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Re: [ontolog-forum] web-syllogism-and-worldview

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:00:18 -0400
Message-id: <024a01c9c20b$c6511080$52f33180$@com>
On the comparative values of human and formal languages, two points:    (01)

(1) [BG] > if we share a common language, (OWL,
> CL, etc), are we any closer to this step?
   To call OWL or CL a 'language' is common, but it stretches the metaphor
to the point of being misleading.  What human languages have the OWL and CL
do not is a large vocabulary with its accompanying semantics.  The built-in
vocabulary of OWL and CL can express enough of the semantics of the
relations among ontology elements to allow creation of the working
vocabulary, but to get to human language expressiveness requires a lot more
primitive concepts logically specified as part of the language itself.  I
believe that to get to human-language expressiveness, concepts that are
related to sensory and motor operations will be needed, and those would be
some of what I would call the 'primitive' concepts in the ontology.  In a
computer they can only be fully understood (used appropriately) by use of
procedural code; that code substitutes for analogous operations in the human
brain that bring up images of what things look like and how they behave, and
remembered feelings of how things feel, and how they behave when one tries
to manipulate them.  This is similar to what Woods called 'Procedural
Semantics'.  If those primitive are agreed on, manipulations of the
primitive concepts with FOL can provide a lot of computational power that
will allow all systems to derive the same inferences from the same data.
   Without a large set of those primitives, no ontology will be able to
serve as the common medium of communication among computers in the way a
human language does for people.  Agreement on a common grammatical formalism
helps a lot, but if different formalisms can be translated into each other
(as with different implementations of CL), any one will do.  The computers
need a common basic vocabulary including at least the most important
primitive elements.  That is how I view the function of the common
Foundation Ontology.  And that is why I think that getting agreement among
*some* large community on a common foundation ontology should be the top
priority of the ontology community right now.    (02)

(2) Do we need NL to define the problems and methods for research?
> JFS> The simple reason is that mathematics of any kind (including
> symbolic
> > logic) makes statements with sharp, absolute criteria of precision.
> > (Even fuzzy logic and probability theory make precise statements
> > about fuzziness and probabilities.)  In the initial unsettled stages
> > of research, such precision is impossible.  It's also impossible to
> > quantify the exact amount of fuzziness.  That's why ordinary language
> > is far better suited to the *development* of a theory than to the
> > final statement of the theory.
>
  Well, yes, right now NL is essential for the early stages of research.
But that is not because we *need* imprecision in language, it is because
there simply ***is no widely accepted formal language***, meaning no common
ontology with a widely agreed set of semantic primitives.  Until we get wide
adoption and know how to use such a logical language with adequate
vocabulary, I think the jury is out on whether we really need NL to
formulate scientific questions, even in the early stages.    (03)

Pat    (04)


Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx    (05)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bart Gajderowicz
> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 2:56 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] web-syllogism-and-worldview
> 
> JFS > I sympathize with the logical positivists for wanting to use
> symbolic
> > logic to state the facts and theories of science.  That is possible.
> > But it's *impossible* to formalize the preliminary stages of debate
> > and analysis *prior to* formalization.
> 
> John, do you think the recent work on standardization, specifically on
> ontologies, has brought us any closer to the formalization step? If
> so, what, if any, are the fields which are headed in that direction?
> We don't have the terms yet, but if we share a common language, (OWL,
> CL, etc), are we any closer to this step?
> 
> JFS> The simple reason is that mathematics of any kind (including
> symbolic
> > logic) makes statements with sharp, absolute criteria of precision.
> > (Even fuzzy logic and probability theory make precise statements
> > about fuzziness and probabilities.)  In the initial unsettled stages
> > of research, such precision is impossible.  It's also impossible to
> > quantify the exact amount of fuzziness.  That's why ordinary language
> > is far better suited to the *development* of a theory than to the
> > final statement of the theory.
> 
> Fields such as fuzzy logic and probability theory let us make
> statements about the world based on empirical data. Classification
> algorithms, specifically tree based ones like C4.5, are completely
> based on attributes and their values.  They generalize using tree
> pruning and raising.  Even in natural language, saying that something
> is "small" has to be taken within the context of that sentence.
> 
> I recognize that not all things can be interpreted with the methods of
> logical positivists, but I'm wondering whether there is a point where
> statistical analysis can take over where we simply don't know enough
> about a topic to infer information using logic alone.
> 
> 
> --
> Bart Gajderowicz
> MSc Candidate, '10
> Dept. of Computer Science
> Ryerson University
> http://www.scs.ryerson.ca/~bgajdero
> 
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