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

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:40:31 -0500
Message-id: <50D636DF.4060801@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 12/22/2012 11:24 AM, Chris Partridge wrote:
> I had assumed he meant the individual-type distinction. I guess you might
> mean that here.  I thought he was not willing to assume *any* philosophical
> notion was sufficiently secure for *any* practical purpose    (01)

Did you read the McCarthy-Hayes paper from 1969?  Section 2.1 has the
title "What AI can learn from philosophy".    (02)

I believe that studying philosophy is good.  But when you're trying
to teach students how to implement an ontology, you have to focus
on translating English spec's to FOL.  The philosophical jargon is
irrelevant to that task:    (03)

  1. Instead of vague discussions about individuals and types, show how
     to map the spec's to variables and relations.    (04)

  2. A type is specified by a monadic relation P(x).  P is the type,
     and x is something of type P.    (05)

  3. Two more philosophical terms that should be banished from the
     tutorial are 'universal' and 'particular'.  All relations are
     universals, and their arguments are particulars.  But those
     terms are irrelevant.  Just talk about variables and relations.    (06)

  4. Another nightmare is the term 'abstract particular'.  If you mean
     the option of quantifying over relations and letting relation
     variables appear in argument position, then say so.    (07)

> I agree that one can argue things bottoms out with intuition; but
> I guess we definitely agree it should not start with raw intuition.    (08)

Everything starts with raw intuition.  But you have to do further
analysis, induction, deduction, testing, etc.  In any case, when you're
trying to teach students how to representing a subject in FOL, there is
no reason to mention the word 'intuition'.    (09)

> The goal is not that to find a perfect ontology, but one that meets the
> constraints set. The question is what constraints to set.    (010)

Of course.  Nobody disputes that point.    (011)

> A baroque top ontology seems to get in the way. But this may be
> a feature of the relative immaturity of the area.    (012)

Ontology is over two millennia old.  For implementing ontologies,
we've had FOL for over 130 years.    (013)

People have been applying ontologies to AI and databases since
the 1960s.  Cyc has had over a thousand person-years of R & D
in applied ontology since 1984.    (014)

You can't call that immature.  I admit that there are a lot of
students who are hopelessly confused.  But much of that confusion
is created by people who kick around vague philosophical jargon.
Just teach students how to translate English spec's to FOL.    (015)

John    (016)

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