Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural Languages

["Rich Cooper" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Azamat wrote:

I'd say a bit more: no top ontology, no fundamental solution for a problem. The same rule refers to such a complex thing as the self-interest, its classification and interdependency. The issue is also very convoluted due to social sciences, hardly applying any good ontology here.  There are a lot of artificial social constructs, as races, needing a careful ontological cleaning or even purgation, which will be heavily resisted by social scientists and political interests. Whatever, just counting on enthusiasm, without support of international  organizations like UN, this order looks too tall. 

I agree that the self interest ontology as discussed so far seems to have many complexities (awareness, assignment of self interest models, intent, …) that relate to our attribution of self interest on the part of agents.  We need a simpler, more fundamental way to model interest than has so far been discussed - a kind of Newton's laws for motivation.  So far, only Pavlov and his inspired experimentalists seem to have found a way to ignore the intellectual qualities of motivation.  Most of the conversations we have had on self interest re political and organizational structures seem to have been full of personality and subjectivity of viewpoint. 

Perhaps we should consider Pavlov's ways of simplifying the situation, and say that if B is the beneficiary and A is the agent, then there must (by definition) be some self interest in A's actions, and the benefit to B must somehow be in A's self interest.  I.e., using such circular reasoning as Kirchhoff's laws for equations relating through- and across-variables might be the most efficacious way to treat these kinds of issues.  It worked well for Kirchhoff to simplify observable phenomenon, and has proven, in the abstract, to work well for system equations not related to the original electrical phenomenon which Kirchhoff found in his own self interest. 

The only alternative seems to be to attribute all kinds of intellectual motivations on the part of individuals, including bacteria and leaf cutter ants and people that are more projected than actual. 

If we can start the ontology by eliminating motivational variables, perhaps we can later return to modeling motivation as influencing anomalies in observed examples. 

Introspectively,

-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 AzamatAbdoullaev
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 8:50 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural Languages

On Tuesday, August 30, 2011 5:30 AM, John wrote: "Another area where such

issues become critical is in the choice of the upper level ontology.  Lenat

said that the upper levels weren't critical for solving most problems, but I

believe that a more satisfactory upper level could provide better guidance

about how to address the more detailed low-level tasks."

I'd say a bit more: no top ontology, no fundamental solution for a problem.

The same rule refers to such a complex thing as the self-interest, its

classification and interdependency. The issue is also very convoluted due to

social sciences, hardly applying any good ontology here.

There are a lot of artificial social constructs, as races, needing a careful

ontological cleaning or even purgation, which will be heavily resisted by

social scientists and political interests.

Whatever, just counting on enthusiasm, without support of international

organizations like UN, this order looks too tall.

Azamat

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

From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 5:30 AM

Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantics of Natural Languages

> On 8/29/2011 2:29 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

>> But I also have trouble with the VivoMind example because

>> it is closed - you have code and methods that have not been

>> well defined and described for public consumption.

>

> I was not mentioning any of those examples as subjects for developing

> an ontology.  I was using them to illustrate the kinds of technology that

> I have been talking about for years:

>

> 1. Sparsely axiomatized lexical resources.

>

> 2. Microtheories with detailed axioms for low-level problem-oriented

> ontologies.

>

> 3. A hierarchy for organizing and relating any or all theories.

>

> 4. Guidelines for developing technologies that support #1, #2, and #3.

>

> That is what I have been discussing in talks such as

>     http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/iss.pdf

>

> and in published articles such as

>     http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/rolelog.pdf

>

> These slides present the ideas in terms of which I discussed the

> VivoMind examples.  I was addressing a way of solving problems,

> not specific technology.

>

>> We need a SMALL example, a SIMPLE example, and a

>> WELL DOCUMENTED world, IMHO, to make progress on

>> Doug's already well developed nucleus of

>> microtheory, which is a great starting point.

>

> A starting point for what?

>

> All small examples are toys.  The only kinds of examples that are not

> toys are problems that somebody is willing to pay somebody to solve.

>

> Is there any problem that anybody would be willing to pay somebody

> to solve for which Doug's ontology would be useful?

>

>> What can we choose that will be acceptable to all of us,

>> small enough to make progress with, and yet able to clear

>> up our early diversity of viewpoints?

>

> I doubt that any such problems exist.  Any problem that can be

> described simply won't illustrate the difficulties that exist in real

> problems that people who build real applications need to solve.

>

> Just look at the 50 years of research on toy problems in linguistics.

> Chomsky started with "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

> and Montague chose "John seeks a unicorn."  They developed

> very impressive theories that are useless for NLP.

>

> Hans Kamp was a student of Montague's, who got a summer job at

> the Rand Corp. to translate an article from the _Scientific American_

> into logic.  That job forced him to address serious problems that

> neither Chomsky nor Montague considered.  Kamp's discourse

> representation structures are more useful than any notation

> developed by Chomsky or Montague -- but more is needed.

>

>> At one point, you wanted to use biosemiotics and apply Peirce's

>> thoughts to the problem.  So I tried to respond with Use Case 1,

>

> Biosemiotics is a metalevel framework for organizing how to think

> about problems.  It establishes criteria for organizing categories,

> not a specific set of categories.

>

>> We could map Use Case 2 onto Use Case 1 and perhaps

>> deal with the self-interest versus interest issue.

>

> The kinds of problems that can be clarified by semiotics or

> biosemiotics arise in the development of a complete framework.

> They don't show up in little examples.

>

> In my previous note, I cited the debate between Barry Smith and

> John Searle on issues related to Searle's book _Social Reality_.

> That is the level at which such issues become critical.

>

> Another area where such issues become critical is in the choice

> of the upper level ontology.  Lenat said that the upper levels

> weren't critical for solving most problems, but I believe that

> a more satisfactory upper level could provide better guidance

> about how to address the more detailed low-level tasks.

>

> John

>

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