> 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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