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Re: [ontolog-forum] Deriving categories usingclusteringtechniques...

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Rich Cooper" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:52:46 -0700
Message-id: <20090716205305.7170D138D1E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Azamat wrote:

Q: "Should it be possible to replace the existing approach to

     categories with an approach that extracts measured concepts

     from meanings and then performs cluster analysis on those

     concepts"?

 

RC>  Yes.  For one example, see:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7209923.PN.&OS=PN/7209923&RS=PN/7209923

 

 

AZ> This passage, taken from the patent, might be engaging to read: 

 

"Database data models are sometimes referred to as ontologies, although ontologies have constraints and inferential rules in addition to entity relationships. An ontology is one way of structuring conceptual models into classes, objects and relationships among the objects. An upper level ontology of concepts has been suggested among the community of philosophers, logicians and software engineers as an initial ontology for applications. The IEEE Standard Upper Ontology (SUO) working group applied some of the world's best logicians, philosophers and linguists to the problem of choosing at least a small "universal" ontology based on a conceptual framework. This is one approach to narrowing context, but is not specifically linguistically based. Ontologies are presently being studied in many areas, but have not made much commercial progress, perhaps with Cyc as the most well known example. And even after years of searching, the SUO group was unable to agree on a suitable top level ontology. One conclusion many SUO members reached was that no universal ontology exists because the meaning of classes, objects and relationships constitute subjective experiences on the part of the sending and receiving agents, and do not represent abstract properties of reality...Ontologies as actually used by people are empirically developed through individual experience, rather than abstractions describing reality in some objective way."

 

RC> Thank you for focusing so cleanly on that observation.  It seems clear to me.  Did I misstate anything, in anyone’s opinion, in that quote?

 

That message from SUO was a clear one to all concerned, I believe, that only subjective theorizing, classifying, experimenting and observing within a database can recreate a human ontology.  Objective methods are more likely to be used in communications among differing subjective models – in the mapping from one to another.  The problem of communicating from the point of two different ontologies seems to me to be the exact central point of this email group’s focus. 

 

What am I missing Azamat, or do I simply misunderstand your question ?

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

 

 


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