Re: [ontolog-forum] Partial interest ontology

["Rich Cooper" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear John,

You wrote:

I agree that a good ontology can clarify many of the issues.  But an ontology only defines the terms used in the debate.  Much more work is necessary to analyze the actual issues and to formulate policies about what to do about them.

John

The rules of any formal debate are that every concept has a single definition.  The rules of practical applications require that only a few concepts are firmly defined in a way that is agreed to by all parties.  Some definitions (especially in an expert system with multiple experts) must of necessity have plural interpretations. 

The purpose of the self interest ontology is to qualify and perhaps quantify regular patterns observed among those experts to identify differences in opinion among them, why they are so regular, and how to predict the individual differences in interpretation.  Remember that you don't fully agree with all the Cyc top level ontology concepts, and neither do many other ontology experts. 

Doug chose to use the Cyc ontology top levels because he is familiar with them, has reached a reasonable degree of consistency in his conceptualization of them, and is able to think productively using them as a basis for developing the self interest ontology.  Not everyone has the same background (thank goodness, or we would all dress alike). 

I on the other hand am not that familiar with the Cyc upper ontology, but have my own interpretations of the terms (Agent, TemporalStuff, …) which are probably only somewhat close to the Cyc documentation of those concepts.  That is what the self interest ontology should be able to model - your, Doug's, Azamat's, Ron's, Richard's and my (among others) differences in viewpoints due to our subjective conceptualization.

In psychology, you made reference to the BBS article about "confirmation bias", while in marketing, cunning advertising experts have their own model of how people react to words, concepts, and other high falutin terms but are actually moved to action by emotions.  That is, marketers with psychological tendencies each have their own expertise and use it in their own ways. 

Is it possible we can use that fact in our self interest ontology development?

Thinking out textually,

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 11:42 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Partial interest ontology

Doug and Azamat,

DF

> I was building on an existing ontology, selecting terms that were

> needed for the purpose of the interest ontology.  I would suggest

> that not every ontology needs to re-invent a top-level.  Ontologies

> are designed to be reused.

I fully approve of reusing available ontologies when they're available,

and I have frequently recommended the Cyc ontology as one that is

available, better than most, and much more detailed than others.

But I was also mentioning some of my misgivings about the Cyc

upper level.

DF

> An instance of a class that is an instance of TemporalStuffType is

> (from a 3D+1 viewpoint) "all there" at any instance it exists.

> If a class is an instance of TemporalObjectType, that means its

> instances have temporal parts, and therefore at any given moment

> (from a 3D+1 viewpoint) is only partly there.

Yes.  That is an application of mereology, which is useful for many

purposes.  But by itself, mereology is woefully inadequate for

defining anything that has to do with intentionality.

Barry Smith and John Searle had a debate about an ontology

of "social reality" a few years ago:

    http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/dksearle.htm

Neither of them had read much, if anything, by Peirce, but Searle

used triadic relations that could be translated to Peirce's in

a fairly straightforward way.  Smith was trying to use mereology

with nothing but dyadic relations.

I commented on that debate in Section 3 (pp. 7 to 8) of

    http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/worlds.pdf

I believe that Searle presented arguments that were stronger and

more cogent than Smith's.  But I also think that Searle could

have formulated his arguments more clearly and forcefully if

he had studied Peirce.

AA

> It appears a real ontology of self-interest is of global social

> importance as well.

I agree that a good ontology can clarify many of the issues.  But

an ontology only defines the terms used in the debate.  Much more

work is necessary to analyze the actual issues and to formulate

policies about what to do about them.

John

 

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