[PC] >> 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.
[PH] > Not good enough. First, tell me what you mean by
'meaning of a term' when we are talking about formal ontology languages.
I use the term in this sense: In a formal ontology there
is the logical meaning, which consists (for an instance of a type) of all of
the inferences that can be drawn from the fact of something being an instance.
For a relation between two entities, it is the set of inferences that can be
drawn from the fact of the relation holding.
[PH > That does not make sense. Occurrents do not have
instances.
You misinterpreted. The word occurrent was quoted to
indicate the type. To clarify, a restatement:
Clearly, if some entity is an instance of the type “occurrent”
in one ontology, but not an instance of the type “occurrent” in
another ontology, then the meanings of “occurrent” in the two ontologies
must differ because they are using the terms in different senses.
[PH] > This whole process [getting agreement] is a fantasy.
This simply does not happen. This is like assuming that if you get two people
together and they do enough careful exegesis of one another's beliefs, they
will eventually agree that they have the same religion.
[PC] >> 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.
[PH] There are entire libraries written on this division
of perspective. It has been done to death on various archived ontology forums,
also. But when you say this is a 'problem', what do you mean, exactly?
I am talking about trying to resolve any differences
one by one, by trying to understand the fundamental components of each view
that causes the logical contradiction. For 4D/3D, determining whether there is
a consistent ontology encompassing both views depends on the specific
formalizations that are inconsistent. It’s easy to create a contradiction.
I say P, you say not-P. The question I would ask is whether the motivation for
the different representations is based on different requirements and whether it
has to be in the foundation ontology. Once again I will assert the opinion (no
proof needed) that the likelihood of getting agreement among a group depends on
the motivation. Just firing off notes like these is approximately zero motivation.
A serious project to develop a foundation ontology corresponding to the
linguistic defining vocabulary might provide more motivation. Not for
everyone, but we don’t need everyone, just a large enough core to sustain
serious collaborative effort.
[PC] >> 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?
[PH] > I KNOW that it would. Here's a quick one:
> i.e. time is impossible.
I’m not sure how to interpret this argument. The
set of axioms conflates diachronic identity (the = in the continuant axiom)
with mathematical identity (the = in the 4-d axiom) although the two are very
different concepts. I know you are well aware of that, so why are they there
together, looking as though they are the same thing? Is this your way of
saying that the ‘continuant’ view is incoherent because it
conflates diachronic and mathematical identity? I like to use the 3D formalism
for most of my representations, but would never use the ‘=’ sign
like that. If I felt I needed such an axiom, I would define a relation ‘isDiachronicallyIdenticalTo’
to express that notion. Who uses such an axiom? A Google search for “basic
continuant axiom” found no hits.
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:12 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology similarity and accurate
communication
At 7:33 PM -0400 3/10/08, Patrick Cassidy wrote:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0104_01C882E5.B0781300"
Content-Language: en-us
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 „defining¾ in the phrase „conceptual
defining vocabulary¾ 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.
Not good enough. First, tell me what you mean by 'meaning of
a term' when we are talking about formal ontology languages.
[[[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.
ÝÝÝ 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.ÝÝ ÝI believe that that
level of accuracy requires common mental models, for the concepts represented
by those basic words.Ý You donít.Ý Fine.Ý
I have offered (admittedly anecdotal) evidence which
strongly suggests that people have different mental models. I don't think you have
offered a scrap of evidence for your position: you have only repeatedly told us
that you believe it. I don't find this a very convincing argument.
But you shouldnít assert that it has been disproven
unless you can cite an accessible reference and point to the passage where the
data is summarized.
The burden of proof is on you. Cite a reference explaining
how we all come to have identical mental models.
ÝÝ
[[[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.
Ý ÝÝÝNow, this puzzles me.Ý It was you who brought up the
experience at Cyc as evidence that we donít have common mental models.Ý
The experience in question happened while I was working at
Cyc, but that is irrelevant. It was not part of what one might call the
'standard Cyc methodology' aimed at creating a foundation ontology. In fact,
quite the contrary: it was so evidently counter to the basic assumptions of the
entire Cyc project that further discussion of it was discouraged.
Now you say that the Cyc experience doesnít address the
question.Ý Can you reconcile these two assertions?Ý I canít find the bridging
axioms.
Ý ÝÝOn 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. ÝÝYou donít think the answer is worth the effort?Ý Fine.Ý We just
disagree.
[[[4]]] ]PC] >> ÝIf 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.
Ý
Good example.Ý Here is a case where it seems that the
disputants are using ìcontinuantí and ìoccurrentî terms in different senses.Ý
Only one of the disputants use these terms at all, and their
sense is quite precisely laid out and formalized.
Clearly, if some entity is an instance of one
ìoccurrentî but not an instance of another ìoccurrentî,
That does not make sense. Occurrents do not have instances.
the meanings differ ñ they are using the terms in different
senses.
No, this is completely muddled. You do not know what you are
talking about.
Ý 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 doesnít
think so.Ý 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.
Im sure you do believe this, yes. But in this case you are
wrong. As, based on your other postings, I think you are naturally (like me) a
4-d thinker, let me list for you some of the properties of continuants, and you
tell me how you will model these things in your ontology: what kind of
thing you take them to be.
Continuants are 3-d, not 4-d. They do not have a
temporal extent.
Continuants last for a time (or if you prefer, continue to
exist for a time).
Each continuant is identically the same continuant
throughout its lifetime.
Continuants do not have temporal parts or slices. Either it
is meaningless to speak of (C at t) as an entity when C is a continuant and t
is a time; or else, (C at t) = C for all times t.
Ý 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.Ý The subclass/instance tactic clearly
fails in this case to resolve the intended meanings. ÝIt 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.Ý 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.Ý
This whole process is a fantasy. This simply does not
happen. This is like assuming that if you get two people together and they do
enough careful exegesis of one another's beliefs, they will eventually agree
that they have the same religion.
Such a process would in fact help discover what the
true fundamental elements of meaning are.
Were such things to exist, it might. But there is no reason
to suppose that they do.
ÝMy expectation would be that if the analysis reveals that
there are things that can be reasonably labeled as ìcontinuantî and ìoccurrentî
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.
Actually, it appears that there are two kinds of 3-d entity:
those that can be meaningfully considered to be time-slices of 4-d entities,
and those that aren't. Unfortunately, this is not a common-sense distinction.
Take a person such as you or me. In one view, there is a fundamental, necessary
distinction between me, the continuant, and my lifespan, or my life, or some
such, a 4-d entity or perhaps an occurrent. One is the real, solid, living me
and the other is something like a movie of my life from start to finish. On the
other view, there is simply no possible distinction to make here: or, possibly,
there only are the movies, and these 'continuants' are impossible.
Ý We would need to look at the specifics of the
representations to determine what the problem is.Ý Perhaps not something that
can be done in an on-line discussion, but maybe worth trying.
There are entire libraries written on this division of
perspective. It has been done to death on various archived ontology forums,
also. But when you say this is a 'problem', what do you mean, exactly?
ÝÝÝÝ You may not think that such a process is practical, but
I think it is the most plausible path to achieving true semantic
interoperability.Ý ÝÝÝBFO is structured as a single-inheritance hierarchy.Ý If
it is considered immutable, it will be quite impossible to include it, without
change, into a common ontology.Ý But I think the required changes will not be
too many (I have identified some required changes).Ý Whether any ontologist
will be willing to make any change depends totally on the motivation.Ý 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.
ÝÝÝ Question: do you think that equating a zero-time-interval
timeslice of a person with a 3D ìContinuantî person would lead to any logical
incompatibility?
I KNOW that it would. Here's a quick one:
(cl-comment 'basic continuant axiom' (forall ((t Time)(c
Continuant)) (= (c at t) c ) ))
(cl-comment 'definition of age property in 4-d' (forall (x
(t Time)) (= (age (x at t)) (minus t (birthtime x)) )))
from which, and a little arithmetic, it follows that
(forall ((t Time)(s Time)) (= s t) )
Ý It seems to me that the only difference would be in the
way the assertions include the time element.Ý Here I can imagine the bridging
axioms.Ý Yet 3D/4D Ýis 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 „defining¾ in the phrase „conceptual
defining vocabulary¾ 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
„defining¾ 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 ånear¼. What I said was „words
are associated with their meanings by experience in context¾.
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 doesn¼t prove it, and your doubting it
doesn¼t 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
„conceptual defining vocabulary (CDV) hypothesis¾. 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 didn¼t 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 (didn¼t do a literature
search ‚ Googling some relevant phrases has not lead to anything on
point). If you don¼t think that linguistic communication
using the basic words (Longman¼s, 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.
PatH
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