Hello Dick,
OK, this is what gets me everytime - I can't understand your email signature in
a plain English email:
Dick McCullough
Ayn Rand do speak od mKR done;
mKE do enhance od Real Intelligence done;
knowledge := man do identify od existent done;
knowledge haspart proposition list;
http://mKRmKE.org/
SGIS
Antoinette Arsic
Sr. Systems Engineer
8618 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 100
Vienna, VA 22182
703-506-8621
443-567-2703
aarsic@xxxxxxxx
www.SGIS.com
________________________________________
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard H. McCullough
[rhm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 9:43 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] mKR (was Thing and Class)
Chris
I don't have all the answers at this point, but I want to discuss
a few things, to try and establish some understanding between
us.
Starting with (b), just because it's easier. mKR has
if-then-else-fi iff implies
and or not
quantifiers: no a any the some all every
for quantifier loops similar to many logic languages
I don't know why you say mKR is completely lacking
the apparatus of propositional and first-order logic.
In regard to (a), primitives such as "action", "context", "part",
"attribute", "relation", "time" are axiomatic concepts upon
which all other concepts depend. They are dependent upon
each other. I have given terse genus-differentia definitions of
each. For example
attribute is characteristic with single entity, non-separable;
action is characteristic with single entity, non-separable, space, time.
part is characteristic with single entity, separable;
relation is characteristic with multiple entity;
My model of an action is something that takes place in an interval of
(real number) space, time, but I allow space, time measurements
to be real or discrete.
mKR is English-like, but it is formal, precise and unambiguous.
The simplest mKR proposition has the form
at space=s, time=t, view=v { sentence };
v names a list of propositions (the context) which disambiguates
the sentence. s,t name the sub-context associated with the changes
of an action. Genus-differentia definitions are used to make terms
precise. Sentence structure is governed by a formal grammar.
In effect, mKR starts with a "Simple English" language -- no word
variations for number, tense, etc. -- and prefixes every sentence with
the context which disambiguates it.
Dick McCullough
Ayn Rand do speak od mKR done;
mKE do enhance od Real Intelligence done;
knowledge := man do identify od existent done;
knowledge haspart proposition list;
http://mKRmKE.org/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Menzel" <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] mKR (was Thing and Class)
> On Sep 12, 2008, at 6:04 PM, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
>> Chris
>>
>> I would appreciate some pointers on how to do that. The things that
>> I have read say that a formal semantics maps the "meaningless"
>> symbols of formal logic to the "meaningful" symbols of English.
>
> No, that is nothing like a formal semantics; that is at best an
> informal semantics, which is generally pretty useless for the central
> purposes of KR. The point of a formal semantics is (a) to provide
> interpretations of the non-logical primitives of a language and (b)
> to provide a *systematic* account of how the meanings of complex
> expressions in a language are determined by the meanings assigned to
> their component parts. This, in particular, is what is missing from
> mKR.
>
> (b) has to do primarily with the interpreting the logical components
> of your language -- boolean operators, modal operators, quantifiers,
> etc. You can learn about this in any good text on mathematical
> logic. (And just note: It appears to me that your language is
> completely lacking the apparatus of propositional and first-order
> logic. These are essential to any modern KR language.)
>
> In regard to (a), many of your important non-logical primitives --
> e.g., "action", "context", "part", "attribute", "relation", "time",
> etc -- are left utterly uninterpreted. Try replacing them with "foo,
> bar, baz, etc" and you get an idea of how useful your language is for
> KR. The notions above are ambiguous and difficult. They need to be
> nailed down by a semantics that fixes (as far as possible) their
> properties and the logical connections. For instance, what is the
> relation between "action" and "time"? Intuitively, the two are
> *intimately* connected. A good formal semantics will do that: for
> example, it might represent time as the real line and will map each
> action to an interval. Alternatively, if one has ≠ discrete
> processes in mind, a semantics might represent time by the integers
> and assign to each action a start point and a (later) endpoint.
> Again, what is an attribute? Can you combine different attributes
> like "red" and "smooth" into a single attribute? A good semantics
> will represent attributes as functions of some ilk, or as objects with
> extensions, or perhaps extensions at possible worlds, or whatever.
> But however, it is done, it will be perfectly clear what you do and do
> not mean by "attribute". See the idea? You might have a look at the
> NIST Process Specification Language for a good example of a language
> whose non-logical primitives are rigorously interpreted in a formal
> semantics, and how those interpretations are reflected in the PSL
> axioms. Or, for that matter, have a look at the model theory for RDF
> and OWL on the W3C web site.
>
>> But mKR propositions are paraphrases of English. mKR is composed of
>> English words and phrases, not "meaningless" symbols of formal logic.
>
> But the symbols of formal logic are not meaningless *at all*. They
> are given very rigorous interpretations in any standard semantics
> (a.k.a model theory) for a given formal language -- of which any
> useful KR language is a species.
>
>> I haven't seen any formal semantics for English.
>
> Sure thing, but neither is English anything like a KR language; indeed
> it is the very opposite of a KR language. It is informal, imprecise,
> fraught with ambiguity, and impossible for computers to process
> (without severe restrictions). It is WHY we have KR languages; it is
> WHY we build ontologies. KR exists precisely because you can't rely
> on informal, intuitive understandings of English when you want to
> share and process information, and use computers to aid significantly
> in the process.
>
> -chris
>
>
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