On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:38 AM, John F. Sowa wrote: (01)
> Mike,
>
>> I think the semiotic dimension is an important one and could
>> possibly be given some kind of formal treatment in modeling
>> languages or in models somehow.
>
> Yes. More generally, every language is a system of signs, and every
> model is also a system of signs. Those signs are related to signs
> inside the computer, and all of them have some relationship to reality,
> directly or indirectly.
>
>> Sometimes people seem to conflate these, or try to interpret ontological
>> or semiotic issues by framing them in terms of meta-levels...
>
> Metalevels can be important for many purposes, but that is just one kind
> of semiotic relationship. For more discussion of metalevels and their
> relationship to semiotics, see the following two articles:
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/laws.htm
> Laws, Facts, and Contexts
>
> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/rolelog.pdf
> The role of logic and ontology in language
>
> The rolelog.pdf article covers a lot of ground, but Section 2, called
> A Semiotic Foundation for Ontology, is a brief intro to Peirce's
> categories, including some issues about metalevels.
>
>> Of course OWL already addresses the semiotic dimension by making
>> everything a Thing.
>
> Actually, the category Thing is just a placeholder for the top of the
> hierarchy. It maps to a predicate T(x), which is true of everything
> and says nothing. (02)
True. It does have some utility in OWL, for example in OWL-DL to express that
something is or is not in the universe of quantification, and as a way to
express universal quantification (Thing owl:subClass A amounts to saying forall
x, A(x) ) (03)
>
> The major problem with OWL is that it cannot represent triadic
> relations, (04)
Like, for example, owl:hasValue, owl:AllValuesFrom, etc.? (Respectively the
relation between a class C, a binary relation R and a value V, C(x) iff R(x,
V); and the relation between a class C, a relation R and a second class D, C(x)
iff forall y, R(x y) implies D(y). ) (05)
> and its use of dyadic relations is extremely limited. (06)
? In what way? It does have limited use of the full logical quantifiers, true,
but that has nothing to do with arity of relationships. (07)
> Those limitations make it impossible to use OWL for defining or
> even discussing anything related to social and institutional issues. (08)
Nonsense. OWL has limited expressivity but it is not limited as to its subject
matter. (09)
Pat (010)
>
> OWL is useful as a tool for exchanging terminologies. But for
> ontology, using OWL is like putting on blinders that make it
> impossible to see anything that's not in front of your nose.
>
> John
>
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> (011)
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