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Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: Next steps in using ontologies as standards

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:29:40 -0500
Message-id: <07c801c974f4$7ea47880$7bed6980$@com>

PatH,

    Deciding what is “primitive” may never be formally resolvable in a mathematical sense, which is why the main criteria for inclusion in the content of the base FO would be logical consistency and voting by the consortium members.  The practical goal is to develop an FO that will support translation of representations in databases and ontologies into each other, and that criterion also needs to be determined by whether the translated systems will arrive at the same conclusions from the same data.  Aiming for representation of all of the semantic primitives is a practical means to focus the initial effort on a finite goal, it is not an ideological stance or a technical requirement.  If the intended meaning of an ontology element can be expressed axiomatically in terms of other, pre-existing ontology elements (with the ‘disjoint’  exception), that would indicate that it is non-primitive; whether it is nevertheless included in the base FO will depend on whether there is support for or objections to its inclusion, which would then have to be resolved by a vote.  There should be little or no time wasted on debating whether something is or is not primitive, and if it turns out that the notion of being “primitive” does distract the work without commensurate benefit, it can be ignored.    Looking for the primitives at the initial stage provides a practical guide to limit the scope of the required agreement among the members developing the common foundation ontology. 

 

[PC] >>  Force can be directly perceived by the sense of touch, and things that make direct sensory impressions have, in my view, a privileged status as prime candidates for primitiveness. 

 

[PH] >  Just as an academic aside: on what basis?

  Because, at least, the linguistic description and the logical specifications have to be comprehensible to the human developers, and things that are directly experienced by all people are easiest to understand.  It does not logically follow, but I think it highly likely, that terms referring to such sensory experience are the ones most commonly used to describe everything else – i.e., most likely to be primitives in the sense of not being describable by other things.  Note that I said they were “candidates” which means that they should be considered by the consortium, but could be rejected if there is a good reason.  I just doubt that any of the direct perceptions would be rejected by a group aiming at creating a practical FO useful for all of them.

 

[PH] > Why would this notion of what one might call 'psychological' primitiveness have any relationship at all with your earlier notion of 'definitional' primitiveness? Science seems to have advanced by abandoning sensorially rooted concepts in favor of much more abstract notions such as symmetry preservation and conservation laws.

     I would never confuse an ontology intended to serve for interoperability among a highly diverse set of applications as being equivalent to the fundamental foundations of mathematics or physics – though they can be included.

 

[PH] > Both real science and naive science are fun enterprises, but it is not a good idea to get them confused. 

   Yes, I did enjoy my career as a biochemist, and this project actually applies an important lesson derived from that experience.  Progress occurs when multiple groups find experimental support of disproof of hypotheses formulated within some *common paradigm* that is accepted by (some) research community, and provides a framework for interpreting the results.  For the task of semantic interoperability, a common foundation ontology serves as the *paradigm of meaning*, with multiple sub-theories, that can be investigated experimentally (to determine if it serves the purpose of interoperability or of specific applications).  Importantly, the paradigm can evolve and add more detail as multiple groups discover how its parts behave in practical applications.   When only small groups use the same foundation ontology, not only is broad interoperability hindered, but the ability of a large group to rapidly evolve the common paradigm is forfeited because there are fewer workers in the small groups to test each hypotheses.

 

[PH]  > But voting is almost a worst-case way to resolve technical debates, as it amounts to agreeing not to agree. Strongly held views which are voted out will become secessionist blocs, and likely form rival consortia with a large initial burden of resentment and bitterness.

The state you describe as a potential result is what I consider the current state of ontology development.   I cannot envision how a project aimed at bridging some of the differences would be able  to make the current situation worse – at worst, it could add one more FO to the set, but if no mappings could be found that are satisfactory to at least some of the participants, the project would likely end very quickly, no harm done.   As I envision the project, the participants will enter with a knowledge of the points on which they differ from others, based on the whole history of this topic,  preliminary email discussions, and creation of a formal proposal by a planning meeting preliminary to the commencement of the working phase of the project.  They will know that issues that cannot achieve consensus quickly will be resolved by voting, quickly.  Those who hold views irreconcilable to others, knowing that they are in the minority, and unwilling to make good-faith effort to use the resulting FO, are not likely to participate.  Even so, some drop-out rate should be anticipated in the plan formulated by the consortium before starting.  The goal is to have, at the end, a diverse group large enough to form a community of users that can develop interesting open-source applications using ontologies all conforming to (or translatable into) the structure of the FO.  There doesn’t have to be only one such common FO in the world, there only needs to be *at least* one used by a wide community – so that those who do want to build applications with wide semantic interoperability will have some confidence that they are not developing for a dead-end standard.  The numbers of users of the existing FO’s (OpenCyc, SUMO, DOLCE, BFO) are not large enough to comprise that type of community – yet.  Perhaps their uses will expand to the critical mass quickly, but the experience of the past five years does not give me any optimism.

 

I haven’t heard of a better process to quickly get an ontology that can serve (by being widely used) as well to support widespread interoperability.   The closest approach I have seen thus far is the NeOn project, but their membership appears too limited to achieve a large (> 50) user group that will be able to have their ontology-driven systems interoperate accurately and automatically.  The mapping methodology they use is inadequate to the task of integrating multiple ontologies (relying on OWL and horn clauses), but their experience would likely be valuable in a project of broader scope.

 

 

[PC]  >>    I think that a principle for construction of the FO should be to include everything that is desired by someone

 

[PH] > Stop right there. Let us agree on that. Whether it is logically consistent with the rest or not. Intransigent logical inconsistencies require divisions to be drawn between theories, hopefully in some reasonably principled way and hopefully documented. That is the best we can hope for, and we know we can do it and that it can be useful. Let us be content with that. 

 

    Whether  or not the word “primitive” was ever mentioned in the project , I would support any project to develop a common FO with (a) a logically consistent core of at least 3000 elements, in CL-compliant format; (b) a large enough set of participants (ca. 100); (c) a goal of providing utilities or bridging axioms to translate different ways of expressing a concept into other ways; and (d) a requirement that the participants actually use the ontology in at least one application that does not merely illustrate data in- data out.   Do you know of one?

 

   Pat

 

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, January 12, 2009 1:15 PM
To: [ontolog-forum] ; Patrick Cassidy
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: Next steps in using ontologies as standards

 

 

On Jan 12, 2009, at 11:08 AM, Patrick Cassidy wrote:



Frank,

   Yes, F=ma is only a *theory* of motion, and as I have mentioned in this thread, incompatible theories would have to be maintained in some extension(s) to the basic FO.  Sets of concepts that are mutually dependent on each other for their description would have to be located together – whether in the base FO or in some extension to it.  I was pleased that Matthew brought up the case of mathematically described concepts, and this issue applies to many “derived” units of measure such as acceleration.  But in some cases that may appear to be co-dependent, one of the elements such a “force” may also correspond to a more basic concept, and be properly in the base FO as a true primitive.  Force can be directly perceived by the sense of touch, and things that make direct sensory impressions have, in my view, a privileged status as prime candidates for primitiveness. 

 

Just as an academic aside: on what basis? Why would this notion of what one might call 'psychological' primitiveness have any relationship at all with your earlier notion of 'definitional' primitiveness? Science seems to have advanced by abandoning sensorially rooted concepts in favor of much more abstract notions such as symmetry preservation and conservation laws. Both real science and naive science are fun enterprises, but it is not a good idea to get them confused. 



The physical equations relating to force are not restricted to its effect on acceleration, but also include things like the compression of a spring, and the intensity of pressure due to force on a compressible fluid.  So I think that “Force” would be a true primitive, though “F=ma” would have to be in a ‘theories of motion’ extension, along with Einstein’s equations.  Although the unit of force is a “derived” unit in the SI system, the effect of force can be directly perceived, and this is a good reason (I think) to consider it a primitive. “force” is also one of the words in the Longman defining vocabulary.

   The exact inventory of physical units of measure that should be in the basic FO would have to be decided by the consortium constructing it.  I have not gone through the list to determine whether all of the current SI units (meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, candela) are the only units that belong in the base FO.  The coulomb, for example, used to be considered as one of the base units (of electrical charge), but is now considered as a derived unit (one amp-second).  I would want the coulomb to be in the base FO, but there may be arguments against that. If they are considered non-controversial, I would hope that the consortium decides to include derived units as well, for convenience.  Perhaps if all the non-controversial derived units were maintained in one extension, it would be almost as convenient. 

 

All this imagined debate and decision-making about what is more 'primitive' than what else, illustrates to me the futility of embarking on this enterprise. Since being 'primitive' is important-sounding but formally meaningless, and almost certainly ambiguous when stated with more precision, there will be no way to resolve these debates, and no way other than voting to decide them. But voting is almost a worst-case way to resolve technical debates, as it amounts to agreeing not to agree. Strongly held views which are voted out will become secessionist blocs, and likely form rival consortia with a large initial burden of resentment and bitterness. The resulting process is more likely to resemble the history of religion than the development of a science, complete with doctrinal disputes, high priests and fractal divisions among sub-congregations with differing agendas. And all of this will be disputes about nothing, as the entire notion of some concepts being more primitive than others has no basis in science or engineering, and has never even been stated with enough clarity to be applied in practice (so its very definition will give rise to debates as arcane as those over the true meaning of the Eucharist, and cause splits and divisions between congregations.) This is a complete waste of time. 

 

    I think that a principle for construction of the FO should be to include everything that is desired by someone

 

Stop right there. Let us agree on that. Whether it is logically consistent with the rest or not. Intransigent logical inconsistencies require divisions to be drawn between theories, hopefully in some reasonably principled way and hopefully documented. That is the best we can hope for, and we know we can do it and that it can be useful. Let us be content with that. 

 

PatH



, as long as it is logically consistent with the rest.  If it is clearly a derived concept (not primitive as defined by the consortium), and is clearly relevant to some restricted domain, then the consortium *may or may not*  decide to move it to that domain extension, even over the objections of some contributors.  This reflects the practical need to resolve disputes quickly.  The issue of what is or is not a primitive may  have to be resolved by majority vote in some cases.

 

Pat

 

Patrick Cassidy

MICRA, Inc.

908-561-3416

cell: 908-565-4053

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Olken, Frank
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 11:08 AM
To: [ontolog-forum] 
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: Next steps in using ontologies as standards

 

Pat Hayes and Pat Cassidy,

 

These statements are only true for "Newtonian" conceptualizations of time.

Relativistic models of "space-time" require the specification of both spatial and

temporal locations.  Relativistic temporal models arise in astronomy, astrophysics,

high energy physics. 

 

In a purely computer science context see the classic paper by Leslie Lamport

on Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System,

Communications of the ACM, vol. 21, no. 7, p. 558-565, July 1978

 

 

                    Frank Olken

                    folken@xxxxxxx

 


From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 11:51 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]; Patrick Cassidy
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: Next steps in using ontologies as standards

 


On Jan 11, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Pat Hayes wrote:

When you say “Those various temporal theories can all be expressed in terms of three concepts: time-point, time-interval and duration.” , what do you mean by that?  Is being “expressed in terms of” used only for necessary and sufficient definitions?

 

No, I mean only that each theory uses only those three terms, or can be reformulated using only those (or in some cases only two of them.) Of course, since the theories have different axioms, they assign somewhat different meanings to them. 

 

 

Thinking more, this isn't really accurate. They all use only these three classes, but they also use various different relations, such as the timepoint and subinterval orderings and the various relations between points and intervals. So perhaps the typical number of concepts is more like six or seven than two or three.

 

PatH


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