On 3/13/2012 12:22 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
> But the Amazon solution is very much made up of
> unstructured text, and the product search is
> mostly using key words like Google uses for
> search. So in that sense, Amazon's database
> design is very basic, and its keyword search is
> helpful but not new technology. It's a version of
> SEO practices: using keywords to describe your
> product the way your customers search for it. (01)
I used Amazon.com because their DB schema is probably the most widely
used formal ontology in the world. Any additional info in NL text or
pictures is not part of the ontology that supports interoperability
with their suppliers. (02)
> Is that your view of how future ontologies will be
> used for interchange, i.e., a skeletal database
> model with active users participating in the
> database for their own purposes, and using
> unstructured text to distinguish their products
> from others? (03)
That's one kind of use. But many applications can profit from much
more detailed ontologies. However, the detailed specifications are
likely to be limited to domain-dependent microtheories. (04)
> how is that influenced by ontological thinking? (05)
Everybody has different thoughts about ontology. As I said to Ed B,
I was only trying to make five general points (copy below). (06)
For more, see the following papers: (07)
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/futures.pdf (08)
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/fflogic.pdf (09)
John
_____________________________________________________________________ (010)
1. Interoperability requires much more than unique identifiers that
point to definitions shared by all applications. (011)
2. For example, the shared definitions that support interoperability
for transactions through Amazon.com include only as much detail
as necessary to support Amazon operations -- and no more. (012)
3. In different applications, those weak definitions are probably
inadequate for messages that use the same terms in contexts with
more detailed specializations (i.e., axioms or constraints). (013)
4. More generally, any "universal" ontology intended for a wide range
of applications will have to be underspecified in order to support
an open-ended range of models. (014)
5. Each domain of application will need to add more information
that specializes the definitions in the general ontology. And
the details added for one domain or one kind of application are
likely to be inconsistent with the details needed for others. (015)
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