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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators (was:Ontologydevelopm

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Burkett, William [USA]" <burkett_william@xxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 11:50:59 -0500
Message-id: <50993AD402A48B4F8C7E42A9CC202954A584E386@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Chris -- see [wcb] below.    (01)

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Menzel
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 5:14 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators 
(was:Ontologydevelopment method)    (02)

Burkett, William [USA] wrote:
> I guess I live in Ferenc's world, Chris.  Setting aside some sentence
> construction problems, I understand what he's saying and agree with it
> - and I don't understand your perspective that his assertions are
> false/meaningless.    (03)

Hey, I said my lights are dim.  But I'd certainly be impressed if you
could convincingly render the first statement in the following paragraph
in a way that makes it true (and recall that this came in the context of
an expression of doubt about the logical validity of the principles of
identity -- so a translation that takes "identical" to mean something
other than identity doesn't count):    (04)

> > A proposal in a natural language may not be identical withn itself.
> > E.g.  No one likes to be contradicted =/ No one likes to be
> > contradicted Or: Everyone loves finding another one in contradiction
> > with him/herself Subject to the emphasis you may vary when reading
> > it out, you will have diferent meanings exposed.  Or in simple
> > English: I want to pay you for your contribution.    (05)

[wcb] The explanation of my interpretation may not be convincing, but I simply 
took it to mean that two statements that have identical physical/lexical forms 
(to use Ferenc's linguist term) may not have identical meaning - which, of 
course, is conflate identities of two different things.    (06)


And I'd be happy simply with a *coherent* rendering of the sentences
after the first.  I just don't understand what's going on there at all.
My *hunch* is that he is trying to illustrate that written English is
ambiguous (which, of course, we already knew full well) and that this
somehow throws the concept of identity into doubt.  I think that is a
very confused idea.  But maybe that's not what he has in mind; all I can
do is guess.  Is it just me?    (07)

[wcb] Not sure -- now I'm getting confused, too.    (08)

> Ferenc's statement that he's a linguist is important to understanding
> his (and my) perspective.  I think linguistics has a LOT more to
> contribute to the field of ontology development than logic does.    (09)

Well, of course, that depends on what aspect of ontology development you
are talking about but if you have in mind the creation of ontologies
from documents and domain experts (as opposed to the development of
reasoning and integration mechanisms) I'd probably agree.  But obviously
both linguistics and logic are central to the overall vision of
ontological engineering.    (010)

[wcb] You're right in making this distinction - I agree with you here for the 
most part.  Logic is essential to the reasoning/integration mechanisms.  
However, don't forget that there's another facet of this: the human individuals 
/creating/ the mechanisms still use (and can only use because that's all that's 
available to them) their native linguistic facilities to interpret the ontology 
as documented or explained.  This is a critical facet that, IMO, is /always/ 
overlooked.  (My response to Ed is in this same vein.)    (011)

Bill    (012)


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