Dear Hans,
Thanks again for your inputs. My
replies are embedded below,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hans Polzer
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012
1:18 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
Rich,
My experience may be
to blame, but the military often does things that have varying degrees of
“unreality”, like field exercises, command post exercises, and
models of potential courses of action, or the possible use/effects of
“future” weapons or capabilities. So we end up with real world
systems trying to deal with hypothetical entities, locations, and activities
that aren’t detectable by actual radars, sensors, etc.
I’m very familiar
with military simulations, training exercises, doctrines, and the other plans
and rules for engagement. But remember the military saying, that battle
plans go out the window as soon as the first engagement happens. That is because
no military planner can foresee the actual results of an operational
plan.
The reasoning behind
these “unreal” plans is simply to let the troops and the commanders
experience the kinds of situations that planners believe are likely outcomes of
actions. There is plenty of justification for those simulations,
exercises and doctrines. Because they work to bring experience to new
recruits and to remind old warriors of the principles they were taught and
practiced, they have made the US
military highly ready for a wide range of engagements.
But what that means is
just that the training, simulations, doctrines are approximations of the
reality that will actually occur.
That’s why the
SCOPE model includes dimensions on different degrees and types of coupling to
reality for entities represented on the network, as well as different types of
reality – because the type of reality determines what might constitute
“ground truth” for that reality type. I should have also pointed
out that the dimensions in the SCOPE model are traceable to actual
interoperability problems encountered in real world systems (including real
world systems that represent artificial worlds, such as Second Life – or
Facebook, if you like J).
Hans
Thanks for the reference
to SCOPE. I hope to have time to review it in the next few days. It
sounds promising, though I again suggest that every ontology needs an easy
customization facility of the distributed ontology, but not an enforced
application of each and every detail, which is bound to fail in some
context.
-Rich
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012
3:57 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
Dear Hans and Matthew,
I agree with that:
It’s like experiencing “society” – I interact
with individuals and with products of individuals and institutions, and I
abstract and generalize to society. Clearly, this abstraction and
generalization will be different than someone else’s based on the
different samplings of other individuals and institutions we would both have
– which is what thought your main theme has been. But we are not
tied to physical reality in our concepts (although heavily influenced by it, of
course). Hans
I agree with that. We can imagine
unreal concepts (unicorns, honest government, extraterrestrial visitors
…) and communicate about them, but if they are unreal, they are not
useful things to model with ontologies. The purpose of communicating
concepts among observers is to describe things that are real. Concepts
which abstract reality can be generated and named interminably, but they only
represent concepts, not realities that can be operated upon, or interchanged
among the observers’ databases. Only representations, not concepts,
can be communicated. That is why perceptions are so deeply embedded in
our conceptualizations.
Again we agree!
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
It’s
like experiencing “society” – I interact with individuals and
with products of individuals and institutions, and I abstract and generalize to
society. Clearly, this abstraction and generalization will be different than
someone else’s based on the different samplings of other individuals and
institutions we would both have – which is what thought your main
theme has been. But we are not tied to physical reality in our concepts
(although heavily influenced by it, of course). Hans
On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 3:18 PM, Hans Polzer <hpolzer@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rich,
My reference was to the Powerpoint presentation you sent
out, not something you said in your emails. However, I think the human mind is
capable of developing concepts that transcend physical sensory inputs and the
brain’s interpretations of them. Certainly those concepts won’t be
completely identical from one human to another, but we can, for example, talk
about teleportation or interstellar gas clouds, even though none of us have
experienced anything like them physically. We can abstract and generalize concepts
from experience, but the abstractions and generalizations can go beyond
anything we have experienced. And how does one experience a corporation
physically? We can interact with employees of a corporation (if they choose to
reveal that affiliation), and we can interact with the products or services
produced by a corporation, but I don’t know what it means to experience
the concept of a corporation or to experience a specific corporation.
It’s like experiencing “society” – I interact with
individuals and with products of individuals and institutions, and I abstract
and generalize to society. Clearly, this abstraction and generalization will be
different than someone else’s based on the different samplings of other
individuals and institutions we would both have – which is what
thought your main theme has been. But we are not tied to physical reality in
our concepts (although heavily influenced by it, of course).
Hans
Dear Hans,
You wrote:
We should also be aware that there are
different types of reality that we might want to share or discuss. There is
physical reality, detectable and measurable by physical sensors – and our
own senses. The coupling of that reality to the perceptions presented to us in
our brain is the topic of Rich’s presentation. This is the domain of
physics, chemistry, biology, and similar science and engineering domains.
Ironically, it is also an area where there is a fairly healthy debate about
whether there is such a thing as “objective” physical reality
related to interpretations of quantum mechanics, string theory, and cosmology.
No, my claim is that our individual mental concepts are correlated
to the perceptions we can individually experience. I can’t talk
about an abstract “circle” without having actually experienced what
a manifested circle is. The circle I actually experienced seemed to wrap
back on itself, but other circles have little gaps between two ends (e.g., a
key chain on which I can skewer keys, but it has to have an open end so I can
add or remove keys from the chain).
Except for the case of extremely simple concepts (circles,
rectangles, triangles …), perception and experience play essential roles
in how I think about the concepts in which I classify those perceptions and
experiences. Even the extremely simple Michelson Morley experiment, which
concluded that light speed is constant, was interpreted completely differently by
AE who concluded that constant light speed implied changing spatial and
velocity factors. Yet in both MM’s actual experiment and AE’s
gedankenexperiment there were the same objects waiting for MM and AE to
perceive them as different manifestations of different conceptualizations of
space time.
So the only way to experience a concept is through individual
perceptions of the physical reality of the concepts. We individually,
through a lifetime of experience, develop mental concepts which are simply abstractions
of our experiences, ways of mapping contexts into relationally organized
concepts, but always based on the individual’s experience. If I
discuss my concept with you, it is very likely that you have a concept of your
own which is different than my concept, but similar enough that we can discuss
our own experiences. But no matter how vividly you explain your
experience to me, I will not experience exactly the same thing you did until I
am placed in an identical situation, I perceive the situation in my own terms,
and I am able to experience the reality for myself.
So I insist that perceptions aggregated into concepts provide the
only way of actually experiencing the concepts.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel
DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5
7 1 2
Rich,
One other important point on this issue of
“semantic baggage” is the issue that some types of
“reality” and associated frames of reference are inherently
institutional or social in nature. I had written on this point in response to
an earlier post by Leo Obrst, but my IP address was temporarily on a spammer
list used by the forum to filter emails and it never got sent (no wise-cracks,
please J ). I’ve reproduced most of that email below.
We should also be aware that there are different types
of reality that we might want to share or discuss. There is physical reality,
detectable and measurable by physical sensors – and our own senses. The
coupling of that reality to the perceptions presented to us in our brain is the
topic of Rich’s presentation. This is the domain of physics, chemistry,
biology, and similar science and engineering domains. Ironically, it is also an
area where there is a fairly healthy debate about whether there is such a thing
as “objective” physical reality related to interpretations of
quantum mechanics, string theory, and cosmology.
Then there is conceptual reality, which includes most of
the discussion in this forum, but transcends it, at least at the margins. For
example, we can have the concept of a corporation or a nation independent of
any particular corporation or nation, but specific corporations depend on the
existence and processes of actual nations (and in the case of the US, the
existence of actual states – each of which have somewhat different rules
for the formation and continued existence of corporations). Note that
there are no physical sensors that can detect corporations or nations –
they are a reality created by human brains and sustained by society. But there
is an objective sense for conceptual reality – for example, a corporation
either exists or it doesn’t, in some jurisdiction – it’s not
up to our individual opinion as to whether said corporation or our
driver’s license exists.
The third type of reality, social reality, is not
grounded in any physical or conceptual reality, but rather is based on social
convention and the preponderance of opinion and behavior. Most (all?)
language is really of this nature. What a word means is grounded in social
reality. So is the value of real estate, both in terms of current market value
and value for a particular purpose (parking lot, lab, high-rise office, etc.).
There is no “ground truth” or “objective” truth
associated with terms and attribute values of conversations or data elements
discussing/describing social reality constructs. We have to be explicit about
what contexts and what associated “anchors” we are using when capturing,
representing, and communicating social reality constructs or activities. Saying
that someone is lying about some social reality can be problematic, and may
well be perceived as wrong by some other party with a different social frame of
reference. That’s why politics and the stock market are so much fun
– they tend to mix all these different types of reality together and most
people have a hard time distinguishing among them (and some are motivated to
avoid those distinctions).
The main point of all this is that the nature of the
frames of reference used to claim some objective/absolute truth for a
definition depend on the type of reality that the definition is attempting to
describe. Some concepts and “facts” are inherently subjective in
nature, and we need to be clear about which are which.
A last point on this topic is that we can have
“alternate realities”, that don’t correspond to any physical,
conceptual, or non-fictional social reality, at least not in any
straightforward way. Second Life comes to mind as a great example of an
alternate reality, as are the multi role player games on the Internet, but
there are many possible variations on this theme. The modeling and simulation
domain is mostly about creating alternate realities or partial, incomplete
representations of the realities above. The key again is to be explicit about
the context and frames of reference used to describe these alternate realities
so as to have them properly used or interpreted by others, over the network or
otherwise.
Hans
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hans Polzer
Sent: Friday, March
09, 2012 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
Rich,
I think it would be better not to use terms like
“semantic baggage”, which suggest some lack of objectivity on the
part of whoever defined C. At the risk of getting into a discussion of Plato,
the key point is that every definition of C, C’, and C”, are based
on some context (often assumed and implicit), some frame(s) of reference for
describing entities/concepts within that context, and with specific (if often
implicit) scope, and from some perspective upon that context. Until we have a
shared language for describing context, frames of reference, their scope, and
the perspective from which the context is described, we will always have
variations in definitions of C, C’. and C”. Indeed, there will be
as many variations of C as there are context dimensions and scope values for
those dimensions as might have a material influence on the definition of
C.
Which brings up another important point, namely that of
purpose of the definition, or of the concept/entity being defined, modulo the
above discussion. The purpose of the definition is what determines whether a
context dimension is material or not. If the differences in definition of C and
C’ do not alter the intended/desired outcome for some purpose (or set of
purposes over some context dimension scope ranges), then they are functionally
equivalent definitions in that context “space”. This is the
pragmatic aspect of “common” semantics, which many on this forum
have brought up in the past. Commonality is a meaningful concept only if one
specifies the context “space” (i.e., the range of context
dimensions and scope attribute value ranges for each dimension in that
“n”-space) over which the concept or entity definition is
functionally equivalent among the actors intending to use that definition for
some set of purposes.
The NCOIC SCOPE model is an attempt to define such a
context space and scope dimensional “scales” so that two or more
systems can determine whether they can interoperate correctly for their
intended purposes. Note that semantic interoperability is only a
portion of the SCOPE model dimension set. Conversely, the SCOPE model is
explicitly limited in scope to interactions that are possible over a network
connection. It does not address physical interoperability, for example.
Hans
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich
Cooper
Sent: Friday, March
09, 2012 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
Dear David,
You wrote:
…
In this example, the terms as used in C' and C'' are effectively
specializations (via added constraints) of the term in C. To transmit a
C' or C'' thing as a C thing is a fair substitution; but to receive a C thing
as a C' or C'' thing does an implicit narrowing that is not necessarily valid.
In
practice, though, such an understanding of the differences (or that there are differences) among similar terms as
used in C, C' and C'' often comes out only after a failure has occurred. In
real-world use of any sort of language that does not have mechanical,
closed-world semantics, that potentially invalid narrowing is not only
unpreventable, but is often the "least worst" translation that can be
made into the receiver's conceptualization. Every organization and every person
applies their own semantic baggage (added constraints) to supposedly common terms;
said "local modifications" are discovered, defined and communicated
only after a problem arises.
Your analysis seems promising, but I suggest there is at least one
more complication; the description of C must also have been loaded with the
“semantic baggage” of the person who defined it, just as C’
and C” and therefore C seems likely to also be a specialization of some
even more abstract concept C- which may not have contained the baggage of C,
C’ or C”.
There is no pure abstraction C- in most of the descriptions for
concepts so far as I have seen in our discussions. Every concept seems to
have been modulated by the proposer’s semantic baggage. Since it is
always a PERSON who produces the conceptualization C in the first place, it isn’t
possible to be that abstract.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT
EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5
7 1 2
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Flater
Sent: Friday, March
09, 2012 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Constructs, primitives, terms
On 3/5/2012 9:08
AM, John F. Sowa wrote:
Base vocabulary V: A collection of terms defined precisely at a level of detail sufficient for interpreting messages that use those terms in a general context C. System A: A computational system that imports vocabulary V and uses the definitions designated by the URIs. But it uses the terms in a context C' that adds further information that is consistent with C. That info may be implicit in declarative or procedural statements. System B: Another computational system that imports and uses terms in V. B was developed independently of A. It may use terms in V in a context C'' that is consistent with the general context C, but possibly inconsistent with the context C' of System A. Problem: During operations, Systems A and B send messages from one to the other that use only the vocabulary defined in V. But the "same" message, which is consistent with the general context C, may have inconsistent implications in the more specialized contexts C' and C''.
My thinking began similar to what Patrick Cassidy wrote. In this
example, the terms as used in C' and C'' are effectively specializations (via
added constraints) of the term in C. To transmit a C' or C'' thing as a C
thing is a fair substitution; but to receive a C thing as a C' or C'' thing
does an implicit narrowing that is not necessarily valid.
In practice, though, such an understanding of the differences (or that
there are differences) among
similar terms as used in C, C' and C'' often comes out only after a failure has
occurred. In real-world use of any sort of language that does not have
mechanical, closed-world semantics, that potentially invalid narrowing is not
only unpreventable, but is often the "least worst" translation that
can be made into the receiver's conceptualization. Every organization and
every person applies their own semantic baggage (added constraints) to
supposedly common terms; said "local modifications" are discovered,
defined and communicated only after
a problem arises.
Should we then blame the common model (ontology, lexicon, schema,
exchange format, whatever) for having been incomplete or wrong for the task at
hand? Nobody wants to complicate the model with the infinite number of
properties/attributes that don't matter. You just need to model exactly
the set of properties/attributes that are necessary and sufficient to prevent
all future catastrophes under all integration scenarios that will actually
happen, and none of those that won't happen. Easy! if you can predict the
future.
--
David Flater, National Institute
of Standards and Technology, U.S.A.
_________________________________________________________________
|
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (01)
|