On Sun, May 1, 2011 2:01, Ron Wheeler said:
> On 01/05/2011 1:10 AM, John F. Sowa wrote:
>> On 4/30/2011 11:24 PM, doug foxvog wrote:
>>> Note that a theory about how (some aspect of) the world works is
>>> qualitatively different from a theory about how specific objects
>>> interact using the more general theory. One could distinguish the
>>> general theory ontology from more specific knowledge bases about
>>> separate sets of instances of the types of things which the theory
>>> is about.
>> I agree with that as a general principle, but there are borderline
>> cases that blur the distinction.
>>
>> For example, the sun, earth, and moon are specific objects
>> that also happen to be one of their kind (at least for normal
>> human experience). So any general ontology that is adequate
>> for human experience will include many terms that are defined
>> in terms of those special objects: day, night, month, year,
>> summer, winter, eclipse, latitude, longitude, mountain,
>> earthquake, ocean, sunburn, etc.
>>
>> DF
>>> For our purposes, we could consider Vocabulary, Theory, and Data
>>> Contexts.
>> For various applications, there will be specific entities that have
>> as privileged a position as the sun or the earth. For example,
>> if you're designing an ontology for income taxes, you have to
>> consider the IRS and the US gov't as special individuals that
>> are critical to defining many general terms. (01)
Sure. These would be priviledged entitites is a theory context which
would otherwise not contain individuals. (02)
> If you do business internationally, you will also have to map the views
> of foreign governments into your own view of transactions and assets. (03)
Which means that different theory contexts would be used for the different
jurisdictions. (04)
> The odds of China, the US and EU agreeing on a common view of revenue,
> expense classes and tax treatment of transactions is zero. (05)
Each jurisdiction may group a different cluster of classes of items
as having some status (such as taxability, deductible, etc. These would
be rules in the contexts relating to each jurisdiction, but the major
classes and relations could be shared in these different theories. (06)
> Mapping the description of transactions and assets from one view to the
> other is likely going to be a key driver for the adoption of tools and
> technologies based on ontology. (07)
Agreed. (08)
-- doug f. (09)
> Ron
... (010)
=============================================================
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (011)
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
============================================================= (012)
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