Dear Jack, (01)
It seems the question is about what sorts of things are allowed to be in an
ontology. (02)
> Now I am confused. This thread relates to ontologies, their uses, and
> their creation and maintenance. What has a string serving as its own
> identity got to do with that? I can be deeply dyslexic at times,
> meaning I have the ability to miss the obvious; Perhaps I'm in for a
> towering learning experience. Many thanks for such an opportunity. (03)
MW: An ontology needs as a matter of practicality to have an identifier for
each object represented in that ontology, otherwise it simply can't talk
about them. The question it seems is whether strings and numbers are some of
the objects we can talk about. (04)
MW: Simply as a matter of accepting reality, I have always taken it for
granted that any thing can have multiple names (or none). So I have always
adopted the practice of giving things an arbitrary identifier (an internal
identifier) and allowing them to have any number of external identifiers,
things you might recognise such as family names, nicknames, social security
numbers, employee numbers, and so on. At the end of all these
identifications in computer terms is a string or a number. (05)
MW: Now the next question is whether strings and numbers are things that I
might want to say something about. So let's take "Jack Park". Some things I
can say about this are: (06)
- it consists of 9 characters,
- it contains two "a"s,
- it has two capital letters,
- consists of two words. (07)
MW: So there are properties of a string that it is valid to talk about. So
it is valid to have strings as objects in an ontology. (08)
MW: So the last thing is to look at identity of strings. If I see:
"Jack Park" = "Jack Park" (09)
Do I need to look to see what the identifier for "Jack Park" is? No. I can
do the comparison directly. This of course does not tell me if what is
represented by the first Jack Park is the same as is represented by the
second Jack Park, but we can establish that the strings are the same. (010)
The rules are different for the internal identifiers for the ontology. Here
only one term is allowed to represent one object, but that is about a
controlled environment, not the uncontrolled environment the ontology is
about. (011)
Regards (012)
Matthew West
Information Junction
Tel: +44 560 302 3685
Mobile: +44 750 3385279
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/ (013)
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City,
Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE. (014)
>
> Jack
>
> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Matthew West
> <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Dear Jack,
> >
> >> A name can be its own identity.
> >>
> >> I think the "can" part need way more qualification. I say that as
> one
> >> who gets confused by those who think I'm the Jack Park who writes
> >> books about baseball.
> >
> > MW: You are now talking about your identity, not the identity of the
> string
> > "Jack Park". When I talk about that string, I am talking about it as
> an
> > object in its own right, not in its different uses as names of
> different
> > people.
> >
> > MW: Since there is no control over the use of strings as identifiers
> in
> > general, there is nothing to stop any string (or other things for
> that
> > matter) being used to identify a particular object, so it is the use
> of the
> > string that identifies you (or the other guy) and that use needs to
> be
> > distinguished.
> >
> > MW: There are of course some occasions on which some organization or
> > community agrees to only use, e.g. a string, to identify one thing,
> and this
> > can be helpful, but even this does not prevent another community from
> using
> > the same string for some other purpose.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Matthew West
> > Information Junction
> > Tel: +44 560 302 3685
> > Mobile: +44 750 3385279
> > matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
> > http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
> >
> > This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in
> England
> > and Wales No. 6632177.
> > Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City,
> > Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE.
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Jack
> >> who writes books about wind energy, and XML topic map, not baseball.
> >>
> >> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:44 AM, Matthew West
> >> <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> > Dear Godfrey,
> >> >
> >> > It's not that bad.
> >> >
> >> >> re John's comment on #1 - especially as you must then give unique
> >> names
> >> >> to
> >> >> the names, and then...
> >> >
> >> > MW: A name can be its own identity. More particularly, the string
> >> used as a
> >> > name can be its own identity. Being a name is strictly about a use
> of
> >> that
> >> > string by some community to refer to something.
> >> >
> >> > Regards
> >> >
> >> > Matthew West
> >> > Information Junction
> >> > Tel: +44 560 302 3685
> >> > Mobile: +44 750 3385279
> >> > matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> > http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
> >> > http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
> >> >
> >> > This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in
> >> England
> >> > and Wales No. 6632177.
> >> > Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden
> City,
> >> > Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> Godfrey Rust
> >> >>
> >> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> >> From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> >> To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> >> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 6:43 PM
> >> >> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Practical onomastics...
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> > On 5/20/2010 11:54 AM, Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> >> >> >> I agree with Doug on almost all points below. (I should,
> since
> >> >> >> I said many of the same things.)
> >> >> >
> >> >> > I also agree with most of the comments on this thread, and I'd
> >> like
> >> >> > to make some observations:
> >> >> >
> >> >> > 1. There is no such thing as an ideal naming convention that
> can
> >> >> > be systematically applied to anything and everything.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > 2. Every naming convention is context dependent, although some
> >> >> > contexts are larger than others.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > 3. Every convention proposed as a globally unique naming
> >> >> > convention has been modified many times over and eventually
> >> >> > accepted as yet another context-dependent convention.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The proof of point #1 is simple: the number of bits required
> to
> >> >> > assign a unique name to everything in the universe would
> require
> >> >> > an even larger universe to store the names. Therefore, most
> >> >> > things in our universe cannot be assigned unique names that
> >> >> > can be stored in our universe.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > John Sowa
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
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