All of your "problems" can be summarized in one word: CONTEXT.
The "solutions" are readily available: use a CONTEXT LANGUAGE.
mKR is a CONTEXT LANGUAGE. (01)
Dick McCullough
http://mkrmke.org (02)
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 8:05 PM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Past, Present, and Future of Ontology (03)
> Before proposing new ontologies and projects for developing them,
> I suggest that we review past proposals and developments. People
> often say that artificial intelligence is a new field. But I
> remind them that the founding workshop for the field of AI was
> held in 1956, ten years before Alan Perlis established the first
> computer science department at Carnegie Tech (now CMU).
>
> The basic ideas of ontology are much older. Aristotle began the
> systematic study of the categories of existence, their organization
> in a hierarchy, and their definition and analysis in terms of formal
> logic. I keep reminding advocates of OWL and other description
> logics that the most widely used subset of OWL happens to be
> identical with Aristotle's syllogisms.
>
> For a brief review of this history, I recommend the slides for
> my talk, "The Challenge of Knowledge Soup":
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/challenge.pdf
>
> For an even shorter summary, see the slide at the end of this note.
> Note the acronym SRKB (Shared Reusable Knowledge Bases) in the
> projects of the 1990s. That goals of that project were similar
> to those of the SUO email list and ontolog forum. Following are
> the SRKB archives from 1991 to 1996:
>
> http://ksl.stanford.edu/email-archives/srkb.index.html
>
> The most discouraging observation is that most of the position papers
> written in 1991 would be just as appropriate today. At the end of
> this message is a copy of my position paper from 1991.
>
> Other position papers on that list are also relevant. In note #12,
> Mark Fox made the following point:
>
> MF> What has been called "upper level" ontologies would of course be
> > useful but the sharing of the lower level, more domain specific terms
> > and instances is also necessary. The problem here is that different
> > parts of the organization do not use the same terms even when
> > referring to the same concept. Any attempt to standardize terminology
> > fails. Secondly, enforcing the use of the same terminology can lead
> > to inefficient problem solving for a particular function. Thus arises
> > the distinction between the language of communication and the language
> > used by a function to reason.
>
> From note #13 by Lewis Johnson,
>
> LJ> ... we must support multiple models of concepts. The form of
> > represented knowledge depends upon the intended use of that knowledge,
> > and Aries users inevitably use concepts for different purposes. For
> > example, when monitoring the progress of a flight it is sufficient
> > to model a flight plan as a sequence of flight segments, each along
> > a straight line. When defining radar tracking systems, it is
> > important to model aircraft maneuvers in detail, in order to predict
> > the position of the aircraft at the next point in time; the overall
> > flight plan of the aircraft is unimportant... Analysts will need to
> > specialize general models to their particular concerns; they also
> > will need to adapt reusable knowledge to remove assumptions that
> > turn out to be unwarranted.
>
> From note #14 by Jintae Lee and Tom Malone,
>
> JL&TM> As applied to the problem of shared reusable KBs, or shared
> > ontologies, the relevant questions are: Do we want a canonical set
> > of primitives? When do we want to allow them to be customized?
> > Is translation among the customized or specialized primitives
> > feasible, desirable? What kinds of translation mechanism are possible
> > and what are the dimensions along which tradeoffs occur?
> >
> > If we proceed to work on a single shared ontology, without considering
> > these broader issues, then we might make the mistake of having a
> > technology that solves no real problems.
>
> That cautionary remark at the end is critical. I believe that many
> of the ontologies that are being proposed or built today do not even
> recognize those critical issues. As a result, they are solutions
> in search of nonexistent problems.
>
> From note #16 by Bill Mark,
>
> BM> My belief is that we *can* have lots of knowledge to share, but
> > only if we start building it to be sharable. Knowledge can be worth
> > sharing for a variety of reasons: it may be a repository of problem
> > solving know-how; an integral record that supports reasoning about
> > a set of decisions (e.g., that comprise some design); a medium of
> > communication to be used by people cooperating to solve a problem;
> > and so on. I think that we don't know much at all about how we will
> > share knowledge, but I suspect that the different reasons for sharing
> > knowledge will require different technologies in their support.
>
> From note #18 by Brian Williams and Danny Bobrow,
>
> BW&DB> It is easy for our knowledge sharing efforts to fall into a
> > knowledge representation black hole. Its important to avoid the
> > urge to represent knowledge in an absolute, use independent manner.
> > Many of us have learned this lesson painfully...
> >
> > The notion of domain dependent and domain independent are misguided.
> > ... The concepts of domain dependence/independence are too black and
> > white to be useful. Each theory has a range of applicability
> > somewhere in the vast middle between case specific and all
> > encompassing....
> >
> > Knowledge sharing should respect the different granularities of
> > knowledge and reasoning about that knowledge.
>
> From note #19 by Mark Tuttle,
>
> MT> I believe that "systems which are used tend to get better".
> > Therefore trying to create a path which would both allow early success
> > and at the same time lay the groundwork for more ambitious success
> > later should be a high priority. Thus "incrementalism" should be
> > an important part of the vision.
>
> From note #20 by Pat Hayes,
>
> PH> ... to suggest that there should be a standard ontology for natural
> > language and common sense is nothing short of irresponsible for anyone
> > competent in AI. Cyc is the only attempt to even try this idea out
> > thoroughly, and it is discovering all sorts of difficulties and
> > complexities, and doesnt even claim to have got it right or even to
> > know for sure whether it can really be done: its an experiment. And
> > you want to set a Standard?? Fortunately, the idea is so ridiculous
> > that it hasn't a hope in hell of getting anywhere.
>
> Pat made that point in 1991, and he was right. In response, Bob Neches
> made the following point:
>
> BN> Well, my personal view is that shared ontologies are possible with
> > today's knowledge representation technology -- but they will *evolve*
> > rather than being legislated. That is, standard shared ontologies
> > will emerge out of a marketplace -- people will use and refine ones
> > that seem useful, and they will become more useful in the process.
> > I think they'll start small and specific, rather than broad and
> > general.
> >
> > Thus, the only successful "standard" ontologies will be *de facto
> > standards*. I don't think it will happen by fiat.
>
> In note #62, Doug Lenat and R. V. Guha made the following comments
> about the search for a set of "primitives":
>
> DL&RVG> The problems... are (a) there is no small set, and (b) it's
> > almost impossible to nail down the meaning of most interesting terms,
> > because of the inherent ambiguity in whatever set of terms are
> > "primitive."
> >
> > So what did we do?
> >
> > (1) For one thing, we insist only on local coherence. I.e., groups
> > share most of the meaning of most of the terms with other groups,
> > but within a group (working on a particular micro-theory) they strive
> > for complete sharing.
> >
> > (2) For another thing, both kinds of sharing are greatly facilitated
> > by the existing KB content --- i.e., if the terms involved are already
> > used in many existing axioms.
> >
> > While (2) can be achieved through massive straightforward effort,
> > (1) is more subtle, and has required certain significant extensions
> > to the representation framework. More specifically, we had to
> > introduce the whole machinery of contexts/micro-theories into Cyc
> > (which is why "divergence" has been much less of a problem, since
> > 1990.)
>
> All these points are important. But the most discouraging point is
> that they were stated in 1991, they are just as relevant today, and
> people are still proposing projects that ignore these principles.
>
> I believe that anybody with a new proposal should review those
> notes from 1991 (and other related writings) and demonstrate how
> their proposed system will address those issues.
>
> John Sowa
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> Proposals for a Universal Ontology
>
> * 4th century BC: Aristotle’s categories and syllogisms.
>
> * 3rd century AD: The Tree of Porphyry for organizing Aristotle's
> categories in a familiar tree diagram.
>
> * 17th century: Universal language schemes by Descartes, Mersenne,
> Pascal, Leibniz, Newton, Wilkins, and others.
>
> * 18th century: More schemes, the Grand Academy of Lagado, Kant's
> categories.
>
> * 19th century: Roget’s Thesaurus, Oxford English Dictionary.
>
> * Early 20th century: Many terminologies in many different fields.
>
> * 1960s: Computerized versions of the terminologies.
>
> * 1970s: ANSI/SPARC Conceptual Schema.
>
> * 1980s: Cyc, WordNet, Japanese Electronic Dictionary project.
>
> * 1990s: SRKB, ISO Conceptual Schema, Semantic Web, many workshops.
>
> * 2000s: Many proposals, no consensus.
>
> Informal terminologies and dictionaries have been extremely successful.
>
> Formal systems are still research projects.
>
> Source: Slide 4 of http://www.jfsowa.com//talks/semtech2.pdf
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
> Source: http://ksl.stanford.edu/email-archives/srkb.messages/17.html
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91
> From: sowa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: SRKB@xxxxxxx
> Subject: Position Paper
>
> AI has been most successful on small domains: the microworlds of
> early AI demos; the highly specialized expert systems for commercial
> applications; and the machine translation systems like METEO, which
> require no human editing, but are restricted to the very narrow topic
> of weather reports. Such knowledge bases can be shared and reused, but
> only for other projects that are similarly restricted. The position
> taken in this paper is that such compartmentalization is inevitable:
> all deep knowledge is domain dependent. Only superficial, syntactic
> knowledge carries over from one domain to another. A serious question
> to consider is whether such superficial knowledge can provide a
> framework in which the deeper domain-dependent knowledge can be shared.
> The answer given in this paper is maybe: some things can be shared,
> but the research needed to support a significant amount of sharing of
> knowledge representations across multiple domains is still in a
> primitive stage of development.
>
> Examples of Domain-Independent Knowledge
>
> Many different projects have surface similarities that seem to suggest
> that shared knowledge representations are possible. Expert systems
> designed to assist automobile drivers, airplane pilots, ship captains,
> and locomotive engineers, for example, would seem to have a lot in
> common. All of them must deal with time, speed, and distance as well
> as fuel consumption, equipment condition, and passenger safety.
> Programming languages also have a great deal in common, as the
> following assignment statements seem to indicate:
>
> APL: X <- A + B
> FORTRAN: X = A + B
> PL/I: X = A + B;
> Pascal: X := A + B;
>
> Yet these surface commonalities mask serious differences in detail. A
> deeper analysis indicates that the similarities are more syntactic than
> semantic: the concepts required for each domain are so tightly bound
> to that domain that they cannot be mapped from one to the other.
> Generalizations that cover multiple domains have so little detail that
> it is not clear whether they can contribute anything significant to the
> development of a new knowledge base in any of the more detailed domains.
>
> First consider the possibility of common knowledge bases for
> automobiles, airplanes, ships, and trains. A major difference between
> these domains is the number of degrees of freedom in the motion. A
> train's motion is purely one dimensional because of the rigid tracks.
> At a gross level, a car's motion is also one dimensional, but at a
> detailed level, the driver must maneuver in two dimensions to keep the
> car in lane and avoid other cars and obstacles. A ship's motion is also
> two dimensional, but its greater inertia causes a change in course to
> take minutes instead of the split-second changes that are possible with
> a car. An airplane's motion is three dimensional, but changes in
> attitude introduce three more degrees of freedom. Besides differences
> in motion, there are different kinds of signals to consider and
> different ways of planning a course and following it. As a result, a
> driver, a pilot, a captain, and an engineer have totally different ways
> of thinking and reacting. A person who is both a driver and a pilot
> would have two independent modes of thought with little or nothing in
> common. Expert systems designed for each of these domains would also
> have few common concepts and practically no common rules.
>
> For the programming languages, the similarities in syntax mask major
> differences in semantics. If A, B, and X were all integers or all
> floating-point numbers, the results would be the same for each of the
> languages. But differences arise when the data types are different.
>
> FORTRAN and PL/I allow type conversions to or from integer and
> floating-point, but Pascal only does automatic conversion from integer
> to floating and would print an error message if A+B happened to be
> floating-point and X were integer. APL also does automatic conversions
> in evaluating A+B; but in doing the assignment, it could change the type
> of X instead of converting the result of A+B to X's previous type. PL/I
> does many other kinds of automatic conversions and would even convert
> character strings to and from numbers. APL and PL/I both allow A, B,
> and X to be arrays as well as simple scalars; but PL/I places more
> restrictions on the dimensions of the arrays, while APL has fewer
> restrictions and APL2 has even less.
>
> Because of these differences, terms like 'assignment statement' can be
> given a precise definition only for a single programming language. In
> some cases, the language standards are so loose that the definition may
> change with every compiler or even every modification of a compiler.
> An ontology might include ADDITION as a concept type, but it would also
> require subtypes APL-ADDITION, FORTRAN-ADDITION, and so on for every
> programming language and dialect.
>
> Even the same physical object may be represented in totally different
> ways for different purposes. A highway, for example, is one-dimensional
> on a map. For an automobile driver, it is two-dimensional. For the
> workers building the roadbed, it is three dimensional, but highly
> regular. And for the surveyors who are planning a level road through
> hilly terrain, it is three dimensional with highly irregular amounts of
> cut and fill. Any physical object or system can be represented at an
> unlimited number of levels of detail. There is no stopping point that
> is natural to the object itself; the stopping point depends entirely on
> the purpose for which that object is being used.
>
> Is Natural Language Domain Independent?
>
> Natural languages can express knowledge about any topic in any domain.
> But that does not make them domain independent. The syntax of language
> and the constraints at the level of case frames are largely domain
> independent, but the meaning of each word is highly dependent on the
> domain. As an example, consider the following four sentences:
>
> Tom supported the tomato plant with a stick.
> Tom supported his daughter with $8,000 per year.
> Tom supported his father with a decisive argument.
> Tom supported his partner with a bid of 3 spades.
>
> These sentences all use the verb 'support' in the same syntactic
> pattern:
>
> A person supported NP1 with NP2.
>
> Yet each use of the verb can only be understood with respect to a
> particular subject matter or domain of discourse: physical structures,
> financial arrangements, intellectual debate, or the game of bridge. For
> each of these domains, the concept type SUPPORT would require different
> subtypes, such as PHYSICAL-SUPPORT, FINANCIAL-SUPPORT, or INTELLECTUAL-
> SUPPORT. Each of those subtypes could be subdivided further: physical
> support by being tied to a stick could be distinguished from support by
> being propped up from below or being suspended from above; financial
> support by an allowance could be distinguished from support by a trust
> fund or support by payments at irregular intervals.
>
> Each difference in concept type makes a difference in reasoning and
> behavior: a child with a regular allowance enjoys some measure of
> stability, while a child who gets irregular payments must be on good
> behavior, always hoping for another grant at any moment.
>
> The point of these examples is that vagueness and ambiguity do not
> result from the nature of language. Instead, they result from the use
> and reuse of the same words in many different domains and applications.
> The same kinds of ambiguities that arise with a technical term like
> assignment statement also arise with a common verb like 'support'. The
> number of different concept types associated with a word is unlimited,
> and the totality of meanings may be inconsistent. An interior
> decorator, for example, may think of walls as parts of a room, while a
> construction contractor may think of them as separators between rooms.
>
> Each view is correct for a certain purpose and point of view, but
> they are incompatible with one another. The word senses listed in
> dictionaries represent the most common applications, and larger
> dictionaries list more of them. But even the largest dictionaries fail
> to distinguish such nuances as addition in APL vs. addition in FORTRAN
> or support by an allowance vs. support by irregular payments. Although
> the different meanings of addition, support, and wall are incompatible,
> they still have something in common. It is easier for a person to learn
> and use a single word for them than to learn different words that change
> with every application. But that implies that the only thing that is
> easily shared or reusable is the syntax, not the deeper semantics of the
> knowledge base.
>
> Language Games
>
> The traditional AI approach to knowledge representation resembles the
> early philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as presented in the _Tractatus
> Logico-Philosophicus_. In his later philosophy, Wittgenstein presented
> scathing criticisms of his earlier work -- all of which apply equally
> well to the current attempts to build shared, reusable knowledge bases.
>
> Yet his later work is not totally negative; it contains the basis for a
> solution. His theory of language games suggests that the way to build
> large, flexible intelligent systems is to provide a framework that can
> use and reuse the same syntactic tokens in different language games for
> different domains. Some of the implications of these ideas for AI were
> discussed in the last chapter of a book (Sowa 1984), two recent papers
> (Sowa 1990, 1991), and a workshop on large knowledge bases (Silverman
> and Murray 1991).
>
> References
>
> Silverman, Barry G., and Arthur J. Murray (1991) "Full-sized knowledge-
> based systems research workshop," _AI Magazine_, vol. 11, no. 5,
> January 1991, pp. 88-94.
>
> Sowa, J. F. (1984) _Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in
> Mind and Machine_, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
>
> Sowa, J. F. (1990) "Crystallizing theories out of knowledge soup," in
> _Intelligent Systems: State of the Art and Future Directions_, edited
> by Zbigniew W. Ras and Maria Zemankova, Ellis Horwood, New York,
> pp. 456-487.
>
> Sowa, J. F. (1991) "Lexical structures and conceptual structures,"
> in _Semantics in the Lexicon_, edited by James Pustejovsky, to be
> published by Kluwer Academic Press.
>
> Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1921) _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_,
> Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961.
>
> Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) _Philosophical Investigations_, Basil
> Blackwell, Oxford.
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> 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
>
>
> (04)
_________________________________________________________________
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 (05)
|