated on first order logic and has failed thus far to produce a semantic web that is suitable for culture. The abstract reads:

Today’s semantic web deals with meaning in a very restricted sense and offers static 
solutions. This is adequate for many scientific, technical purposes and for business 
transactions requiring machine-to-machine communication, but does not answer the 
needs of culture. Science, technology and business are concerned primarily with the latest 
findings, the state of the art, i.e. the paradigm or dominant world-view of the day. In this 
context, history is considered non-essential because it deals with things that are out of 
date.   

 

By contrast, culture faces a much larger challenge, namely, to re-present changes in ways 
of knowing; changing meanings in different places at a given time (synchronically) and 
over time (diachronically). Culture is about both objects and the commentaries on them; 
about a cumulative body of knowledge; about collective memory and heritage. Here, 
history plays a central role and older does not mean less important or less relevant. 
Hence, a Leonardo painting that is 400 years old, or a Greek statue that is 2500 years old, 
typically have richer commentaries and are often more valuable than their contemporary 
equivalents. In this context, the science of meaning (semantics) is necessarily much more 
complex than semantic primitives. A semantic web in the cultural domain must enable us 
to trace how meaning and knowledge organisation have evolved historically in different 
cultures.  

 

This paper examines five issues to address this challenge: 1) different world-views (i.e. a 
shift from substance to function and from ontology to multiple ontologies); 2) develop- 
ments in definitions and meaning; 3) distinctions between words and concepts; 4) new 
classes of relations; and 5) dynamic models of knowledge organisation. These issues 
reveal that historical dimensions of cultural diversity in knowledge organisation are also 
central to classification of biological diversity.    

 

New ways are proposed of visualizing knowledge using a time/space horizon to 
distinguish between universals and particulars. It is suggested that new visualization 
methods make possible a history of questions as well as of answers, thus enabling 
dynamic access to cultural and historical dimensions of knowledge. Unlike earlier media, 
which were limited to recording factual dimensions of collective memory, digital media 
enable us to explore theories, ways of perceiving, ways of knowing; to enter into other 
mindsets and world-views and thus to attain novel insights aSome practical consequences are outlined.        


On Sep 9, 2007, at 9:06 AM, John F. Sowa wrote:

Might I remind people that this thread started with a discussion
of how the pieces of the SemWeb are related to ontology.

John Cage's compositions are worth some discussion, but perhaps
the amount spent so far has strayed a bit off topic.

John


_________________________________________________________________



Mills Davis
Managing Director
Project10X
202-667-6400
202-255-6655 cel
1-800-713-8049 fax




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