Ferenc, thank you for your ruminations. I doubt there are any
significance differences between your and my ideals or values.
The question is what we intend to do about our own situations,
with our own particular experiences, that might have the most
general yet beneficial impact? I'll give a kind of answer to that
question in my promised post occasioned by Jim Schoening's
top-down/bottom-up perspective. (But in the meantime I should
perhaps add that my youthful reading of Bertrand Russell's Power,
though so long ago, has marked me too, so don't worry about me on
that count!) (01)
Christopher (02)
----- Original Message -----
From: "FERENC KOVACS" <f.kovacs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators
(was:Ontologydevelopment method) (03)
Hi All,
I am not a stakeholder in the ontology business, mainstream or
otherwise,
which allows me to be enjoying the advantages the vantage points
of an
outsider But you have my sympathies, therefore.
Here are a few points to ponder on:
1. An integrated (or "merged") ontology is something like an
inventory of
what exists, natural and man-made (including concepts). If you
want to take
an inventory, you must be systematic about it. No problem with
what is
tangible, but there are problems with your knowledge soups. See
http://www.jfsowa.com/figs/soup5a.gif. That figure shows you what
the
problems are, including the level of abstracting used. (Note: it
is not by
chance that Wittgenstein did not use headings or titles in
grouping his
thoughts - he used numbers, because that did not reveal the fact
that his
ideas do not add up as a tangible construction. Neither do the
elements in
John's drawing. That picture reminds me of the map of the world as
portrayed
in the 17th century. Notice that he uses verbs in noun formats
killing
thereby the option to think of any procedures that are
indispensable in
representing knowledge of this kind. It is another issue that
everybody is
happier with anything in a picture format than a text.
2. The final digital representation of any knowledge is basically
simple -
lists and arrays - that is basically paper and ink in 2D. You
cannot beat
that and all the rest of it is a very costly overhead, making
servers today
a greater polluter than cars on the road.And to synchronize the
ideas in the
heads you really must get down to design a simple method of
representation
for all of us to share. What the problem is that our short-term
memory and
scope of perception is very poor, tragically poor as compared to
our PCs.
This is why writing was invented not to mention all the other
devices
discovered and designed for duplicating reality. Now with
cognitive science
making advances you are likely to find out one day how the actual
brain
activities modulate what you think or remember, which does not
mean that you
will have a chance to direct your thoughts as you please, as you
are an
emotive creature with a weak will. The only people who are
interested in
that subject are those motivated in manipulation due to the power
of all
sorts (See Bertrand Russell's Power).
3. The current paradigm of generalists and specialist divide
supported by
educational policies and institutions do not make it possible for
a
specialist to realize how narrow-minded he/she is. Tunnel vision
is so
common that it is passed as normal and no responsibility is felt
for not
understanding each other in terms of fundamental issues that are
utilised
for controversy. I find that the basic laws of logic, i. e. the
law of
identity, etc. are not endorsed by reason seeing truth as the
ultimate
criteria of anything worth stating and accepting as plausible
knowledge. On
the contrary, they are endorsed by emotion and will, since truth
is
something people are ready to fight for and anything claimed to be
not true
would normally upset the person claiming that point, if
challenged.
4. Identity of things in that sense is not just limited to the
proposition
that a thing is identical with itself. NO, it should also cover
the rather
subjective area of using a word to signify something when for
example
children learn a language and expect unambiguous conditions and
practice of
language use in life. Try to say any kid that a table is not
called a table
but a chair and see their reaction. In contrast, read the
headlines created
as nonsense messages to attract readership and surprise the reader
with
rubbish instead of meaning serious meaning. So anticipation of
meaning as
suggested by others is always there in checking input for reality
or truth,
and by explaining and describing things in more detail will not
change our
emotional approach to new knowledge, which may be basically of two
kinds:
either expecting good and happy ending, something like the real
Santa Claus
arriving at last, or the bad end, the arrival of rigor mortis, as
I read it
somewhere remarked by somebody else before wisely.
5. The bottom line is that we learn in order to be more educated,
which in
principle means to be able to make more educated decisions, hence
shape a
better future and not the other way round. But all our educated
decisions,
if science and politics that seem to drive our history through the
allocation of funds involve any of them, so far have lead us to a
present
that does not seem to justify such hopes. And therefore we have a
growing
number of people who have concluded that education is whitewash
and this
life is living in a jungle with jungle laws, if it has any laws at
all.
Therefore I am asking whether this world would be a better place
if by some
working of miracle 50 percent of the people became 100 percent
more.
intelligent overnight. But more importantly, would this world like
that? (04)
Regards, Ferenc. (05)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Schoening, James R Mr CIV USA AMC"
<James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 1:11 PM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators (was:
Ontologydevelopment method) (06)
Paola, Doug, Jim, Andreas, Bill, Ferenc, and all, (07)
I can't help jumping on this bandwagon too, as Bill calls it.
(And that's not so surprising seeing that my project's name and
slogan is "Ride The Mainstream!" ... for we are aiming to help
focus, harness and strengthen the same human forces.) (08)
An interesting fellow-rider is also Howard Mason with his proposed
TC charter for the Units of Measure group which he has posted at:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UoM_Ontology_Standard_OASIS_TC_Charter_Draft,
from which this is extracted: (09)
> Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology Standard (QUOMOS)
>
> (1)(b) A statement of purpose, including a definition of the
> problem to be solved.
>
> Ontologies allow the explicit specification of the multiple
> possible meanings of concepts so that people can recognize
> commonalities and differences in the semantics of the concepts
> that they use. (010)
Here I really must applaud that introduction to the whole
statement of purpose! Note the key starting-point: the social
scene of concord and discord which we have to accept and face if
our conceptual analyses (John Sowa's apt phrase) and syntheses
(here aka "ontologies") are to be effective. (011)
The theme is of course perennial, and it has particular
manifestations in Information Systems. For example, here I take
up the angle of Ralph Johnson, the main author of the "Gang of
Four"'s classic book, "Design Patterns", which in 1995 perhaps
represented the high tide of the pattern movement. His paper,
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/johnson.html, for the OOPSLA'96
Business Object Design and Implementation Workshop,
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/index.html, opened with these
two paragraphs, rather prophetic of our present ontology scene if
for "object" or "class" we substitute "ontology": (012)
> For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right
> level of abstraction. Classes like Customer and Invoice will not
> be very reusable because they are too specific, and each company
> will have its own version of them. On the other hand, classes
> like Business Object and Business Transaction are too general.
> We don't need another general-purpose object model.
>
> Reusable business objects will have to thread the gap between
> solutions that are too specific and too general. There will not
> be a single model of business objects. Instead, there will be a
> set of specialized models that work together. The important
> research problems are to figure out the models that are needed,
> to define each one, and to learn how they can be used together. (013)
Then my response to that paper,
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/johnspot.html, opened with my
own take on some of his words, under the heading "Reconciling
diffference and similiarity": (014)
> Your opening sentence is certainly true:
>
> > For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right
> > level of abstraction.
>
> Then under your heading "Different Models" you correctly
> emphasize some of the real and difficult problems lying in wait
> for anyone foolish enough to try to provide for the degree of
> commonality between needs that would make reusability feasible.
>
> Finally (in your last sentence), you seem to adopt a very
> cautious though obviously practical approach:
>
> > How to make different models interact will be one of the more
> > interesting and important research problems in this field,
> > because I am convinced that there will be many specialized
> > models for business objects, and they will have to interact.
>
> Well, here is that person foolish enough to try (as I said in my
> paper [http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/spottisw.html] and
> faq): I am asserting precisely that you _can_ have your cake and
> eat it! You _can_ have full relativity (difference) plus fine
> reusability (similarity). (015)
My assertions are still very applicable to objects and classes,
and of course to ontologies. Note how Johnson's opening sentence, (016)
> For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right
> level of abstraction. (017)
finds resonance with my insistence on the importance of levels of
abstraction, e.g. as I introduced that whole issue in the 2nd
instalment of my "MACK basics" series, from this point in it,
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00291.html#nid016,
up to this sentence at the end of this paragraph in it,
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00291.html#nid023
(The issue is further explored in the same thread) : (018)
> I would however like to record at this point that the MRCL, or
> Most Refined Common Level, between two situations will be the
> basis of many miracles which ordinary people-users will perform
> on a daily basis. (019)
And there of course I was alluding to the role of "ontologies as
social mediators" as I have re-dubbed this thread. (020)
Ferenc has most aptly pointed us to Schopenhauer's take on that
grand but frustrating and often tragic exercise. In provisional
answer to those likewise-classic phenomena, I draw attention to my
usual Homeric perspective, e.g. as I set it out in my previous
Ontolog post, specifically in these paragraphs in it: (021)
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2009-10/msg00269.html#nid010
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2009-10/msg00269.html#nid013. (022)
Perhaps the view of Scylla and Charybdis, and its relevance to our
topic that is most apposite here, is that of this table from 1997,
on the ubiquity of the theme: (023)
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla97/SpottiswoodeByndBO.html#table. (024)
(Its Yeats quote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity." is well complemented by
Bertrand Russell's "The trouble with the world is that the stupid
are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.") (025)
The rest of that 1997 paper, relevantly entitled "Beyond Business
Objects", expands a bit on how our technical undertaking might
bear on broader human and social matters. (026)
That is enough on the subject from me for now, but I leave you
with the promise (or threat...) of a possibly forthcoming post
from me. It concerns the top-down/bottom-up perspective which Jim
Schoening has recently - and most relevantly, I believe - wondered
about in our ontological context. (That was on the SUO list on 13
November.) I think that that perspective might rather usefully
help throw further publicly-understandable light on this "Ride The
Mainstream!" project, especially bearing on constructive action in
the social domain, that is, where "semantics" in our technical
sense must best approximate what people usually understand by it. (027)
Christopher (028)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Burkett, William [USA]" <burkett_william@xxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method (029)
I'll jump on this bandwagon, too, concerning the social dimension
of ontologies and ontology development; it's an important and
underserved (imo) area of exploration. In fact, I'll expand it by
pointing out that human languages (natural languages as well as
artificial languages) are socially-constructed mechanisms. The
meaning of languages is a kind of "social contract" (apologies to
Rousseau) that is continually being tuned, corrected, and
re-negotiated. Data, schemas, and ontologies are all languages of
which this is true. The key, imo, is finding a way to make the
re-negotiation of meaning in the SW quick and easy. (030)
Bill (031)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tolk,
Andreas
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:45 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method (032)
I also agree with this point of view.
Ontologies are a great way to understand such differences in
conceptualization, in particular as they are formal specifications
of conceptualizations. I like the work of Wache on how to build
federations from such different conceptual views on a problem. The
two papers I normally recommend are H. Wache, T. Vogele, U.
Visser, H. Stuckenschmidt, G. Schuster, H. Neumann, and S. Hübner,
"Ontology-based Integration of Information -- a Survey of Existing
Approaches," Proceedings of the IJCAI-Workshop Ontologies and
Information Sharing, Seattle, WA: 2001, pp. 108-117 and H. Wache,
"Towards Rule-Based Context Transformation in Mediators," in
Proceedings of the International Workshop on Engineering Federated
Information Systems (EFIS), 1999, pp. 107-122.
One of the main advantages of ontological approaches is that they
make such differences explicit and make them applicable to
engineering solutions as well. The mediation between viewpoints to
avoid conceptual misalignments of contributions to an overarching
solution is something we see everywhere popping up, be it service
oriented architecture and model based developments.
Best wishes
Andreas
==================== ;-)
Andreas Tolk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA, USA (033)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim
Rhyne
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:36 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method (034)
Hi Doug,
I very much agree with your point of view. A good many of the
difficulties
encountered in projects that I have consulted on are rooted in
misunderstanding
and hidden agendas. The ontology is not just a technical tool, it
is also a
social
and organizational tool.
One of the challenges of this approach, however, is the need for
multiple
ontologies and a way to link them semantically. The different
segments of a
large enterprise will develop individual terms and phrases that
they use to
communicate within the segment. In my experience, there is little
hope of
getting all segments to agree on a single set of terms. But, it
appears to
be
often possible to get agreement on a mapping and sharing of
concepts,
provided
there is a crisp and unambiguous definition of the concepts.
There is a small amount of technical work in the area of shared
ontologies
and
ontology mapping that I am familiar with. Can you and others on
this forum
Suggest additional sources?
Thanks,
Jim Rhyne
Software Renovation Consulting (035)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Doug
McDavid
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 3:55 AM
To: paoladimaio10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method (036)
Hi Paola -- (037)
I'd like to pick up on your point about the social aspects of this
field. Over the years, I have gravitated more over to the social
system aspect of enterprise, and I feel strongly that precision of
language, and understanding of language distinctions, is a
critical
element of lubricating the social side of enterprise (better
understanding, disambiguation to everyone's relief, semantic
boundary
objects that allow different disciplines and practices to work
together, etc.). (038)
I haven't found much appetite for this kind of discussion on this
particular list. I follow the discussions here quite closely,
because I think ontology has the potential to become an important
wave
of future development of business systems. I would probably be
making
more than the occasional contribution if there were more interest
in
these social aspects. Maybe someone receiving this knows of a
discussion going on elsewhere. I admit I haven't done due
diligence
on Ning, LinkedIn, Google Groups, etc. (039)
If there's any interest at all, I could be encouraged to do some
diligence, and possibly set up a discussion group on this topic. (040)
Thanks for your thoughts! (041)
Doug (042)
On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 2:27 AM, Paola Di Maio
<paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> John
>
>>
>> I think that *ideology* is the main obstacle that has strangled
>> innovation in the SW.
>
> what I noticed is that much of the thinking (setting aside the
> ideology
> point) is done by computer scientists
> while in my view sw challenges are not striclty CS per se
>
> Information Management dont particularly count as scientist
> either,
>
> On top of that 'social 'science is not taken into account
>
> a bit like having a team of only civil engineers, and no
> architects/
> planners
>
> while its' true that infrastructure is really really important,
> we would
not
> want our cities to be
> run and governed solely by plumbers and electricians
>
>
>
>>
>> If anybody whispers that JSON might be better
>> than RDF, the SW thought police immediately exile them from the
>> empire.
>
> do you have evidence to that effect?
>
>
>
> But just compare two groups that both started at Stanford around
> the
same
> time:
>
> Agreed that comparing google with protege to measure success of
> the latter
> does not seem fair
> its a different ball game, isnt it ?:-)
>
>
>
>
> PDM
>
>
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> (043)
-- (044)
Doug McDavid
dougmcdavid@xxxxxxxxx
916-549-4600 (045)
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