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Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: Ontologies and individuals

from [Alexander Titov] [Permanent Link][Original]
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Alexander Titov <av_titov@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:59:14 +0000
Message-id: <50C9ED42.2060205@xxxxxxxxx>
Dear John,

thank you very much for clarification. I am not sure I managed to express my question correctly.

[JS]
...you identify an individual by finding some symbol (such as a character string) that was assigned as the name of that individual. But you classify an individual by determining the names of types or classes of which it is a member.
[/JS]

Using your example I am trying to remove a 'name' from an individual. I think that I am trying to assign that symbol (such as a character string) to the name of the class (rather then to the name of the individual), and then classify my individual as being a member of that class. By doing this I am trying to 'identify' my individual by using classification (determined by the name of the class of which the given individual is a member).

Ultimately it may lead to individuals that have only classification relationships (and no names, no attributes, whatever...), but I am not sure whether I get any benefits from that.

Some of those classification relationships may be called 'identification' relationship (can I say that an 'identification' is a subclass/subtype of a 'classification' in that case?) and it might be a useful convention (in your words) to distinct such relationships from others of a given individual.

I also try to avoid assumption that an individual can be (or should be) uniquely identified and distinct from other individuals. I mean that in some cases it can be distinct, but in general case we might not be so lucky.

Alex

13 December 2012 14:14
Dear Alex,

That question is either trivial or profound.

AT

The trivial answer is that many logics make a sharp distinction between
individuals and types (or the classes or predicates associated with the
types).

If you have a logic that makes that distinction, then you identify an
individual by finding some symbol (such as a character string) that was
assigned as the name of that individual. But you classify an individual
by determining the names of types or classes of which it is a member.

But if you analyze the psychological, linguistic, and philosophical
issues, you'll find that there is no sharp distinction. What people
and other animals usually perceive are images of the types, and the
particular individual is inferred from the patterns of types and
the context (more patterns).

There are no sharp boundaries between images of distinct individuals,
images of the "same" individual at different occurrences, and images
of distinct, but similar individuals. All those distinctions must be
learned, and mistakes are common.

In short, the distinction between identification and classification
is a useful convention. Natural languages distinguish them, but NLs
are very flexible. They allow common nouns to be used as names
(Baker, Butler, Cook, Smith), and they allow proper names to be used
as common nouns (Xerox), verbs (Xerox), or adjectives (Xerox copy).

John

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13 December 2012 10:25
Hi Matthew and Hans,

I think that my level of knowledge is not very high, so I do apologise in advance in case my questions and reasoning look to be stupid or inadequate.

I am not sure I understand why an 'identification' of an individual thing is considered separately from a 'classification' of an individual thing. Personally I see the 'identification' requirement as a necessity to find out (define) a class of individual things which has only one member - that particular individual thing. So far, I am trying to classify that individual thing in a specific way (so I can distinct that individual thing from any other similar individual things). Obviously, this classification is heavily depended on the context which defines boundaries of my work.

One of possible benefits (as I see it) - I don't need to worry and think about 'identification' at all.

The drawback - how easy will it be to define such classes for every individual thing upon necessity appears? Is it better than 'identification'?

I would be really grateful if any of you can recommend any articles or books might be useful to read in order to understand more on the subject: 'identification' vs 'classification'.

Alex

12 December 2012 23:04

Matthew,

 

I think the identifiers are of the individuals in the context of specific roles within a larger institutional/social context. They are not identifiers of the roles themselves, since obviously many, if not all, individuals have these same roles. Indeed, what identifiers of individuals are there that don’t have a specific context and perspective associated with them? That was why I made the comment “DNA notwithstanding” in my original post. By the way, DNA is not guaranteed to be a unique identifier, either – although evolution has endowed us with facial recognition capabilities that do a pretty good job. Maybe we will all live to see the day of a “context-free” individual identifier implanted in all individuals prior to birth? And what identifiers are inherent in individual entities that are not people? Maybe those laser-engraved serial numbers in some diamonds? Aren’t those put there by or under the aegis of a specific institution?

 

The point is that all identities of individuals, people or otherwise, that we use today have a specific and scope-limited institutional/collective context, whether they be names, serial numbers, telephone numbers, MAC addresses, IP addresses, email addresses, account numbers, URLs, VINs, or anything else. This is why we included the “entity primacy” principle in the net-centric principles we developed for NCOIC. Basically, the identity of anything is independent of any collective context and has primacy over any identity that any collective context might apply/assign to that entity. We recognize that entities generally don’t have obvious innate identities, per the discussion above. But we included the entity primacy principle to underscore the fact that any “citizen of the network” or collective, such as an enterprise or government, should not assume that the identity it assigns to an entity is the one true identity for that individual entity. Put differently, every individual entity will always have other identities in other contexts, and you need to be prepared to deal with that fact for whatever purposes you might interact with others about that individual entity. A more pragmatic application of the principle would be that every individual entity in your knowledge base should have at least two identities – the one “native” to your context and one that is recognized outside your context. More is often better (but not always). You can see this at work in just about any “eBusiness”. Typically you have a customer id specific to the business and an email address not controlled by that business. Most businesses identify their employees by multiple identifiers such as “name”, “taxid (SSN in US)”, “employee/badge number (not always the same)”, “email address”, or even “PC UserID”. They might also assign role identifiers such as “position code”, “pay grade”, “organization-id”, “project-id”, but these role identifiers are typically used only to qualify the individual, not to identify the individual.

 

Hans

 

 

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 4:39 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: Ontologies and individuals

 

Dear Hans,

I would argue that most of the different identifiers you mention refer to different roles a person might play, rather than to the person themselves.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West                           

Information  Junction

Tel: +44 1489 880185

Mobile: +44 750 3385279

Skype: dr.matthew.west

matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/

http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/

 

This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.

Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE.

 

 

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hans Polzer
Sent: 12 December 2012 02:20
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: Ontologies and individuals

 

Don’t forget that identifiers for individuals are grounded in institutional frames of reference with context and scope. Your name is not yours. Rather it typically was assigned to you by a combination of your parents and whatever jurisdiction you were born in that issued your birth certificate. Note that SSN is also nation and jurisdiction-specific, and interestingly, is not guaranteed to be unique to you. Your driver’s license number is specific to the state issuing the license. The combination of nation, state, and driver’s license number represents your identity in a motor vehicle operating context (assuming the nation you are operating in recognizes your issuing nation/state license), and possibly in a voting context as well – but not in an IRS context or Social Security context.  Passport numbers are specific to people in an international travel context, and issued by the State Department or similar institution in other national contexts. There are many other identities for individuals (not just people) in differing contexts and scope. For example, part numbers, serial numbers, model numbers, UPC codes, VINs, RFID, asset number, title number, policy number, customer number, etc.

 

The important thing to recognize is that the same individual may have a different individual identifier in different ontologies, and that if you want interoperability across domains and contexts, you need to have a way of mapping individuals from one identifier frame of reference to another, whether we are talking about people, countries, elements, planets, products, retailers, airline flights, airport gates, airplanes, satellites, etc. And we need to recognize that there are few, if any, “inherent” or “context-free” individual identities, DNA notwithstanding. Put differently, the identify of an individual in a given ontology should be assumed to be specific to that ontology, and any institutional/domain frames of reference and scope specified for that ontology. A “best practice” would be to be explicit about such institutional frames of reference and scope if and when individuals are identified in some ontology.

 

Hans

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Dapoigny
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:00 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: Ontologies and individuals

 

Le 11/12/2012 20:30, Barry Smith a écrit :

It was only some examples (of course not complete). For people I do not suggest the name but rather e.g., a Social Security Number (SSN).
Richard
 

 



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