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Matthew West wrote:
Talking about what is in
someone?s head just doesn?t cut it I?m afraid. It is at best a loose way of
talking. Where you have several things that have something in common, what you
do have is an abstraction, and my extensional analysis would make that a class.
So if I have 5 copies of the same content, there is a class that represents the
pattern that is common to those 5 files. And if I have the ?same? ontology that
is represented in different languages, then there is a class that
represents that sameness.
This is consistent with the analysis that is
generally used in music, book and journal publishing metadata standards
such as ONIX and DDEX, and the widely adopted bibliographic FRBR
analysis, of an "abstraction" or "abstract work" with any number
of "manifestations". It may apply to the play "Hamlet" or the song
"Yesterday", which retain a unique perceived identity but may
be expressed in a wide variety of manifestations in different genres,
languages and so on, and it may apply as well to an ontology or computer
program. As Matthew points out, these function (and very usefully) as
abstract classes representing common content: the entire network of music
copyright collection societies operates to collect money for the use of just
such abstractions.
The elusive problem of identity remains, however.
The decision about whether a particular manifestation really is the song
"Yesterday" or just something that sounds a bit like it is something which
exists in someone's head and, in the content industries, is ultimately settled
where necessary in a court of a law using reasonable but ultimately
arbitrary criteria (such as musicological analysis). Identity between the
underlying abstractions of two ontologies is in general
more testable.
Godfrey Rust
Chief Data
Architect
Rightscom/Ontologyx
Linton House LG01
164/180 Union Street,
London SE1 0LH
www.rightscom.com
Direct +20 8579
8655
Rightscom Office +20 7620 4433
Mobile 07967
963674
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 7:28
AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] RDF &
RDFS (was... Is there something I missed?)
Dear
Pat,
PS - I'm not sure about where this idea of a mental model
of an ontology
came from. I never mentioned it, and I certainly don't
have an ontology in
my head. Of course the ontology has to be represented
in some way - CL,
RDFS, OWL, UML, EXPRESS, arse-barcodes, who cares ?
What is this thing that is in common between al these
different file formats? Where is it, if not in your head? This is rather
like the old chestnut of saying what exactly a program is, if you can write
the 'same' program in several wildly different programming languages. For
example, quicksort can be implemented in just about any programming language,
and its still quicksort. In CS we have the useful distinction between
algorithm and program, maybe we need a similar terminological distinction for
ontologies. Any suggestions?
[MW]
Ok. So is the quicksort program in your head the same as the quicksort program
in my head (I even remember writing one once in Basic)? Talking about what is
in someone?s head just doesn?t cut it I?m afraid. It is at best a loose way of
talking. Where you have several things that have something in common, what you
do have is an abstraction, and my extensional analysis would make that a
class. So if I have 5 copies of the same content, there is a class that
represents the pattern that is common to those 5 files. And if I have the
?same? ontology that is represented in different languages, then there
is a class that represents that sameness.
Regards
Matthew
West
Information
Junction
Tel:
+44 560 302 3685
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matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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