Pat, (01)
I revert to your message (appended in full below) of a week ago
and apologize for the delay. (As you noted yourself, days jobs do
intrude!) (02)
We were both regretting the seasoned old salts' turning away from
the perhaps idealistic position that evident communication should
surely imply some usefully expressible commonality. I had put
that position more strongly (in my same-day post in this thread to
the list and Len Yabloko, cc-ed to you) with an epistemological
assertion: abstraction = deemed commonality. (03)
You insistently embark on a practical course: (04)
> But as you have noted, there is skepticism from some, and as I
> also mentioned, the only way to attempt to resolve that question
> is by doing some objective experiments. I don't think that
> discussion will convince anyone. We are, after all, all
> grandmasters at the use of our native tongue, and no one else's
> intuition is going to be superior to our own. We need hard
> facts. (05)
I agree. More than that, each in our own ways we return to the
fray of knowledge evolution in practice, "in The Mainstream" as I
like putting it. (06)
Let me sketch just how I see the "Riding The Mainstream"
development of the "Democratic Web" supporting your endeavour: (07)
As I observed in my recent "3rd instalment" of my "MACK basics"
series (in this paragraph in it:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-03/msg00249.html#nid047),
we habitually use the same name at various levels of abstraction,
the exact level being implicit in the context. That is even very
literally and precisely the case in MACK. (08)
So a name at the "essential" or most abstract level at which a
word makes sense will tend to gravitate further down with
increasing levels of refinement. That makes it appear that the
good choice of names at that top level will be rather critical,
and would thereby support your Conceptual Defining Vocabulary or
CDV notion and program. (09)
However, at least at the early stages the choice is easily undone
and new "hard fact" experimentation undertaken. You will see more
strongly in my coming "4th instalment" why the resulting
name-evolution in the Democratic Web will be very rapid, and a new
and better CDV will surely emerge soon enough, "bottom-up" as Len
would have it! (A qualification which will make much more sense
after the 4th instalment is that the above applies only to
concepts at the triple-entity fact level.) (010)
Not entirely by coincidence, I have just come upon a
long-forgotten web page from me in 1996,
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/johnspot.html (where I was
responding to the workshop paper by Ralph Johnson of design
patterns "Gang Of Four" fame), in which I had described very much
the same situation as follows:. (011)
"I am asserting precisely that you _can_ have your cake and eat
it! You _can_ have full relativity (difference) plus fine
reusability (similarity)." (012)
Obviously, that is another justifiably-eyebrow-raising assertion.
But it _was_ in the context of knowledge evolution and I did go on
to describe one of its products as "MUCK", a light-hearted acronym
for "Metaset Universal Common Knowledge"! I expect you can see
that the fun in that notion is aimed very much in the direction of
more portentous notions such as a CDV and even a SUO! But as far
as I know neither ideals existed at the time, so what I had in
mind was verbiage that tended to verge on Ontological absolutism
or dictatorial imposition of would-be standards. (013)
On that 1996 web page there was a reference to my faq of that
year, http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/spottfaq.html, where the
name and the very concept of MUCK was justified with these words: (014)
"Such alleged universality is a heavy claim, so that's where the
"muck" theme comes in, with the message that it's something
continously renewable, especially with the help of creative seeds
that can flourish in it. It's not to be treated with any
reverence. On the contrary, it's to be regarded as homely, to be
trodden on and trodden in, replete with associations of fuming
fertility." (015)
I then went on to describe how it would, after public launch,
probably be completely transformed and replaced within the open
and more powerful market.it would help bring about. (016)
However, I do agree that a CDV, and maybe even COSMO, could well
be useful in proposing initial names for the Types and
Relationships in the conceptual Forms with which we are going to
seed the market-Boot or -Seed Metaset product (or other
MACK-implementing AOS). (017)
So I hope I can look forward to some good collaboration with you
on that front! (018)
Christopher (019)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Building on common ground (020)
Christopher,
Concerning your kind suggestion: (021)
> in its paragraphs numbered 3 & 8, that Pat Cassidy will further
> explore his long-thread-throttled intuition that the very
> possibility of communication should imply some useful level of
> ontology commonality, syntactic and even apparent conceptual
> mismatches notwithstanding. (022)
I do believe that the frequency of successful communication -
when confined to good-faith efforts to communicate clearly using
the basic terms of the English vocabulary - implies a high
commonality of mental models, for those concepts that are
referenced by those words, in the sense that they are intended
when used. But as you have noted, there is skepticism from some,
and as I also mentioned, the only way to attempt to resolve that
question is by doing some objective experiments. I don't think
that discussion will convince anyone. We are, after all, all
grandmasters at the use of our native tongue, and no one else's
intuition is going to be superior to our own. We need hard facts. (023)
Therefore, I prefer to concentrate on actually building the
ontology that corresponds to the basic English defining
vocabulary, and by observing how rapidly it needs to expand to
accommodate multiple new domains, gather data that bears on the
question of how large the foundation ontology needs to be, in
order to serve as the "conceptual defining vocabulary" for
unrestricted domains. I do this when I am not distracted by other
urgent tasks, which is almost all the time. (024)
The current state of the COSMO ontology will generally be found
at:
http://micra.com/COSMO/
It is currently in the form of an OWL ontology, and is in a very
preliminary stage, still missing most of the concepts labeled by
the Longman's dictionary defining vocabulary. When functional it
would have to be at least FOL, with rules and multiple-arity
relations, and functions. There may yet be some changes in even
the most fundamental concept representations. The preliminary
state is bad news and good news. Bad, because it has not been
tested in any application. Good, because it is still sufficiently
fluid to accommodate suggestions from anyone who may be interested
in seeing whether such an approach could produce something more
useful (or easier to use) than existing upper ontologies. (025)
Ideally this should be a collaborative effort. Anyone who has any
interest in exploring the potential for a foundation ontology
structured as a Conceptual Defining Vocabulary is encouraged to
get in touch and discuss it. All suggestions are welcome - except
the suggestion to desist. I will not be deterred. (026)
Pat (027)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (028)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Spottiswoode
> Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:23 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum] ; Len Yabloko
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Building on common ground
>
> Len, thank you for your reply.
>
> > I have been following discussions on this forum since it began
> > years ago. It often is an interesting reading, but its mission
> > is still not clear to me. Lately it looks like the mission is
> > to seek out the ultimate truth about the World, while proving
> > at the same time that this mission is impossible. I see a lot
> > of argument for a sake of argument. Without a clear focus any
> > discussion becomes a spiritual exercise with some elements of
> > rationality,- in other words: modern form of alchemy. I think
> > that is how outside observers like myself see it: may be one
> > day one of these discussions will result in something by sheer
> > power of accident and human imagination. In a meantime I have
> > not seen a single thread that lived up to its subject. Let's
> > hope this one is going to be an exception.
>
> Well, this thread's theme will never be exhausted! Clearly,
> though, MACK's "CK" insistence places it right in the middle of
> that scene.
>
> Your hope also prompts me to repeat my recently-expressed hope,
> now at
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-03/msg00244.html,
> in its paragraphs numbered 3 & 8, that Pat Cassidy will further
> explore his long-thread-throttled intuition that the very
> possibility of communication should imply some useful level of
> ontology commonality, syntactic and even apparent conceptual
> mismatches notwithstanding.
>
> My own view, very non-Platonic or non-Pythagorian, is that the
> very definition of abstraction is surely commonality deemed to
> exist between situations, whether between communicating partners
> or between moments of one person. And after all, intension and
> extension should best closely match! (And it is in the end
> immaterial if the commonality / abstraction is discovered or
> invented, ex post facto or a priori, by induction or deduction
> or even abduction.)
>
> Sure, all those generalities might appear remote and useless,
> but I do not at all see a useful outcome of such reflection as
> your "mission impossible". Quite the contrary, I have already
> started to point out how MACK embodies and builds on such
> generalities, and you will see much more of that in my planned
> future posts to this list. That whole scene is even a
> fundamental feature of The Mainstream and its conception of CK.
>
> So the more this forum can consider your and Pat C's "common
> ground" quest, the better it will understand MACK!
>
> >>> "It appears to me that this discussion started from the need
> >>> to have a common ground that is more solid than one afforded
> >>> by established processes. It is clear from everything said
> >>> so far that there is no way to establish a universal ground,
> >>> even when all efforts are made to remove ambiguities, such
> >>> as the case with mathematics. Perhaps it is what Pifagor (or
> >>> was it someone else?) meant when he said something like "...
> >>> give me a ground and I will overturn the World". So what we
> >>> should be looking for is at best a temporary grounding of
> >>> our ideas and efforts. This is what Kuhn's paradigm is all
> >>> about.
> >>
> >>Though it may not always seem so from my scribblings, your
> >>quest for a "more solid common ground" is very much what I
> >>target with "The Mainstream" as I have gradually been
> >>broaching that stupendously pretentious notion in my various
> >>posts to this forum during the past few months. Sure, the
> >>many angles I have been taking may look like random waffling,
> >>but there is some method in the madness of taking chance
> >>prompts from the forum. There is surely no nice neat logical
> >>sequence to any new paradigm.
>
> > In my experience, trying to create new paradigm is futile
> > exercise - paradigms are emergent phenomena, or more
> > precisely - epi-phenomena (side effects of creativity). The
> > focus of innovation should not be a paradigm, but rather
> > specific theoretical or practical objective, call it simply
> > "application".
>
> Yes, precisely, so do note that the second of the three
> "pillars" of MACK (see my "MACK basics" series' 1st instalment,
> now at
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00277.html,)
> is what it calls an AOS or Application Operating System.
>
> >>As would-be common ground The Mainstream as depicted is
> >>clearly a process, not a foundation or a final construction.
> >>But Kuhn's paradigm shifts are merely the more spectacular
> >>manifestations of "evolution as a series of mini-revolutions".
> >>(Who can tell us who said that first?)
> >>
> >>That latter view well represents the effect of the "Koestler
> >>creativity" I have just introduced in my "3rd instalment" (see
> >>its item 7), in recognition of Arthur Koestler's wide-ranging
> >>analysis yet pointed conclusion in his 1964 book, The Act of
> >>Creation.
> >>
> >>I am busy building up the picture of the entire operation of
> >>Information Systems as a continuously creative process, though
> >>one which people - ordinary users - will be able to help adapt
> >>towards better meeting people's needs.
> >>
> >
> > What people's needs are you trying to meet? - that is the
> > question.
>
> MACK the mere architecture addresses the need for people to be
> able to address their own needs collaboratively. As my recent
> 3rd instalment quoted Heinz Zemanek, "An architect does not tell
> people how to live, he creates an environment in which people
> may live their own lives creatively."
>
> Then the Democratic Web as driven by the MACK AOS is intended as
> a marketplace or market medium, "helping people simplify
> complexity together", so precisely that, if you wish, is the
> real need addressed, and it is a rather all-encompassing one!
>
> > In my view the need for symbolic grounding is very clear: if
> > some application is to be constructed using symbolic
> > computation, then the symbols better be grounded or else
> > application will collapse shortly after it is constructed (if
> > it is ever constructed) -this is what happens with software
> > applications.
>
> Yes, though many of my recent posts have alluded to various
> application-robustness features unique to MACK, I have still to
> get down to the required detail. The coming 4th instalment will
> make a good start.
>
> >>> So the question should be (correct me if I am wrong): what
> >>> are the mechanisms available to us for better grounding. Now
> >>> I really sound like an engineer.
> >>
> >>Yes, fortunately you do. John Sowa too tends to claim that
> >>engineer's ground, on this and the SUO forum. Indeed, the
> >>more of us the better!
> >>
> >>And my answer to your question is precisely MACK, The
> >>Mainstream Architecture for Common Knowledge, with its notion
> >>of the conceptual Form, implemented by a MACK-compliant AOS or
> >>Application Operating System for helping people create,
> >>manipulate, fine-tune and extend CK or Common Knowledge into
> >>the many provisionally appropriate niches for it at every
> >>level of abstraction or refinement.
> >>
> >
> > In my experience software architecture should be bottom-up and
> > scale-free. I am yet to see how MACK can address most basic
> > software architecture requirements, and then achieve high
> > level of abstraction required by Common Knowledge - this is
> > where you need a method which would allow aggregation of
> > simple predicates into complex concepts. How do you propose to
> > do that?
>
> Wow, that's a wonderful question, especially coming from the
> author of www.ontospace.net or rather O(n^2)Space! My answer
> has two very important and counter-balancing thrusts:
>
> 1. Most of my coming 4th instalment addresses precisely the
> accumulation of simple predicates into rich descriptions and
> applications. As you point out, that is essential. But it is
> also a complicating process, and one where many an IT designer
> has been trapped in failure or immobility.
>
> 2. So that is of course where MACK, having been designed "to
> help people simplify complexity together", has many simplifying
> features, largely capturing and implementing natural techniques
> such as the abstraction mentioned above with its various levels
> of subtyping. But a technique which should particularly please
> you as O(n^2)Space author is already illustrated in my
> just-posted 3rd instalment's Customer-Product-Productname-Word
> join: it does exactly your kind of cutting down of semantic
> distance which results in more direct relevance! We even have a
> colloquial name for it: "scrunching", from the way it reaches
> out into logical space and compresses it into more
> directly-relevant joined dimensions, in effect simplifying by
> abstraction once again. My coming 4th or 5th instalment will go
> into that in more detail.
>
> >>There is as yet no such implemented AOS, but with my present
> >>series of posts to this forum I am trying to awake interest
> >>and set up collaboration towards refining and launching a Boot
> >>AOS so that the open market can bootstrap itself into full
> >>exploitation of the evident yet hitherto-hidden potential of
> >>The Mainstream and its already-ubiquitous processes.
> >>
> >
> > Nothing like that is implemented because the question above is
> > not answered (to my knowledge).
>
> Len, it seems I have not been clear on that yet: both MACK and
> the AOS Metaset have been sufficiently designed in detail for it
> to be clear to me as programmer that there is no great
> theoretical or programming problem remaining before such a
> market-boot process can be triggered by the launch of the
> basically simple product intended. Therefore:
> >>I believe such a launch, with a little help of the right
> >>kinds, building on what is already coded and running, could
> >>take place within one year of a team's getting to work on it.
> >>
> >>Christopher
> >>
> >
> > First, you need explain how this can be done. I am looking
> > forward to that.
>
> You'll be able to see more of that soon from my coming
> instalments. If you do not, I am sure the problem will be in my
> descriptions and not in the designs, even though I have been
> asking in these posts to this list for help of various kinds and
> will still be asking for much more.
>
> > --Len
> >
> Christopher
>
> (029)
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