Ian,
Being a bit infected with your enthusiasm, i tried to see what kind of beast
this BORO Reference Ontologies might be, just to find out that they all
under construction: http://www.boroprogram.org/boro_program/ront.htm.
Still i have an impression the approach is dealing with an extensional model
of things, looking only for the framework of basic particulars. Besides,
particulars and individuals should be distinguished; for only a particular
is an instance of a universal, while the individual is the continuing
entity, like as a person or material thing. (01)
Azamat Abdoullaev
http://www.eis.com.cy (02)
---- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Bailey" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as standards (03)
> Hi Azamat,
>
> I wasn't trying to say that all you need is extension - we still need
> names
> for things, it's just that with the BORO approach, the names are added
> *after* you've figured out what it is you're dealing with (by extent).
> This
> is why we chose it for IDEAS - we were fed up of endlessly arguing about
> the
> meaning of words. I agree structure alone isn't enough, but humans (esp.
> the
> ones that call themselves "professionals") are so obsessed with words you
> have to take a very radical approach to extension to stop them forever
> falling back into their comfort zone of terminology.
>
> The problem is that people like to cling onto names as though they're the
> only things that matters. Even if you know all about the theories of sense
> and reference, it's human nature to still concentrate on the names of
> things
> (I do it, and even I've seen Chris and Matthew occasionally get hung up on
> names). It can be quite a painful process to get someone to really think
> extensionally. The people who seem to suffer the most though are data
> modellers and "information scientists". There's a process of
> enlightenment/torture that you see when you run the BORO process in a
> group:
>
> 1) The people in the room think they're all talking about the same thing,
> because they use the same word for it (This is a state of blissful
> ignorance
> that is about to be shattered. The BORO process is about to turn these
> happy, co-habiting, fluffy, big-eyed bunnies into rabid arguing machines.
> Some of them may never speak to each other again).
> 1b) Or, they all think they're special and there's no way that the other
> guy
> could have such a sophisticated understanding as them, because they've
> been
> working this stuff for decades (don't ask them how many real commercial
> projects they've actually worked on, you don't want them storming out of
> the
> room in a huff so early in the process). If you want to see this in
> action,
> attend a meeting of any international standards body that has an
> information
> slant to it.
> 2) Then we start doing BORO - the extensional analysis for a particular
> subject. As we get towards the end of this analysis, the people in the
> room
> start to get a bit twitchy, and really try to fight the method (regardless
> if you started with 1 or 1b). It's nasty. It's like watching a heroin
> addict
> go through withdrawal symptoms, or a scene from the exorcist. They get
> angrier and more abusive as they see their high concepts being torn down
> to
> simple reality. They will try and defend the indefensible, walk out of the
> room, threaten to tell their mum, etc. I live in hope that one day I'll
> see
> a head spin and projectile vomit over the assembled crowd, but perhaps
> I've
> watched too many horror movies.
> 3) Once the evil spirit has been exorcised, calm descends, and we try and
> figure out where our names and concepts actually apply to the resulting
> section of ontology. Usually, this bit is painless - we're back in the
> comfort zone of terminology again.
> 4) Then we go onto the next job, and the same people go cold turkey all
> over
> again, but this time carrying the malice from the previous session with
> them, not to mention the caffeine they had in the break. Not nice.
> 5) After about ten of these, they start to become a little numb and a
> little
> more pliant (I'm told interrogators work this way). They lose the will to
> fight at that point and start to go along with the process. This is when
> progress really starts to be made. They've let go of the naming hang-up
> and
> are taking part in the process. Occasionally, some go into passive
> resistance mode, and simply don't take part other than to occasionally
> snipe
> from the sidelines, or work on the budget holders outside the meetings to
> try and get the project canned. I guess they were the kids who never
> "played
> nice" at kindergarten.
>
> I realise this sounds like brainwashing, and it probably is an evil scheme
> for world domination cooked up by Partridge. However, it gets the job done
> and that appeals to simpletons like me. Maybe I've been brainwashed too.
>
> I should add that Chris never intended BORO to be a group activity - it's
> original purpose is for analysis of legacy data to re-engineer next
> generation information systems. If you do BORO the way it was intended,
> you
> have only yourself and piles of old data to argue with, so it's a bit
> quicker than our "group sessions", but offers fewer moments of
> schadenfreude.
>
>
> Cheers
> --
> Ian Bailey
> www.modelfutures.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Azamat
> Sent: 21 January 2009 22:09
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as standards
>
> Wednesday, January 21, 2009 12:08 PM, Ian Bailey wrote:
> "The IDEAS work is extensional, because it saves us arguing about what
> we're
>
> modelling - it
> always comes down to extent, which doesn't rely on words or logic."
> "My main point was that if you stick to an extensional approach, you can
> be
> pretty sure what you're referring to."
>
> Any meaning (significance) is composed of sense (connotation) and
> reference
>
> (denotation), or intension and extension. If somebody insists on the
> special
>
> view that meaning is either just content (intension) (like Leibniz) or
> just
> the thing referred to (like Okham), he is ignoring the long history of
> semantic studies. If there is a construct, then there is the reference
> class and the sense (purport, intension, import) given in a context. The
> first one is the totality of entities referred to; the second one is the
> totality of associations and relationships (as logical and conceptual
> relatives). The ordered pair of the sense and the reference makes the
> meaning of the construct, be it a concept, statement or theory. The like
> goes for symbols as words and their significance.
>
> Summing: neither intensional models nor extensional models (as set theory)
> are separately correct, but only as integrated.
>
> Azamat Abdoullaev
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian Bailey" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "'Patrick Cassidy'" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>; "'[ontolog-forum] '"
> <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 12:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as standards
>
>
>> Hi Pat (C),
>>
>> I agree (partially) about the logic of the ontology being key, but
>> there's
>> more to it than that. A model can be logically correct but still not
>> refer
>> to anything real or useful (e.g. "Blegd-A", etc.). It can also be
>> logically
>> correct and still be an awful model (see 99% of the world's data models).
>> The point I was trying to get across is that you need to be sure what
>> you're
>> referring to - logical structure alone doesn't assure this. The IDEAS
>> work
>> is extensional, because it saves us arguing about what we're modelling -
>> it
>> always comes down to extent, which doesn't rely on words or logic.
>>
>> As for your other point, machine reasoning and inference don't really
>> feature in the IDEAS work - we wanted an accurate model of the area of
>> discourse we were covering - military capability. I like that IDEAS (and
>> BORO and ISO15926) are extensional and higher order, because as a
>> pragmatic,
>> hairy-a**ed mechanical engineer I am comfortable that I know what I'm
>> dealing with. I can see there are types of types in the real world, so it
>> must be a higher-order world (why flatten in ?). And I can see that there
>> are things with spatio-temporal extent, and that gives me a nice way to
>> irrefutably identify stuff.
>>
>> Chris has this theory that a model has to be at least as complex as its
>> subject in order to be useful (I've probably butchered this theory in one
>> sentence). However I think it applies to human understanding too. BORO is
>> really simple at its heart, and my simple mind isn't comfortable with
>> anything else.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Ian (B)
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Patrick Cassidy [mailto:pat@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 21 January 2009 05:19
>> To: ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; '[ontolog-forum] '
>> Subject: RE: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as standards
>>
>> Ian,
>> Re:
>> [IB]
>>> nations. The initial approach we took is very similar to the one
>>> suggested
>>> by John below...and it was a miserable failure. If you try to work
>>> concept-by-concept, it's doomed to failure. You can never be sure that
>>> you
>>> have full consensus between everyone in the room, because you can't be
>>> sure
>>> that one person's understanding of a concept is precisely the same as
>>> another's (no matter how long you debate it). One of two things happen;
>>> you
>>> make no progress because you can't reach agreement, or one dominant
>>> personality railroads the whole thing.
>>
>> I agree. That's why the "meaning" of an ontology element can only be
>> its
>> logical specification, and how that behaves in inference. People donlt
>> "agree" or "disagree" on the meaning of an ontological specification,
>> they
>> observe (or do thought experiments) how it will behave in inference. Its
>> inferential behavior is its only "meaning".
>> If different competent ontologists (say, A, B, and C) want different
>> logical structures to be labeled with the same label (say, "Blegd"), no
>> problem. The different structures are given different labels. e.g.
>> Blegd-A, Blegd-B, and Blegd-C (each of which is mapped to "Blegd" in a
>> different terminology). The results don't depend on consensus for
>> terminology usage and the debates don't go on forever, they are resolved
>> rapidly by voting if issues more complicated than that trivial one arise.
>> In the consortium project I have suggested, all participants will be
>> aware before starting of the procedures used to resolve disputes, and if
>> they don't like the procedures, they don't participate. I am still
>> certain
>> that there will be enough willing participants to form a large enough
>> user
>> community for the resulting ontology to assure that it is more widely
>> used
>> than any other foundation ontology.
>>
>> Pat
>>
>> Patrick Cassidy
>> MICRA, Inc.
>> 908-561-3416
>> cell: 908-565-4053
>> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ian Bailey
>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 8:23 AM
>>> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
>>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as
>>> standards
>>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> In the IDEAS Group we have a consortium of a reasonable size (with
>>> representatives from the defence depts of Australia, Canada, Sweden, UK
>>> &
>>> US). We didn't actually set out to develop an ontology. What we wanted
>>> to do
>>> was share information (related to enterprise architecture) between the
>> In my experience over several
>>> standards projects, the loudest voice rarely belongs to the most
>>> competent
>>> person, so neither of these outcomes is favourable.
>>>
>>> Facing a lack of modelling progress in IDEAS, we went back to the
>>> drawing
>>> board and decided we'd try a formal method for analysis. We chose Chris
>>> Partridge's BORO method, as a few of us had read his book and wanted to
>>> give
>>> it a try. It has the advantage of ignoring ideas such as "concepts" and
>>> "terms". It's ruthlessly extensional - individuals are identified by
>>> their
>>> physical extent, classes by their members, and relationships by their
>>> ends.
>>> Once you've figured out something's extent, you can then apply whatever
>>> names you want to it. The process can be achingly slow, but at least it
>>> gets
>>> results, and the results can't be refuted.
>>>
>>> Not so long after we started on IDEAS, I went to a NATO workshop on
>>> terminology. It was facilitated by someone we were told was a guru at
>>> this
>>> sort of thing. His approach was to work concept-by-concept and we hit
>>> the
>>> same problems we'd just got over in IDEAS. In a three day workshop they
>>> managed to produce three terms for the glossary. There were about
>>> fifteen
>>> people in the room, so that's fifteen man-days per concept. If you plan
>>> to
>>> work on Longman's dictionary, you'd better have plenty of time on your
>>> hands
>>> and the patience to deal with a room full of experts.
>>>
>>> Another tip is to sort out your ontic categories early on. I'm not sure
>>> OWL
>>> and RDFS give you a proper foundation for ontology development - there
>>> are
>>> some very strange things in the W3C spec about how an individual in one
>>> ontology can be a class in another (bizarre even in an intensional
>>> approach). We published the IDEAS foundation elements on the website -
>>> http://www.ideasgroup.org/3Foundation/ - and you're more than welcome
>>> to
>>> re-use them.
>>>
>>> I'm not suggesting you use BORO if you set out to develop your
>>> foundation
>>> ontology, but I think you do need some very strong criteria about how
>>> you
>>> identify things. Going extensional solves the problem of identity, but
>>> does
>>> mean that the ontology developers have to think a lot harder about what
>>> they're doing, and ground all their work in the real world. Not usually
>>> a
>>> problem if they're philosophers or logicians, but if they're computer
>>> scientists, you're going to spend the first six months coaxing them out
>>> of
>>> the Matrix and back into the real world. Intensional approaches seem to
>>> suit
>>> information technology folks a bit better, but I'm not aware of any
>>> water-tight methods in this area.
>>>
>>> The problem in standards development is one of personalities (and there
>>> are
>>> some very strong ones in information management disciplines).
>>> Additionally,
>>> there are issues of reputation and commercial interests to consider (if
>>> a
>>> standard goes a certain way, it could close the market for a vendor, or
>>> negate ten years of academic research). One way to bypass the egos and
>>> hidden agendas is to get them all to sign up to a method that
>>> guarantees
>>> results. They might not all like the results they get, but at least
>>> they're
>>> defensible. My old job was developing ISO data standards (esp. in
>>> ISO10303)
>>> and I've got to say that if we'd had a method like BORO when developing
>>> some
>>> the data models there, we'd have done it in half the time and saved a
>>> lot of
>>> arguing (some of the people involved still don't speak to each other).
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Ian Bailey
>>> www.modelfutures.com
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F.
>>> Sowa
>>> Sent: 20 January 2009 07:35
>>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies as
>>> standards
>>>
>>> Pat,
>>>
>>> I know *exactly* what you are trying to do, and your comments
>>> show that you haven't seriously examined the definitions in
>>> Longman's dictionary, which you keep citing as a paradigm.
>>>
>>> PC> It is clear that you have completely misinterpreted the
>>> > proposal I have been making.
>>>
>>> I'll summarize your proposal:
>>>
>>> 1. Find a set of primitive concepts that are common to all
>>> natural languages. These would be similar to the defining
>>> vocabulary of Longman's dictionary for students who are
>>> learning English as a second language.
>>>
>>> 2. Use those primitives to define a much larger vocabulary of
>>> terms and thereby relate them by means of those primitives.
>>>
>>> This idea is not bad for writing a dictionary that is intended
>>> to be used by students who *already* learned the concepts in
>>> their native country and just need to learn the English words
>>> for them. Just look at a typical definition:
>>>
>>> energy. The power which does work and drives machines:
>>> atomic/electrical energy | the energy of the sun.
>>>
>>> If the students had already learned the concept, this kind
>>> of definition would enable them to relate the English word
>>> 'energy' to their previous knowledge. But for an ontology,
>>> this definition is worthless. In physics, the words 'energy',
>>> 'work', and 'power' express three different, but related
>>> concepts that are defined by different formulas. For an
>>> ontology, the above definition would be worse than useless
>>> -- because it happens to be false. Almost every definition
>>> in that dictionary is either false or hopelessly vague.
>>>
>>> PC> The whole point of creating an FO by a large consortium
>>> > is precisely to be certain that the views representing many
>>> > different interests and ways to express knowledge are taken
>>> > into account...
>>>
>>> A consortium or committee is good for evaluating proposals,
>>> but they can't solve the unsolvable. Just look at the way
>>> the Newtonian concepts of space, time, mass, and energy
>>> evolved in the progression to relativity and quantum mechanics.
>>>
>>> Those words are used in all three theories (and many other
>>> variations). But those words are *not* defined in terms of
>>> primitives. They are related to one another by various
>>> equations. Furthermore, the equations in the three theories
>>> are not only different; they are contradictory. There is
>>> nothing that remotely resembles defining primitives.
>>>
>>> That observation is true for every formal ontology. There
>>> are no primitives. There are just equations (or other
>>> kinds of formulas) that relate the terms. The words in
>>> one theory and its successors are frequently the same
>>> or similar. But the equations that relate them are
>>> very different.
>>>
>>> There's a fundamental reason why it's impossible to use any
>>> subset of natural language vocabulary as ontological primitives:
>>> NL words are intended to be used in a open-ended number of ways,
>>> but ontological terms are absolutely precise within the scope
>>> of a particular theory.
>>>
>>> That distinction creates an inherent conflict:
>>>
>>> 1. There are common ideas expressed in the basic vocabularies
>>> of many different languages, as many people such as Len Talmy
>>> and Anna Wierzbicka have shown. But the corresponding words
>>> are vague, with many different *microsenses* that vary from
>>> one "language game" to another.
>>>
>>> 2. Formal ontologies and scientific theories require sharply
>>> defined terms that denote values that can be measured
>>> precisely. Those terms are defined only within a formal
>>> theory (or language game), and any paraphrase in the words
>>> of #1 is at best a vague approximation.
>>>
>>> The Longman's defining terms (or anything similar, such as
>>> Wierzbicka's primitives) are inherently vague. They cannot
>>> be used to define ontological terms that must have a precise,
>>> formally defined sense.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
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