Hi Rich, (01)
We'd need confirmation from Matthew, but I think ISO15926 pretty much has
this upper structure also. (02)
I'd love it if everyone agreed an ultra high-level doo-dah, but there is a
fly in the ointment... (03)
The difficulty in getting everyone to agree this is criteria for identity.
The upper ontology can only be common if we agree what each category means.
Some ontology developers have no criteria for identity at all. In an
intensional ontology, it is OK to have the types Equiangular Triangle and
Equilateral Triangle. It isn't OK in an extensional ontology like ISO15926,
BORO or IDEAS, because there is only one extent defined by both terms. We
are also ruthlessly extensional on individuals - if two things have the same
spatial and temporal extent, they are the same thing. (04)
It's no good having everyone agree to use the UHLO (I think the acronym
could catch on !), if they all have a different understanding of what the
categories map onto in the real world. (05)
We (Matthew, Chris and I) use this extensional approach because we're in the
dirty business of data integration - we have to deal with real stuff in
transactional systems. If you're more interested in loftier pursuit of
machine reasoning, doing all that extensional analysis donkey-work isn't
going to provide quite the same return on investment. Hence, being forced to
use an extensional UHLO (catchy !) is going cause you work you probably
don't need to do. (06)
Cheers
--
Ian (07)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: 10 February 2009 22:43
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: [ontolog-forum] An Ultra High Level Ontology (08)
Since John Sowa and Pat Hayes (and possibly Ian Bailey) seem to agree
on the following ultra high level ontology, perhaps we should proclaim
it an "Initial Ontic Standard" that can be built upon: (09)
-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) (010)
>[JS] Common Logic, for example, is called a logic rather than an
>ontology. But it is possible to define a dialect of CL that uses
>the labels above to name the syntactic features of CL.
>
> - A thing is anything named by a CL name.
>
> - A type is a monadic relation that is used as a
> restriction on a quantified name.
>
>But as Pat said, the boundary isn't clear. You could say that your
>system does make the following "ontological commitment":
>
> - If there exists a thing x and a thing y, then there exists
> a couple consisting of x and y.
>
>In CLIF, that statement could be written as the following axiom:
>
> (forall (x y) (exists (z) (= z (couple x y))))
>
>However, this level of commitment is far below what you would get
>from adopting any first-order logic plus some obvious mathematical
>theories that can be axiomatized in FOL: sets, functions, relations,
>integers, real numbers, etc.
>
>But that is still very far from giving us an ontology that can
>represent all the stuff of science, engineering, business, etc. (011)
Next, if this is as successful as Dublin core was, we can then start
to define "very high level ontologies" for (science, engineering,
business, etc). Each of these that can similarly be built upon for each
discipline we care to spend the effort on. (012)
Just starting with a very small, Dublin-core like, ontology such as
the above would be an improvement on our present state of discussion.
And who knows, there might be products introduced to support this
simple ultra high level ontology. Ontologies might be classified as:
- ultra high (like this one)
- very high
- high
- middle
- low (to the design level)
- very low
- ultra low (to the coding level) (013)
-Rich (014)
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com (015)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:27 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology (016)
Ian and Pat, (017)
I agree with Pat: (018)
PH> 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. (019)
The following classification is closer to a description of the
permissible syntactic categories: (020)
-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) (021)
Common Logic, for example, is called a logic rather
than an ontology. But it is possible to define a dialect
of CL that uses the labels above to name the syntactic
features of CL. (022)
- A thing is anything named by a CL name. (023)
- A type is a monadic relation that is used as a
restriction on a quantified name. (024)
But as Pat said, the boundary isn't clear. You could say that
your system does make the following "ontological commitment": (025)
- If there exists a thing x and a thing y, then there exists
a couple consisting of x and y. (026)
In CLIF, that statement could be written as the following axiom: (027)
(forall (x y) (exists (z) (= z (couple x y)))) (028)
However, this level of commitment is far below what you would
get from adopting any first-order logic plus some obvious
mathematical theories that can be axiomatized in FOL: sets,
functions, relations, integers, real numbers, etc. (029)
But that is still very far from giving us an ontology that can
represent all the stuff of science, engineering, business, etc. (030)
John (031)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (032)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (033)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (034)
|