I would toss a +1 at this concept of starting somewhere and evolving
from there. OpenCyc makes sense. What else makes sense might be a
website for such a project, for instance, http://code.google.com/ ,
which provides Subversion (and other) version control options, a wiki,
download area, etc. Perhaps there are other options. (01)
Jack (02)
On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 8:41 AM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear Matthew, Doug, and Pat C,
>
> Before getting to the details of your notes, I'd like to clarify the
> term FO, which Pat introduced for a Foundation Ontology. I have no
> objection to using the term FO, but I would apply it to the totality
> of the theories (or microtheories) in an OOR. The Cyc example of an
> upper ontology with many specialized microtheories would be an example.
>
> However, I would broaden the idea to support multiple theories at the
> upper levels, which might be incompatible. For example, Matthew,
> Chris P, and Pat H have strongly supported a 4D ontology for the upper
> levels, but many other people prefer to use a 3D upper level. For
> many of the lower level microtheories, the differences between a 3D
> vs 4D foundation are irrelevant.
>
> Pat C wants to use primitives based on Longman's dictionaries, but
> I objected that those terms are too vague, and an enormous amount
> of work would be needed to make them precise. Therefore, I propose
> the following approach:
>
> 1. OpenCyc is freely available as open source, but Pat objected
> that it has very few axioms. However, Longman's terms have zero
> axioms, and they have never been tested for their usefulness in
> any ontology, certainly not in anything as large as Cyc.
>
> 2. Therefore, I recommend that we adopt the OpenCyc terms together
> with the axioms available in OpenCyc as a "starter set" for
> developing the Foundation Ontology.
>
> 3. But we would also welcome and encourage anybody with different
> preferences to contribute more terms and theories to the FO.
>
> 4. When convenient, those new theories should adopt the same
> spelling as the terms already in the starter set, but any
> new terms (taken from Longman's or any other source anyone
> might prefer) could also be used in those additional theories.
>
> 5. The complete hierarchy of theories for the FO would be
> organized along the lines we've been discussing in these notes.
>
> 6. Pat's goal of finding a much smaller set of defining terms
> (called primitives) could be done in parallel with the
> development of the FO instead of delaying its development.
>
> 7. If and when a good set of primitives has been found useful,
> a methodology based on them could be promoted for simplifying
> further ontology development. However, older theories that
> use the older terms would remain available as long as anyone
> needs them.
>
> I'm suggesting this as a compromise that would begin with a large
> tested set of terms already organized in a generalization/
> specialization hierarchy. It would also accommodate new terms
> that could be added as needed from any source. But if anyone
> wants to do any immediate implementation today, the OpenCyc
> terms can be used. Any work done with them would be guaranteed
> to be supported by the full FO.
>
> MW> I think [the FO] is more than just a vocabulary, but I agree
> > that great care would need to be taken not to introduce into what
> > I am calling abstract theories axioms that did not contradict say
> > the 3D and 4D axioms that would be introduced when they were
> > combined with those theories.
>
> I agree. In fact, one advantage of OpenCyc is that it doesn't have
> all the axioms (AKA old baggage) of full Cyc. That implies that it
> is more general than Cyc and less likely to have unpleasant
> "surprises" (AKA inconsistencies).
>
> MW> However, having such [abstract theories] would greatly simplify
> > mapping between say 3D and 4D ontologies. These would I think need
> > to be carefully designed rather than just picking something up,
> > since it is casually almost certainly made some upper ontology
> > assumptions.
>
> I agree. Many, if not most of those theories could be based on
> terms that are already in OpenCyc. In fact, if you just adopt
> the terms by themselves without any axioms, there is no possibility
> of an inconsistency. Then any axiom that is added could be tested
> for consistency with both the 3D and the 4D ontologies (along the
> lines that I suggested in my previous note).
>
> DF> An ontology with a single theory would complicate the idea of
> > a foundational ontology as an interlingua to which all external
> > ontologies can be mapped.
>
> Yes. That is why I would prefer to use the name Foundation Ontology
> for the full hierarchy of all the theories in the OOR.
>
> DF> Competing external theories could be incorporated by defining new
> > concepts/relations for the relata of the competing theories (which
> > map directly to the terms of the source ontology) and then adding
> > rules relating them with the ostensible "sameAs" terms already in
> > the foundational ontology.
>
> PC> Yes, but I would express the process as "logically specifying
> > the terms of each extension ontology using only the terms in the
> > FO" rather than "map directly" since that suggests that the
> > entities in the extension ontology are already on the FO, which
> > in general they will not be.
>
> I would expect the FO to be completely open-ended so that the
> number of useful terms would increase indefinitely. There could
> also be a small subset of recommended defining terms. (I wouldn't
> even object to calling them "primitives".)
>
> But we do have to recognize that many "primitives" may be very
> underspecified. For example, the term PointInTime should be neutral
> with respect to a 3D or 4D ontology. For lower-level microtheories,
> you might have a general theory called Hiking, which would use
> PointInTime without any dependencies on 4D or 3D. But if there are
> dependencies, one could have common specializations of Hiking with
> either of the two upper-level theories to generate the subtheories
> Hiking4D and Hiking3D.
>
> JFS> But if you think of [the FO] as a collection of theories organized
> >> in a hierarchy, no single theory ever changes. Instead, each
> >> innovation adds another theory to the hierarchy, which may be a
> >> generalization, a specialization, a sibling, or a cousin of some
> >> other theory. You can also compare and combine theories.
>
> DF> Agreed. This is part of the reasoning behind Cyc method of
> > "microtheories" or contexts....
>
> PC> And that would be true for the FO and its extensions also. But there
> > is an additional aspect to the FO as I have proposed it. The CYC
> > BaseKB is part of every other more specialized microtheory, but it
> > was not designed as, nor used as, an inventory of basic elements that
> > is sufficient to specify (as combinations) the intended meanings of
> > the symbols that are in all of the other linked microtheories. CYC
> > didn't try that tactic, which could have been very informative. But
> > a proper test would in any case require that a good number of separate
> > groups with different applications and viewpoints try to use the same
> > FO to describe their different domain ontologies.
>
> This comment mixes two different goals:
>
> 1. A large useful ontology that people can begin using ASAP.
>
> 2. A project to determine whether a small subset of terms (called
> primitives) is sufficient to define everything else and would
> thereby promote interoperability.
>
> Different people may have different priorities. My personal preference
> is to emphasize #1. I have no objection to anyone who prefers #2, but
> I would not want to tell people who have a day job that they have to
> wait until #2 is finished. My recommendation is to start with #1 and
> let anyone who wants #2 to *extract* some subset from #1 in order to
> test that hypothesis. If that hypothesis seems to be justified, then
> the results could be developed into a methodology for using, adapting,
> and streamlining the much larger resources of #1.
>
> But I would never suggest that people who need an ontology today should
> wait until project #2 is completed. The above proposal lets people
> start new projects using OpenCyc and rest assured that the FO would
> continue to support them in the future.
>
> JFS> You can think of context as some additional statements S that are
> >> added to a theory T to specialize it for some particular application.
>
> DF> If the context referred to is what Cyc calls a DataMicrotheory,
> > then the statements added are qualitatively different from those
> > in the basic theory.
> >
> > A context might close T's open world assumption, such that T2 has
> > a closed world assumption. T and T2, in such a case, would be
> > different types of theory.
>
> That's a good point. It illustrates an important advantage of
> starting with OpenCyc (or some subset of it). We can take advantage
> of the 26 years of experience in developing Cyc. We don't have to
> adopt every one of their decisions, but when we diverge, we should
> have a good reason for doing so.
>
> DF> An FO would need to have a reasonably restrictive generalization
> > of classes included in any microtheory that is to be mapped to it.
> > Defining "reasonably restrictive" could be hard, but it seems to me
> > that SUMO (with extensions) and Cyc both would currently meet this
> > requirement. Including concepts from UMLS and GoodRelations would
> > lower the rough lower edge of the directed acyclic graph of classes
> > in several key areas.
>
> I'm all in favor of building on good work that has been done in other
> systems. We should make sure that the licensing terms are compatible
> and get explicit permission to use whatever is incorporated in the FO.
>
> DF> One question is on what basis should individuals should be included
> > in an FO. Certainly units of measure should be. Currencies &
> > countries surely. Cities and every instance in the GeoNames base?
> > How should the selection of people to add be made? Organizations?
> > Conceptual works (books, movies, songs, albums, paintings,
> > constitutions, poems, ...)? Sports and games? Events (disasters,
> > wars, elections, mergers, ...)? Etc.
>
> Those are excellent questions. I would prefer to err on the side of
> being more inclusive. My suggestion would be to keep the axioms
> relatively free of individual names, but to have an associated
> database that would store as much as anyone might find useful.
>
> However, there will undoubtedly be many very useful specialized
> theories, such as US IRS Tax Code for 2010. The most qualified
> people to develop such a theory would be the IRS. But the FO
> could maintain pointers to such theories stored and maintained
> in compatible formats by other organizations.
>
> DF> The breadth of coverage of the proposed FO needs to clarified.
> > Is it to be an ever-expanding set of all terms defined in any
> > ontology? Should it include all individuals ever defined on
> > the Semantic Web?
>
> Those are important policy decisions. Since the SW is expanding
> very rapidly, we can't hope to incorporate it into the FO. But we
> must have interfaces to it that would allow any application to
> access it as needed. In fact, if we do a good job on the FO,
> the SemWebbers might take notice and adapt their technology to
> facilitate sharing in both directions.
>
> DF> Or could there be a basic, relatively fixed, FO to which an
> > expanding number of contextually restricted, but still centralized,
> > ontologies are related? I could see such for brand-name products,
> > GeoNames, UMLS, IMDB, GeneBase, etc.
>
> PC> The FO itself should try to include all primitives that are used
> > by more than a small set of specific domain ontologies, and only
> > those non-primitive elements that are needed for ease of use and are
> > non-controversial. Primitives required by domain ontologies should
> > also be maintained, but as part of a domain extension.
>
> The goal of getting a useful FO ASAP implies that we should start
> with a much larger set of terms than Pat has in mind. But that may
> be an advantage. The goal of extracting a smaller number of defining
> terms can be guided by usage patterns. Those terms that are most
> widely used would be prime candidates. The other terms could be
> redefined in terms of them.
>
> I would expect an FO committee to be similar (in some ways) to the
> W3C. It would define formats, guidelines, policies, etc., and
> encourage other groups to adopt them and make their work compatible.
>
> John
>
>
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