Pat and Sean, (01)
These are very important issues, and we will never resolve them until
we recognize the different *purposes* for different ontologies. (02)
That is why I changed the subject line of this thread to
"Ontologies for development, interpretation, and interoperability." (03)
There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all ontology, and we have
been focusing on different kinds of applications. In the previous
note, I distinguished four kinds, which I repeat here: (04)
1. Ontology for development: A precise, formally defined ontology
at all levels (top to bottom) that is suitable for designing
and implementing applications that are guaranteed to fit
together. This seems to be the focus of your interests, and
I agree that it is probably the main interest for those people
who want a single upper level that governs everything. (05)
2. Ontology for interpretation: An ontology with a loosely
axiomatized upper level that is suitable for interpreting
natural languages and determining which domain-level ontology
is relevant to a particular sentence or phrase. This kind of
ontology is important for interpreting unrestricted natural
language and for question answering about an open-ended range
of topics. (06)
3. Ontology for interoperability by fiat: A development ontology
that enables all applications designed to its specifications to
interoperate. This kind of ontology has been the focus of many
discussions in this forum, but it does not address interoperability
among systems developed with different ontologies or with no
explicit ontology. (07)
4. Ontology for task-oriented interoperability: An ontology used
to *discover* commonalities among independently developed
ontologies for a specific low-level task. This kind of ontology
could be a ontology designed for interpretation. It could also
be an ontology derived from a development ontology, but with the
detailed axioms moved out of the upper levels and into the lower
levels. (08)
These four distinctions (and perhaps others) show why we have been
going round and round in endless dispute: we have focused on different
kinds of applications, different kinds of interoperability, and very
different solutions that are appropriate for one kind or the other. (09)
I'll respond to your comments in a note under the alternate title,
because I believe that distinction is key to resolving these disputes.
Unless we begin to distinguish different kinds of ontologies for
different purposes, we'll be stuck with endless and pointless bickering. (010)
John (011)
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