Ahem...maybe you should have looked a bit closer :) A thing is an
individual, a type or a tuple - i.e. it is the most general category in the
foundation. An individual is anything with spatial and temporal extent. A
type a set of things. A tuple is an n-ary relationship between things.
Don't forget we're extensional, so we can't have any of this nonsense of a
type also being an individual - our definition of individual is very clear. (01)
The foundation specialisation tree is: (02)
-Thing
-Individual
-Type
-Powertype
-TupleTyple
-IndividualType
-Name
-NameType
-tuple (thing, thing, thing, ...etc.)
-couple (thing, thing)
-superSubtype (type, type)
-typeInstance (type, thing)
-powertypeInstance (powertype, type)
-nameTypeInstance (nametype, name)
-namedBy (thing, name)
-triple (thing, thing, thing)
-quadruple (thing, thing, thing, thing)
-quintuple (thing, thing, thing, thing, thing) (03)
Hope this helps. (04)
PS -we've never had need to use triple, quadruple or quintuple, but Chris
said we should have them, and we believed him. (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 10 February 2009 20:45
To: ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology (06)
On Feb 10, 2009, at 2:12 PM, Ian Bailey wrote: (07)
> Hi John,
>
> You wrote "there is no foundation ontology that anyone could hope to
> recommend". Well, I personally recommend IDEAS, but then again I
> would.
>
> I'd actually like to understand what you (and anyone else) think
> constitutes
> a foundation ontology. We're pretty clear about it in IDEAS - it's
> the set
> of ontic categories (thing, type, tuple, individual) (08)
OK, I havn't looked at IDEAS closely, but already I have problems with
it. What is the distinction between Thing and Individual? Why can a
Type not be a Thing? (Certainly it is extremely useful to be able to
assert properties of and relations between types: can you do that
without saying the Type is a Thing or an Individual? If so, what kind
of logic do you use?) (09)
BTW, I wouldn't describe this list as an ontology at all, more like
the underlying formalism of an ontology. I would add immediately that
this isnt a clear boundary, but your list here doesn't seem to be
about the world being described so much as about the apparatus you
propose to use to describe it. This is the kind of thing that is built-
in in RDFS and OWL, for example. (010)
> plus their
> relationships (sub-super, type-instance, etc.), plus the naming
> pattern
> (based on Chris's ideas, which are based on Quine's). (011)
Quine was a strict nominalist. Does IDEAS agree with Quine that to be,
is to be the value of a bound variable? (We had to resoundingly reject
that dictum in the IKRIS project, when working with a variety of
formalisms, all making different Quinean ontic commitments; and I am
sure it will not survive on the Web, where one man's fiction is
another man's reality.) (012)
> We set this bit of the
> ontology in stone and bind implementations (our UML Profile, our RDBMS
> structure and our RDFS projections) against it.
>
> IDEAS is layered; foundation, common patterns, subject areas (013)
Thats where the ontology starts, I would say. And the higher-level
ontology is about subject areas that crop up just about everywhere:
time, location, processes, substances, abstract vs. concrete things,
etc. (014)
Pat H (015)
> , local
> extensions. The governance is strong at the top and weak at the
> bottom.
> Stuff introduced at the bottom (e.g. by a local user) can be
> promoted up the
> governance regime if there is benefit to other users. It does mean
> we can
> end up with local extensions that are not synchronised, but
> everything has
> to descend from the top, so we can always go up the tree until we have
> common understanding. The whole thing kinda relies on BORO though,
> as we use
> extension as our criterion for identification.
>
> I suspect you mean something more by "foundation" though - maybe
> what we'd
> call foundation + common patterns ? For example, would you see a
> foundation
> having things like "person", "process" (can of worms, that one) and
> "document" in it ?
>
> Cheers
> --
> Ian
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F.
> Sowa
> Sent: 10 February 2009 17:38
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology
>
> Pat C, Pat H, and Ian,
>
> PC> ... there is the practical question of whether we intend
>> to recommend one foundation ontology as the basis for the
>> formalization, or take a hands-off position and let a
>> thousand incompatible flowers bloom?
>
> Three points: (1) there is no foundation ontology that anyone
> could hope to recommend, (2) there are already thousands of
> flowers and weeds, and (3) there is no consensus about which
> are the flowers and which are the weeds.
>
> Therefore, we cannot recommend any single ontology, and we
> must accommodate the totality of those that have proved to
> be useful to at least some narrow group.
>
> PH> Nobody heeds such an all-encompassing ontology, however.
>> Each standardization effort is devoted to a relatively narrow
>> range of topics and concerns, compared to the full range of
>> all possible standards.
>
> I strongly agree.
>
> IB> ... you need to get your hands dirty and look at the legacy
>> data. You can carry out academic exercises mapping models and
>> doing gap analyses, but these never work when it comes to the
>> real world.
>
> Certainly. Anything that has lasted long enough to become
> a legacy has passed the most important test of all: it works.
> That is an enormous advantage over proposals that have not
> been tested or deployed on any practical application.
>
> PC> I feel strongly that getting some agreement among at least
>> one large user community on the content of *some* foundation
>> ontology should be a very high priority objective until it
>> is accomplished, regardless of how often we have talked
>> about it. Other tasks are IMHO at least secondary, and
>> perhaps dependent on the first.
>
> No, most definitely *not*! I strongly agree with Pat Hayes:
>
> PH> Getting such agreement is both unnecessary and probably
>> impossible. It would achieve nothing other the creation of
>> a huge and unusable formalization which would then be ignored
>> for almost all applications, being too unwieldy and needlessly
>> complicated and mired in pointless controversy to be usefully
>> applied to any particular domain.
>
> A working system always trumps a pie-in-the-sky dream.
>
> As a theoretician, I am in favor of dreaming. But as somebody
> who worked at a profit-making institution for 30 years, I
> realize the importance of grounding those dreams in reality.
>
> Therefore, the primary requirement for any theoretical proposal
> must be a smooth migration path from where we are today (namely,
> the thousands of weeds and flowers) to the promised land flowing
> with milk and honey.
>
> John
>
> PS: That metaphor of milk and honey reminds me of a cartoon
> that showed Moses leading a bunch of people dressed in flowing
> robes, dripping with sticky white stuff. We need a migration
> path that takes advantage of the sticky stuff, instead of
> getting mired in it.
>
>
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