Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

[Ed Barkmeyer <edbark@xxxxxxxx>]

Rich/John,

There is no need to reinvent the agent/action ontology.  SUMO, for example, has a semantic take on the basic  linguistic idea:  An action is a "gerund" -- a thing that is the action.  So an action is modeled as a class denoted by a verb.  An action has an "agent" property, just as the verb has a "subject" in any simple sentence denoting an instance of the action.  An action may have a "patient" property, which is the "direct object" of the verb, if it is transitive, in simple sentences denoting instances of the action.  Adverbial phrases are unary predicates that modify the action (simple adverbs) or predicates/properties that relate the action thing to some other thing (prepositional phrases), and in each case the predicate determines the term for the related thing.  It is useful to standardize predicates for time and place.

This approach is also used in Cyc, and is common to a lot of ontologies for interpreting natural language.  For the OWL and RDF lot, it has the advantage of avoiding n-ary relations.  If the semantics of an action intrinsically requires a 3rd participant thing, e.g., a "dative" or "instrumental" role, the specific action class simply has a required additional participant relation. 

My favorite test case for arity>2, however, is the rendering of "X is between A and B", precisely because it is intrinsically ternary and does not fit the linguistic pattern.

[Aside: I have seen descriptions of this general model that say it is THE Davidsonian model (from Daniel Davidson).  My impression (Chris can correct me) is that it is rather A Davidsonian model.  Davidson only asserts that actions are, or at least can be, things in the universe of discourse, and thus be arguments to predicates.  They can, of course, be arguments to unary predicates that classify actions, but there is no requirement for that, and I'm not aware of any Davidson assertion that there have to be predicates that model "subject of action" or "direct object of action".  I would have said that the Sowa CG model --
<action> is described by <(nominalized) proposition> -- is equally Davidsonian.]

So I'm not saying "use the SUMO model."  I am saying:  Look at the upper ontology literature, and pick one.
(This fits the Hayes' Doctrine for use of upper ontologies:  When you discover you need one of these basic ideas, look to see if some published upper ontology has a model you can use, and copy/convert those axioms, and, as a professional courtesy, include an attribution.)

-Ed

P.S.  I am terrible at providing references, and I keep finding that my preferred ones are not the Web-available reference, if there is one.

-- 
Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                Cel: +1 240-672-5800

"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, 
 and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

John Bottoms wrote:

Rich,

Hmmm, I don't understand your language. I know that it may be common to the field but I also find that some well accepted concepts can be pitfalls without an understanding of what is entailed. I don't know Chomsky's grammar. Which of his many papers can you refer me to? I don't know what "highly rational text" is, or how it is measured. It seems to imply that there are other grades of rational text.

In opening paragraph). You contrast agents and actions ("The first distinction I want to make is between agents and activities"). I understand this view as it was one that I once held myself. I tend to think of these things more grammatically now. The problem arises with the understanding of "actor" or "agent" vs things and activities. Agents don't always do things, they may not take an action or may be inhibited from taking an action. They are in effect "nouns" that do "verb" things.

This view is confounded by a view of things (nouns) that do things when they are not supposed to. I first ran into this problem in a linguistic setting; note that you do not see this in the semantic analysis, but may in a linguistic analysis. Take for example: a rock (clearly an inert thingy) sitting on a clay slope. Along comes the rain and it no longer is a thing but becomes an agent but perhaps not quite an actor. Anyway, it slides down the slope unlodging others of its kind with a few logs. It seems to act on its own and starts to look more and more like an avenging angel agent. My suggestion is to stay with verbs and nouns for as long as possible. This puts you in the syntactic arena but that is safe as long as it can be tolerated. I understand that at some point you may need to move to semantic analysis, but resist until you can't resist any further.

I don't have the expertise to read the patent expediently.

My other comments are embedded below.

-John Bottoms
 FirstStar Systems
 Concord, MA USA

On 5/30/2012 5:22 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

John, those are excellent questions for describing the context of this project.  My comments are below,

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

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---

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Bottoms
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 11:23 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

 

Rich,

I find it useful to start the development with questions that define the scope. What is the problem to be solved.

 

This formulation is a system spec for a reference design that practices my patent 7,209,923, attached to this email.  A previous reference design was developed to process patent claims from the USPTO patent database. 

 

This reference design (TBD) is intended to demonstrate the ability to analyze highly rational text, which Chomsky typically writes (though not always).  The idea is to manage a lexicon of verbs (including gerunds and signatures a la Beth Levin) that relate to activities which individuals perform, as described in the corpus text. 

 

The first distinction I want to make is between agents and activities.  With the signatures there are embedded variables that can be bound to the actual objects and phrases that are not verbs or gerunds according to the initial lexicon.  Chomsky’s language is so precise and consistent (IMHO) that his texts provide a foundation for simpler accumulation of signatures for verb phrases that might be useful initial lexicons for specific applications TBD later which also practice the ‘923 methods. 

1. Is this taxonomy looking outward?

I’m not sure what you mean by “looking outward”; please elaborate so we are talking the same concepts. 

By "outward" I mean from the self to another agent. The difference between self-interest and other-agent's-interest is in the missing information for the other-agent. So the processing is different.

 

Is there someone's (or some group's) motives I am trying to understand?

Yes, Chomsky’s favorite subject relates to political, economic and military actions performed by politicians, government employees, corporations, NGOs and at least those other agent classes. 

Does this pertain to the patent?
(As an aside, I believe there are entre's to duTocqueville's "hidden hand" concept if the duality analysis is pursued carefully. That would be an interesting study.)

 

This view would be useful in duality evaluations.

Please define “duality evaluation”; I’m not sure what you mean by that phrase. 

Nah, I made it up. I am referring to the ability to develop a theory for an agent based on behaviors. Of course, to do it right one has to consider oneself as part of the situation.

2. For myself, looking inward; what is my goal and what are the range of behaviors or processes that are candidates to further my position vis à vis my goals.

My goal is to have a reference design that can be adapted to a wide variety of applications, and which can be attractive to licensees of the patent.  The main attraction is to provide a minimal reference design that can start an application designer on the path to practicing the invention. 

3. What problem is trying to solve. That is: what is the current restrain on this self-interest. This would lead to a change of analysis of restraints.
By reducing the cost and schedule of a considered application, the reference design helps potential licensees get a jump on minimizing the cost and schedule for the application.  That economy is in the licensees self interest.

It sounds like you are trying to develop a grammar for an application. Is that right?

 

Re the self interest of the corpus and the agents mentioned there, I think the best approach is simply to build a case base of the behaviors which each agent performs (i.e., which activities and which object bindings).  The case base in this patent is stored in a database that can be dynamically sized and configured (see the ‘923 specification for an explanation).  Finding patterns of linguistic use within the parsed and stored database is a lot easier than constructing the software to make and manage that database in the first place. 

It sounds like you need a meta-grammar application to find and label the patterns. This is done for Hidden Markov Model systems that are typically hand-tweaked. Statistical analysis such as in Watson can help, but to be safe you need to have a human review the results of any machine learning algorithm.

For me, I don't see much of a difference between patterns and algorithms at some point. There appears to be a mathematical mapping from one to the other. Watson has contributed by identifying the important subject areas under the query curve, at least for Jeopardy. Clearly, it doesn't understand the subjects being discussed, and in that sense it is my opinion that it is a "statistical gossip machine".

4. 'Course the "cost/benefit" is elemental, including community standing as a self-interest item (both in terms of success or failure).
Again, the behaviors (actions) of the agents can be organized into a case base and analyzed to infer self-interest and coping behaviors from the database of text phrases and IDEF0 interpretations. 

I'm not as fully studied in behavioral economics as I would like to be. My exposure in this area is via assessment, which is an adolescent field. I would encourage you to include metrics linked to scoring and behaviors to understand another's self-interest traits.

5. History: how has this been solved before, why can't that be done now. Precursor contexts may be interesting: how did we get here, why does this problem need to be solved.

Agreed; the Before and After conditions of each activity should be linked through database indexes to identify patterns, infer self interest and coping behaviors for each agent. 

Pre- and -post scoring in statistics is better understood than normative assessment. The cutting edge currently is in "adaptive polytomous assessment". These extract multiple traits while selecting against a controlled variable. These techniques require significant investment until better tools are developed and there's not a lot of call for them now. Again, the proximal region hasn't required it just yet.

6. Future: how is this going to affect the context, who are those in the context that will be effected

Context is the represented element of an IDEF0 activity that is organized into the database as associated ICOMAs and their component object types and decompositions. 

;TL, DR

7. Time, how long will it take, do the parties have that much time?

The plan, as in 3 above, is to provide a starting structure for reducing the cost and schedule for developing future applications.  Not every writer is as precise and accurate as Chomsky, so metaphors, incomplete sentences, ambiguous sentences and phrases, and other related application elements will show up, but ways to handle those derived considerations still will have to be done individually, for each application, on top of the reference design.

My comments here referred to the length of time an assessment takes. That may not be relevant in your case if the assessment can be handled strictly with semantics aside from time considerations.

-John Bottoms
 FirstStar Systems
 Concord, MA
Thanks for your comments; they were very useful.  Please keep them coming,

-Rich

 

 

On 5/30/2012 1:41 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

Ed Barkmeyer wrote:

 

This is a would-be taxonomy without classification criteria, or

consequent properties, which makes it ontologically useless. 

Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of places to be visited on

the way to formulating some kind of political science ontology.

-Ed

 

True, it’s only a starting point, not a finished ontology.  The final version should ultimately be capable of reasoning in its various shades. 

 

I still want to map the elements cited (and others TBD) into a regular rendering, and I prefer IDEF0 since it is well known by nonontologists.  When the ontology is finished some day, it can be mapped into the IDEF0 structures and interconnects, and augmented with rules for logic, etc. 

 

This is a would-be taxonomy without classification criteria, or

consequent properties, which makes it ontologically useless. 

Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of places to be visited on

the way to formulating some kind of political science ontology.

 

True.  Its only a starting point. 

 

Your discussions below re the meaning of self interest is also useful.  I’ll think about it some more, but I think self interest is still a slippery concept to me, and will take some deeper thought to render properly. 

 

Thanks for the thoughts; more would be appreciated also,

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

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-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ed Barkmeyer
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 8:52 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

 

Ignoring the choice of political scientist as source, this purports to

be the basis for an ontology.

What is the basis for this high-level taxonomy?  What are the

distinguishing properties of the 2nd level classifiers?

 

And how do those properties relate to "self-interest"?

 

All organizations have self-interests, and their human components

typically share some of those interests, either out of ideology -- what

the organization does is "good" -- or out of pragmatism -- I will do

well only if the organization does well (even though the definition of

"x does well" is quite different for x=me vs. x=the organization).  But

there are also cases in which the self-interest of the individuals may

be to the detriment of the organization -- I can use the organization to

do well -- as in the leveraged buyout game.  And a lot of work is

motivated by "pride in accomplishment" -- personal fulfillment, which

may or may not be "useful accomplishment" -- organizational value. 

Bureaucrats commonly mistake making a contribution for making a useful

contribution.  So, it is not at all clear to me how position in an

organization affects the self-interest of either the individual or the

organization.

 

This is a would-be taxonomy without classification criteria, or

consequent properties, which makes it ontologically useless. 

Alternatively, one can see it as an itinerary of places to be visited on

the way to formulating some kind of political science ontology.

 

-Ed

 

 

 

Rich Cooper wrote:

> 

> If we limit the Self Interest Ontology to just the players Chomsky

> mentions (directly or indirectly), the set of agents could be

> organized thusly:

> 

> 

> 

> -government

> 

>             -legislators

> 

>             -judiciary

> 

>             -cabinet level executives

> 

>             -employees

> 

> -NGOs

> 

> -corporate

> 

>             -stockholders

> 

>             -directors

> 

>             -executive management

> 

>             -lobbyists

> 

>             -employees

> 

> -individuals

> 

>             -taxpayers

> 

>                         -adults

> 

>                         -minors

> 

>             -beneficiaries

> 

>                         -adults

> 

>                         -minors

> 

> 

> 

> This gives one view for the Ontology which identifies the agents that

> participate in the Chomskyesque materials.  Does anyone want to

> suggest additions, deletions, or changes to the list above?

> 

> 

> 

> Activities of the Self Interest Ontology might include:

> 

> 

> 

> -government

> 

>             -taxation

> 

>             -regulation

> 

>             -legislation

> 

>             -enforcement

> 

>             -judgments

> 

> -corporate

> 

>             -markets

> 

>             -monopolies

> 

>             -competitors

> 

>             -persuasion

> 

>             -operations

> 

>             -finance

> 

>                         -capital

> 

>                         -revenues

> 

>                         -costs

> 

>             -lobbying

> 

>             -employment

> 

>             -taxation         

> 

> -Individuals

> 

> 

> 

> One way to develop materials for filling in the lower levels of the

> ontology might be to process NLP from Chomsky’s books and articles,

> and news stories, including daily news articles from individual

> reporters, articles from corporate news sources (e.g., WSJ, NYT, LA

> Times, etc).  By identifying the named entities that correspond to the

> agent classes above, it should be possible to organize news stories to

> deepen the Self Interest Ontology to include lower level subclasses. 

> This is a very limited first step in identifying the actors and

> activities that play identifiable roles a la Chomsky’s viewpoint.  It

> should also identify the news sources which are biased in each

> direction for each class of agents.

> 

> 

> 

> Has anything serious been left out of the top level for the Self

> Interest Ontology?  Again, suggestions are appreciated,

> 

> 

> 

> -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 *Rich Cooper

> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:46 AM

> *To:* '[ontolog-forum] '

> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

> 

> 

> 

> Chomsky’s theories of the corporate-state partnership, and how it

> concentrates power in the hands of large corporations, are well known,

> especially:

> 

> 

> 

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TieGj2Yi5r8

> 

> 

> 

> But neither Rand nor Hayek subscribed to corporate-state partnership. 

> In both cases, they value the individual, not the corporation and not

> the state and certainly not the combination of the two.  So I don’t

> think that is the reason why he is unhappy with both Rand and Hayek.

> 

> 

> 

> From the above video “elections are always bought”, “President Obama’s

> election was funded by corporate interests”, and numerous other

> examples indicate his deep displeasure with the state-corporate binding.

> 

> 

> 

> I would like to see quotes from Chomsky that specifically describe his

> displeasure with both Rand and Hayek rather than trying to predict his

> rationale.  Chomsky is always very deep in his rationale, so I don’t

> think that we can simply say the corporate-state binding is why he is

> against either Rand or Hayek.

> 

> 

> 

> Mike Pool quoted this short paragraph from the article, which is

> somewhat enlightening:

> 

> 

> 

> "Hayek was the kind of 'libertarian' who was quite tolerant of such

> free societies as Pinochet's Chile, one of the most grotesque of the

> National Security States instituted with US backing or direct

> initiative during the hideous plague of terror and violence that

> spread over the hemisphere from the 60s through the 80s. He even sank

> to the level of arranging a meeting of his Mont Pelerin society there

> during the most vicious days of the dictatorship. "

> 

> 

> 

> But that critique is not directed at Hayek’s ideas about economics in

> general, only about his interpretation of Hayek’s poor showing in the

> political area, specifically in supporting Pinochet and the US methods

> of supporting property owners at the expense of the average citizen.

> 

> 

> 

> His description of how democratic groups in Haiti were overturned by

> the US government and a dictator was reinstalled under US actions, is

> typical Chomsky, and very clearly in line with his past work.  But in

> broad brush strokes in the article, he paints both Rand and Hayek

> (neither of whom are known for their political wisdom) as evil without

> considering the kudos they gave to the individuals.

> 

> 

> 

> -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 *Chris

> Menzel

> *Sent:* Monday, May 28, 2012 5:30 AM

> *To:* [ontolog-forum]

> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

> 

> 

> 

> On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Rich Cooper

> <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

> 

> Thanks – a very interesting article.  I’m surprised at how vehemently

> Chomsky shrugs her off as evil.  He doesn’t give any explanation in

> the article; do you have any information about WHY he thinks Rand is

> evil?

> 

> 

> 

> It's obvious if you read Chomsky's (vast) work on political theory and

> American social and political history, especially his writings on

> social security, taxation, corporate welfare, the massive

> redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top income

> brackets engineered by conservative tax policy over the last dozen

> years, etc, all of which are in vehement opposition to the social

> darwinism that lies at the heart of Randian economic theories (and

> current GOP economic politicies).

> 

> 

> 

 

--

Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx

National Institute of Standards & Technology

Manufacturing Systems Integration Division

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                Cel: +1 240-672-5800

 

"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,

 and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

 

 

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