----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October
28, 2009 8:21 PM
Subject: Re:
[ontolog-forum] Just What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
Let me rephrase: an ontology is
either defined to be:
A.
a LIBRARY like collection of defined classes
with associated
properties of various domains
and including no data
other than system constants
B.
a DATABASE containing descriptions of reality as
sensed, controlled and/or
predicted by the ontology
and stored in
semistructured forms
Is an ontology a Library, or a Database?
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
11:05 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Just
What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
Doug, you have suggested that ontology is
just the set of categories, i.e. classes, with properties and behaviors, with
sets and subset relationships among them, but WITHOUT the entire framework of
an operational model with full structure; not a model capable of simulating the
world.
Sort of like a library of classes that has
been done once and for all. Now that we have this hypothetical ontology
available in the library, the classes thereof can be instantiated to make such
a simulation of the world by further effort. But that is a whole nother
project.
For example, a library of electrical
components can be built and might contain resistors, capacitors, transistors,
sensors, effectors, but no diagram of a Dolby stereo surround sound system.
Then I could build a Dolby stereo surround sound system by instantiating
the right components and building a simulation of the Dolby equations as
interpreted in the library of components. Kinda indirect (easier jus to
simulate the equations without using electrical analogies of the equations) but
you get the analogy I’m trying to make, I hope.
If an ontology is a set of classes, then
it provides a library of functionality.
If an ontology is a set of classes with a
model of a world structured on top of it, then it provides a specific
application of the library, along with that library itself.
Which one is it? I vote for the
library kind of definition for ontology. Anyone have a divergent view to
offer? Surely someone can reasonably justify defining ontology as the
full model including simulation.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Burkett, William [USA]
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
10:23 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Just
What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
>What George E.P.
Box said about models (“All models are wrong, but some are
useful.”) is true for ontologies as well.
>AA: Wrong. This
is the whole point of ontology to create true models of the world, formal and
informal, analytic and desciptive.
Andreas is right,
Azamat. An ontology is a model and inherits all the limitations of any
other model of the world. Models are at
best incomplete representation of the world. There is no such
thing as a single “true” representation of any aspect of the
world. In fact, I think “true” is a red herring; the most
desirable (if not only) objective for a model is fidelity and accuracy with
respect to purpose.
Bill
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of AzamatAbdoullaev
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
10:40 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Cc: vasile.mazilescu@xxxxxxx;
semantic-web@xxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Just
What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
Responding to the seemingly eternal question: what is ontology? I
suggest a simple answer, the World Desciption Framework, WDF, giving basic
meanings to information, and incorporating all the generic and specific schemas
and models and theories,like RDF, E-R Model, upper ontologies, CL, common
metadata models, OO models, UML, etc.
What also concerns: we hotly discuss the same issues on
<what ontology and semantic web might be> for a rather long
time trying to set the frontier of the research, while the
"periphery" is coming up with really innovative ideas (see the attached
PDF Doc on the Intelligent Knowledge Management and Universal Knowledge
Technology from Romania).
PS: If we are aimed at semantic interoperability, it would be good
to try the concept from the exchange of information between the two closed
fora, SW and Ontolog.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October
27, 2009 8:53 PM
Subject: Re:
[ontolog-forum] Just What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
This viewpoint is
not completely new to everyone. In particular in the modeling & simulation
community, the idea that each model represents – very similar to an
ontology – a viewpoint needed to address a given challenge (the model was
build to help solving a problem, and the viewpoint needed to solve the problem
becomes the viewpoint of the model) becomes predominant. Each model is a
purposeful abstraction and simplification of reality, again similar to an
ontology.
AA: Right.
What George E.P. Box
said about models (“All models are wrong, but some are useful.”) is
true for ontologies as well.
AA: Wrong. This is
the whole point of ontology to create true models of the world, formal and
informal, analytic and desciptive.
iIn other words: each
ontology contributes a different facet to a description, and in order to get
the whole picture, all facets are needed.
The only common
ontology description integrating everything is the world
AA: Here is the
confusion of the universe of discourse and the discourse itself. See on the WDF
above.
(if we exclude
imagination of what could be to make the problem a little bit easier), but we
could not use the world to answer our problem in the first place, that is why
we developed a simpler model for our use.
Long story short: we
do not need a common ontology,
AA: that's a
strategic mistake.
but we need a common
way to describe our work allowing the mediation of viewpoints. As our
worldviews differ in scope (what we look at), resolution (detail we are looking
at), and structure (categorization of what we are looking at), these mediations
will not always be loss-free, but that is part of the nature of the beast.
It seems like we are
starting to come to very similar observations and reach mappable conclusions in
different scientific domains.
Andreas
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Burkett, William [USA]
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
2:30 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Just
What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
Bravo, Rich –
this is the first time I’ve heard anyone in any of these ontology/SUO
forums stress so strongly the human-factor aspect of data semantics.
I’ve been trying to argue this point for years but to most CS-trained
individuals it just falls on deaf ears. I even have a nice little
catchy name for the theory: “Data Is
Speech”. As you suggest, there will be multiple
ontologies (or whatever you want to call them) to formally represent different
views of the word and they will need to be quickly adaptable to changing
business requirements . And the one significant missing and way way
underserved ingredient is mapping and translation technology.
Bill
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