Hi John, (01)
That was not my initial reading of Pat's response, and after re-reading I
still cannot not read it in this way. (02)
As I understand it, Pat was saying that the philosophical terms, such as the
ones in your foundation (see http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/toplevel.htm -
note the use of the terms 'abstract' and 'physical'), are:
"indeed obscure, hard to decide, and rest upon very fragile intuitions. ...
they are not foundational in the sense that anything important rests upon
them or depends on getting them right. They are, in fact, almost completely
irrelevant to any matter of concern to practical ontology design, and can
(and should) be ignored, unless one has far too much time to waste. It is
not an architectural decision at all: more like a decision about what color
smoke to blow up the chimney."
And these comments apply equally to similar work, such as the work of
Matthew on ISO 15926, Nicola and Chris on Ontoclean and Barry on BFO, which
are also based on philosophical ideas. (03)
Maybe Pat can clarify whether I have misread this. (04)
BTW I have no objection to someone taking this position, it makes sense to
explore different options. But given the substantial contributions made (by
you and others) it seems to me that one should make a rational rather than
tabloid argument for it. (05)
As I understand it, Pat was proposing the following as an alternative to the
kinds of top ontology foundations referred to above.
"Here is one way to decide the matter: anything that can be described or
referred to is, ipso facto, an individual. And of things that cannot be
described or named, we must be silent."
I assume he was suggesting that the philosophical terms in, for example,
your top ontology would fail this test. Presumably, if they did not then
they would pass the Hayes test. (06)
None of my comments were to do with words. I certainly agree that there are
problems with the senses of words used in this community (as I hope I made
clear in my responses), but I am not offering a solution; I suspect there is
not an easy one. (07)
Also, I hope I do not need to make clear that I admire a lot of Pat's work -
not only have I said that to him personally a number of times, but it should
be clear from previous email exchanges. That I assume is taken for granted. (08)
And just to clarify Pat's response was nothing to do with my original point:
Matthew had described a series of choices and I said relative to this
description: "If you have made these two choices then a mental shorthand for
the distinction might be that it rests upon a concrete-abstract distinction
- but (architecturally) this is a much weaker and murkier distinction to
base things on, so not such a solid foundation." I was using 'foundation'
here in the sense of one choice underpinning another - not implying that any
choice was foundational.
Pat chose to change the topic to whether the choices Matthew was describing
were 'foundational'. (09)
Regards,
Chris (010)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
> Sent: 19 December 2012 18:23
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: Ontologies and individuals
>
> On 12/19/2012 3:56 AM, Chris Partridge wrote:
> > I know you [Pat] have an irrational aversion to these topics.
>
> That remark is uncalled for. Pat has a very strong understanding of the
issues
> and requirements for a good design. But he has even less patience than I
have
> for endless quibbling over words.
>
> > My and, I'm guessing, Matthew's experience is that these kinds of
> > structures are a useful practical device when dealing with large
systems.
>
> Structure is *extremely* important. Pat and I were not complaining about
any
> proposed structures. We were complaining about endless debates about
> common English words that are overloaded with confusing and conflicting
> definitions.
>
> My solution is simple: whenever a word creates more confusion than
> enlightenment, delete it. If you can't state a precise definition in
terms of the
> logic used to specify the ontology, then the word is too vague and
misleading
> for ontology design and documentation.
>
> > If you [Pat] are suggesting that the terms we are using "cannot be
> > described or named" maybe you should re-read the literature.
>
> Pat not only knows the literature, he has been making important
contributions
> to it for over 40 years. The fact that this thread has been going around
in
> circles for dozens of notes without reaching a precise definition of the
word
> 'individual' implies that the word is more confusing than informative.
>
> Simple solution: If knowledgeable people in the field cannot agree on a
> definition for a word, then don't use it.
>
> By the way, I learned that lesson many years ago in a project at IBM. We
had
> endless arguments about the word 'name'.
> Our solution was to forbid any use of that word.
>
> When we got rid of the word, we quickly discovered that we all had nearly
> identical intuitions about the *structure* of the architecture. The only
> arguments were about one confusing word.
>
> John
>
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