Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators

["Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill, spot-on in your last paragraph here!  That is, where you refer to the "negotiation" on the meaning of words or data:

 

> The trick is how to enable data-interoperable software systems to do this quickly and easily.

 

Now, how about this rephrasing of that sentence, in view of the limits to automation of that ultimately human task?  The trick is to automate as much as possible before asking somebody, then, where still required, to ask the right person in a helpful way.

 

Anyway, that is one key function of the MACK-implementing AOS (i.e. Application Operating System in an information system environment conforming to The Mainstream Architecture for Common Knowledge, as introduced at http://TheMainstream.info/#AOSintro).  I have so far programmed only some of the relevant AOS functionality, but here are some general notes on what I am working towards in my programming, such as they might make some sense to you, given what little I have already set out here.  (Warning:  I insistently use "Form", short for "conceptual form", where you currently expect to see "ontology", and derivatives such as "Formal").

1. Assume a MACK-compliant Information System environment, in which data is always associated with Formal metadata.  (Some other time I'll describe my present strategy and provisional plans for gaining the requisite market-booting toe-hold in the real marketplace out there.  But it may reassure you to know that I have years of experience of giving detailed technical training and hands-on assistance to real users migrating real live enterprise applications in many kinds of organization from 3GL environments to dictionary-based 4GL, and of convincing customers to take that plunge.  I am also aware that selling and deploying on the Internet is a very different kettle of fish, scalable only with none of that "hands-on" or even face-to-face.  That in its turn requires a vital support subsystem, one which can tightly integrate with the main functionality yet being likewise of extreme generality.  Hopefully needless to say at this point, the various Scylla and Charybdis phenomena, delineating such perennial patterns and anti-patterns for our human responses to complexity (most of which I haven't mentioned here yet), offer ever-present guiding perspectives.  The tight yet flexible integrability of the many perspectives are as usual thanks to the high degrees of mutual orthogonality carefully built in.)
2. Assume a writer and a reader, each with its own canonical database.  No MACK Interchange format or IDL is required as messages are structured as canonical databases, highly leveraging already-established or initially-assumed Common Knowledge Forms.  Assuming some need to initiate an interchange, whether single-transaction or batch-mode, the writer creates the message/database containing the relevant background data or parameter metadata.  The Formal metadata will include canonical security- and privacy-related context.  There will also be the writer's canonically-expressed wishes and/or suggestions.
3. To obtain maximum leverage on already-existent agreement, the communicating parties will have started with some assumed-known subgraph of Formal commonality and determined the MRCL (Most Refined Common Level) pertaining to the interchange.  In initial stages the MRCL will not even already be explicit on either writer or reader side, but can be fine-tuned and presented naturally to either side.  The writer might also offer further more refined metadata and any associated instances, and the reader always has the option of trying to interpret received data in its own Formal terms.
4. Apparent inconsistencies might always crop up on the reader side, or warnings, or amplifications to writer data (e.g. adding and returning "query results"), or other opportunities.  Whether exceptions or anticipated, they would lead to further perspective-applications, paradigm-shifts, context-switches or data reFormulations. (Any of those words might apply best in any particular situation, but they all take exactly the same form internally.) 

And that, Bill, is where your "negotiation" fits in!

 

I make no promises, but do please feel free to try to steer me towards clarifying, correcting or filling out that sketch.  There are of course countless other details or questions arising from the above matters, but I'd prefer to take your lead in the follow-up I'm inviting.

 

Thanks again, Bill, and TIA to everyone!

 

Christopher

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Burkett, William [USA]

To: [ontolog-forum] ; Rich Cooper

Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 10:09 PM

Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method

Rich:

 

This does fall in the category of language games.

 

What I mean by ?re-negotiation of meaning? has to do with the use and interpretation of schemas or types or classes in ontologies.   Party-A and Party-B choose a schema (or set of type or ontology classes) to use to exchange data; they?ve in a sense ?negotiated and agreed to a contract?.   If data created by Party-A per the schema (or types or ontology classes) is sent to Party-B and Party-B thinks the data ?looks weird? or is erroneous or has some other issue, then Part-B obviously has a different interpretation of the schema (or types or ontology classes) than Party-A.   ?Re-negotiation of meaning? means either aligning their interpretations of the schema (or type or ontology class) or revising the schema (etc) to accommodate the different ?meaning needs? of Party-A and Party-B.

 

A simple analogy in natural language use is someone from Chicago saying to me they ?want a pop?.   I may not understand what they?re really asking for so after some ?negotiation? I realize they?re asking for a carbonated beverage ? what I?d call a ?soda?.   After the ?negotiation?, we both then know what ?pop? means (and the context in which it?s likely used.) 

 

The trick is how to enable data-interoperable software systems to do this quickly and easily.

 

Bill

 

 

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:47 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method

 

Hi Ferenc,

 

You wrote:

The key, imo, is finding a way to make the

re-negotiation of meaning in the SW quick and easy

 

Could you expound your thoughts on this issue?  How can meaning be renegotiated quickly, and who is doing the negotiation?

 

It seems that your description has to do with language games which John Sowa has mentioned before several times, but for which none of us have come up with good examples to help define, analyze or validate the language game concept.  

 

I am interested in using strongly typed objects and classes to minimize (i.e. factor) the process of substituting plausible uniquely identified things in the beginning of search, and bind them to validated objects through the And/Or/Not tree of an object designation _expression_.  

 

Your thoughts on language games and the concept of capturing and analyzing them are appreciated. 

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of FERENC KOVACS
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:34 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method

 

You may want to read this

http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/

 

Regards

F

----- Original Message -----

From: "Burkett, William [USA]" <burkett_william@xxxxxxx>

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:03 PM

Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method

 

 

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.

 

Bill

 

 

 

-----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

 

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

 

 

 

 

-----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

 

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

 

-----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

 

Hi Paola --

 

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.).

 

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.

 

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.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Doug

 

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

> 

> 

> _________________________________________________________________

> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/

> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/

> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> 

> 

 

 

 

--

 

Doug McDavid

dougmcdavid@xxxxxxxxx

916-549-4600

 

_________________________________________________________________

Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/

Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/

Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/

Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/

Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/

Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/

Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/

Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/

Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/ 

Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/ 

Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/

Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/

To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J

To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

---

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/ 
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/ 
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (01)