|
Dear
Pat C.
I've
been following this loosely, and I mostly agree with Pat H, even if he has been
giving you rather a hard time with it. However, I think you are probably right
when you say that the case you are trying to make has neither been definitively
proved nor disproved. An experiment is therefore worthwhile.
I
suggest that the 3D/4D interpretation of continuant and occurent mentioned below
is a well known example of contradiction between upper ontologies. Whilst I am
confident about how to map between them, I do not see how they can co-exist in a
canonical ontology, i.e. each object in the real world is represented by just
one object in the ontology. If you can show otherwise for just this case, you
would have gone a long way towards proving your thesis. I suggest trying this
experiment.
Regards
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture and
Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Registered
in England and Wales
Registered number: 621148
Registered office: Shell
Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44
7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
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.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC
(850)434 8903 or (650)494
3973 home
40 South Alcaniz
St. (850)202 4416
office
Pensacola
(850)202 4440 fax
FL
32502
(850)291 0667
cell
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us
http://www.flickr.com/pathayes/collections
|