Responses to selected comments:
[[[1]]]
[PH] >> Second, even a conceptual defining vocabulary
is not a formal foundation ontology, since you are using 'defining' in the
dictionary sense (which is of limited, if any, use when describing formal
ontologies).
I have tried to explain
several times that the word ³defining² in the phrase ³conceptual defining vocabulary²
is used in an analogical way, and that the foundation ontology will consist
mostly of concept specifications that use necessary conditions, not necessary
and sufficient conditions.
Then it is not analogous to the dictionary case (which as
far as I can see, is the only motivation for your entire proposal.) You can't
have it both ways: if you are making an analogy based on definitions, but not
meaning actual definitions, then you need to either elucidate the analogy more
carefully or abandon it (I'd suggest the latter).
A definition is a description of the meaning of a term, whether
it is a linguistic definition or a logical specification. That is the analogy. The
[[[2]]]<snip>
[PC] >> Of course, the process of language
learning involves multiple clues, including possibly an innate ability to
exclude certain combinatorially possible syntactic constructions from the
grammar. My point was that the language learning process is sufficiently
*similar* in different people learning the same native language, that
the process supports the ability of learners to develop a common internal
ontology (of unknown structure) that is very close.
[PH] > Again, that simply does not follow. You are
begging the question entirely. I didn't bring up this whole topic of language
learning, note: you did in order to justify this idea of a 99.9% common
ontology, and I repeat, regardless of the psycholinguistic data, in fact, that
is poppycock: nothing about language learning supports the claim that we all
have 99.9% agreement on our mental models.
My opinion that our mental models for the basic terms are
over 99.9% in agreement is based on personal observation of the high accuracy
of communication, when using the basic words. I believe that that level of accuracy
requires common mental models, for the concepts represented by those basic
words. You don’t. Fine. But you shouldn’t assert that it has been disproven
unless you can cite an accessible reference and point to the passage where the
data is summarized.
My mentioning elements of language learning merely provides
a possible mechanism for the achievement of such commonality. It was never
advanced as more than that. If you think that commonality can’t be achieved
that way, fine. But you shouldn’t assert it has been proven to be impossible unless
you can cite an accessible reference and point to the passage where the data is
summarized.
[[[3]]] [PC] >> The question of whether people
actually use an innate common ontology is a scientific question, but the
methods for investigating that are likely to be horrendously complex, and I do
not think that past efforts to create a foundation ontology at Cyc actually
address this specific question.
[PH] I agree, and it would have save a lot of time if you
had not brought it up.
Now, this puzzles me. It was you who brought up the experience
at Cyc as evidence that we don’t have common mental models. Now you say that
the Cyc experience doesn’t address the question. Can you reconcile these two
assertions? I can’t find the bridging axioms.
On the other hand, I think that trying to develop a
foundation ontology *explicitly* as a Conceptual Defining Vocabulary *would*
provide evidence for or against this hypothesis, and in the process may help
develop a common foundation ontology that is more widely used than the existing
ones. You don’t think the answer is worth the effort? Fine. We just
disagree.
[[[4]]] ]PC] >> If that process results in a
**logical contradiction**, it is my expectation that one or more of the
formalizations specifies a concept that is not primitive
[PH] > OK, let me immediately give you a counterexample.
DOLCE and BOF both require the categories of continuant and occurrent to be
disjoint: nothing can possibly be both a continuant and an occurrent in these
ontologies. Other ontologies ( I have one, and I think the same is true of Cyc)
allow both categories with pretty much the same properties of the respective
types, but allow them to overlap. These two categories of ontology are
logically incompatible: adding a Cyc axiom to DOLCE will immediately produce
inconsistencies. And yet this is all concerned with very basic topics of how to
describe time and change, without which a nontrivial ontology can hardly be
said to be possible.
Good example. Here is a case where it seems that the
disputants are using “continuant’ and “occurrent” terms in different senses. Clearly,
if some entity is an instance of one “occurrent” but not an instance of another
“occurrent”, the meanings differ – they are using the terms in different senses.
Once this is recognized, it is necessary to explore the intended meanings of
those terms in more detail in order to decide why it is that one ontologist
believes that ?X is an instance, but the other doesn’t think so. I would be
delighted to explore any such example in detail, and believe it likely that the
problem will be shown to be at basis a terminology dispute. In order to discover
the problem, one needs to analyze the intended meanings of those terms in more
detail than can be achieved by merely pointing to subclasses or instances. The
subclass/instance tactic clearly fails in this case to resolve the intended
meanings. It will be necessary to continue dissecting the intended meanings
into increasingly finer parts and formalizing them, until the part of the intended
meaning that differs between the two ontologists become clear. Then it will be
possible to recompose the basic categories (which may have to change, but now
for a good reason) to allow each ontologist to specify the intended meanings,
without causing a logical contradiction. Such a process would in fact help
discover what the true fundamental elements of meaning are. My expectation
would be that if the analysis reveals that there are things that can be
reasonably labeled as “continuant” and “occurrent” and that the two are truly
disjoint, then the ontology that has instances that are considered to be of both
types may in fact be a merger of two different views of the same entity. We
would need to look at the specifics of the representations to determine what
the problem is. Perhaps not something that can be done in an on-line
discussion, but maybe worth trying.
You may not think that such a process is practical, but
I think it is the most plausible path to achieving true semantic
interoperability. BFO is structured as a single-inheritance hierarchy. If it
is considered immutable, it will be quite impossible to include it, without
change, into a common ontology. But I think the required changes will not be too
many (I have identified some required changes). Whether any ontologist will be
willing to make any change depends totally on the motivation. I expect that a
substantial project to develop a common foundation ontology, with enough
participants to guarantee that it will have wide usage, would be a powerful
motivation.
Question: do you think that equating a zero-time-interval
timeslice of a person with a 3D “Continuant” person would lead to any logical
incompatibility? It seems to me that the only difference would be in the way
the assertions include the time element. Here I can imagine the bridging axioms.
Yet 3D/4D is often cited as an incompatibility.
PatC
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:02 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology similarity and accurate
communication
At 1:36 PM -0400 3/10/08, Patrick Cassidy wrote:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_007A_01C882B3.D0E981A0"
Content-Language: en-us
To clear up misinterpretations:
[[[1]]]
[PH] >> Second, even a conceptual defining vocabulary
is not a formal foundation ontology, since you are using 'defining' in the
dictionary sense (which is of limited, if any, use when describing formal
ontologies).
I have tried to explain
several times that the word ³defining² in the phrase ³conceptual defining vocabulary²
is used in an analogical way, and that the foundation ontology will consist
mostly of concept specifications that use necessary conditions, not necessary
and sufficient conditions.
Then it is not analogous to the dictionary case (which as
far as I can see, is the only motivation for your entire proposal.) You can't
have it both ways: if you are making an analogy based on definitions, but not
meaning actual definitions, then you need to either elucidate the analogy more
carefully or abandon it (I'd suggest the latter).
But if you believe that only an ontology with all
N&S definitions will be useful, then I can only disagree.
Of course not, but then I don't use the term
"definition".
Too many useful basic notions are not N&S
definable. If you are merely objecting to the use of the term ³defining²
in that phrase, then substitute any other word you consider less problematic
for your own use.
No, I want to understand what YOU mean.
[[[2]]]
[PC] >> You say that psycholinguistic research has
already disproven the notion that children can learn to communicate with a
common vocabulary by the experience of seeing words used in context to refer to
objects and events.
[PH] > No, I did not say that. At some level this
is clearly true, as this is simply a description of what children in fact
actually do (if you substitute 'hearing' for 'seeing', and avoid the
question-begging use of 'refer to' in the last phrase.) The question is, how
do they do it? And what I heard you saying was that they did it by a process of
association: that when a word is used 'near' an object or event, that proximity
is enough to induce an association between words and their meanings which
constitutes the word-meaning mapping underlying linguistic competence
And no, I did not say that mere
proximity of a word and object is enough to associate a term with a
meaning. I never used the word Œnear¹. What I said was ³words are
associated with their meanings by experience in context².
I used scare quotes to acknowledge that you did not use the
word, but "experience in context" implies near, I presume. Or if it
does not, perhaps you could tell us what YOU mean by 'context'.
Of course, the process of language learning
involves multiple clues, including possibly an innate ability to exclude
certain combinatorially possible syntactic constructions from the grammar.
My point was that the language learning process is sufficiently *similar*
in different people learning the same native language, that the process
supports the ability of learners to develop a common internal ontology
(of unknown structure) that is very close.
Again, that simply does not follow. You are begging the
question entirely. I didn't bring up this whole topic of language learning,
note: you did in order to justify this idea of a 99.9% common ontology, and I
repeat, regardless of the psycholinguistic data, in fact, that is poppycock:
nothing about language learning supports the claim that we all have 99.9%
agreement on our mental models.
I merely alluded to a couple of components
of the learning process as examples of things that would be similar among
learners. Of course, saying this doesn¹t prove it, and your doubting it
doesn¹t disprove it either.
Of course not, but the burden of proof is on you, seems to
me.
You correctly point out the disputes
among adults when trying to formalize a common ontology. But in those
cases the terms used need to acquire a much more precise meaning than the terms
used in normal communication.
Exactly. It follows, then, that agreement on word meanings
in normal usage does NOT imply agreement on meanings at the level of precision
needed to support a formal ontology. Which is exactly what I have been arguing
through this whole thread, and you have until now been denying.
Even though they consciously try not to get hung up on
terminology, it appears to me that some disagreements still are caused by a
desire to fix a specific meaning to a term, where different ontologists have a
different notion of how that term should be formalized. My suggestion is
to formalize all of the different notions, and give them different names.
In what POSSIBLE sense can that be said to amount to agreement
to within 99.9% ? I agree this is an interesting, though naive, engineering
strategy, but it can't possibly be aligned with your arguments about common
mental ontologies and language learning.
If that process results in a **logical
contradiction**, it is my expectation that one or more of the formalizations
specifies a concept that is not primitive
OK, let me immediately give you a counterexample. DOLCE and
BOF both require the categories of continuant and occurrent to be disjoint:
nothing can possibly be both a continuant and an occurrent in these ontologies.
Other ontologies ( I have one, and I think the same is true of Cyc) allow both
categories with pretty much the same properties of the respective types, but
allow them to overlap. These two categories of ontology are logically
incompatible: adding a Cyc axiom to DOLCE will immediately produce
inconsistencies. And yet this is all concerned with very basic topics of how to
describe time and change, without which a nontrivial ontology can hardly be said
to be possible.
This latter expectation is part of the ³conceptual
defining vocabulary (CDV) hypothesis². But this can only be proven by
attempting specifically to create a foundation ontology as a CDV.
As is often the case, it is much easier to refute than to prove.
The question of whether people actually use an innate
common ontology is a scientific question, but the methods for investigating
that are likely to be horrendously complex, and I do not think that past
efforts to create a foundation ontology at Cyc actually address this specific
question.
I agree, and it would have save a lot of time if you had not
brought it up.
The development of a foundation ontology as a CDV
would not itself prove that the internal ontologies of sixteen-year-olds are
similar, but it would at least show that it is possible to have some reasonably
small set of concepts that can be used in combination to describe the meanings
of a very large number of other more specialized concepts. That knowledge
would be very useful, in my opinion.
The common terms in English can have
multiple meanings. Yet, it appears to me that assertions using those
terms by people trying to be clear are almost always (> 99%) unambiguous,
taken in the full context of the text. So I believe that there is a
disambiguation process that results in the selection of the proper sense, at
least 99% of the time.
That begs the question by assuming that there is a single
sense. But you may work with your sense and I with my sense, and most of the
time our conclusions agree well enough for us to cooperate. We say that we both
understand 'the' meaning of the word, when there is no single meaning.
Three amplifications:
(1) That statistic represents a
use-weighted accuracy. There may be some basic terms that are
misinterpreted with a lot higher frequency, but those terms, if they exist,
appear to be used infrequently. This accuracy is intended to refer to
accuracy in interpreting written text, read in a context in which the background
of the communication is already known. Spoken language may be more
accurate, by having more situational referents and an opportunity for feedback;
it may be less accurate if too much knowledge in the hearer is assumed.
(2) The senses in which terms are interpreted
may still be quite vague. That would leave room for misinterpretation in
the case where the vagueness masks an important distinction. But I
believe that where there are important distinctions, people trying to be clear
will use more specific terms or phrases to avoid significant misinterpretation.
(3) The senses that are represented by the
basic linguistic defining vocabulary may not be identical to some enumerated
sense in a given dictionary.
[[[3]]] [PC] >> None of this is a theory of language
acquisition, but it is a description of how people can acquire the *same*
meanings
[PH] WHY is
it that? You keep saying that, but even your own account does not support this
claim.
I didn¹t think that suggesting a hypothesis stated as
such - required an actual proof of the hypothesis. But I did say
that my own observations suggest that communication using the basic vocabulary
is highly accurate, and that that implies a common set of meanings that can be
attached to the words. This estimate of accuracy is a non-systematic
observation that would need proof if one wanted to investigate the
hypothesis. I think it would be the first thing that needs proof,
if one were to properly investigate the notion of a common ontology used in
language understanding. I am not aware of whether the accuracy of basic
communication has been formally investigated (didn¹t do a literature search
Googling some relevant phrases has not lead to anything on point).
If you don¹t think that linguistic communication using the basic
words (Longman¹s, e.g.) is accurate, perhaps you have some reason for
that skepticism, which I would like to hear. But the ambiguity of
Individual words is not at issue. The question is, if
one person tries to explain something to another, using the basic words in
their basic senses, how often is the explanation misunderstood?
Suppose the answer is, almost never. It STILL does not
follow that people all have the same internal ontology.
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