Re: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed?

[Toby Considine <Toby.Considine@xxxxxxxxx>]

I like Sean Barker's ontology of ontolgies a lot, as I find it a useful lens to think of. It may be true that ontologies will always and ever be any set of assertions that calls itself an ontology, or that is made using an ontological language, or indeed, any formalism. Not all may agree with the classification of a particular effort using Sean's categories; not all wine tasters will not those "hints of black cherry and old shoe leather". Still, I think he has identified the main thrust of the larger ontological efforts, in a way that lets one say "What are we doing here, today?"

tc

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:55 AM, Azamat <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:15 AM, Sean aked:

"is there a formal definition of an ontology?"

Good question.  It seems there are as many definitions as many schools,
researchers and developers.
But the right one is that involving the original nature and meaning of
ontology as:
"Formal Ontology is the formal study of Reality". The issue of issues is how
Reality is related with the whole world (the totality of entities and
relations), particular worlds, or possible worlds; and how it could be truly
and consistently represented and effectively reasoned [by humans and
machines].

Azamat Abdoullaev
http://www.eis.com.cy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Barker" <sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:15 AM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed?


>
>
> Folks
>
> Having followed this forum for some time, I have a feeling that I may have
> missed something so obvious that no-one has thought to mention it - that
> is,
> is there a formal definition of an ontology? An ontology cannot be just be
> a
> bowl of axiom soup, so how does one tell that a particular collection of
> axioms is an ontology - the question is posed on the analogy that
> mathematicians differentiate between a group, a ring and a field by the
> axioms they include. My naive guess for this would be based on set theory,
> and look something like:
>
> 1) A set S can be defined as S = {x s.t. x satisfies some combination of
> predicates};
> 2) Given a set of predicicates P = {p1, p2,...,pn} and a set of logical
> operaters L = {l1, l2,...,ln} (perhaps just AND, OR and NOT), then denote
> Spl as a set defined from some combination of predicates in P and
> operators
> in L, and Spl* is the set of all possible sets Spl (perhaps regularised to
> remove contraditions);
> 3) An ontology is constructed by taking a collection of sets from Spl* and
> identifying a partial ordering of those sets using the usual subset
> relationship.
>
> This would split the study of ontology into three area:
> 1) the formal problem of ontology as being concerned with the types of
> mappings (homomorphisms, homeomorphisms, etc) between different ontologies
> based on the choices from some Spl*
> 2)the practical problem as finding an ontology that supports the decision
> procedures in a particular process (I include classifying something as a
> decision procedure).
> 3) the computational problem of defining of terminating and efficient
> procedures for comparing ontologies and mapping between them.
> (Thanks to Pat Hayes for this suggestion - even his more acerbic comments
> can be quite enlightening.)
>
> I would then expect there to have been a number of competing definitions,
> and any number of arguements discussing the relative merits of these
> definitions. And possibly some argument demostrating that this whole
> approach is flawed.
>
> My question is, where are these definitions and the ensuing arguments? and
> is there a good summary of these?
>
> Sean Barker
> Bristol, UK
>
>
>
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-- 
________________________________________
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell
________________________________________
Toby Considine
Chair, OASIS oBIX TC http://www.oasis-open.org 
Co-Chair, OASIS Technical Advisory Board 
Toby.Considine@xxxxxxxxx
TC9, Inc
Phone: (919)619-2104
blog: www.NewDaedalus.com

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