Dear John, (01)
Unfortunately, both you and Doug completely missed the point that we were
talking about methodologies for INTEGRATING (or conceptual) ontologies, not
reasoning ontologies. (02)
> In a conference call for the forthcoming Ontology Summit, Barry Smith,
Chris
> Partridge, Anatoly Levenchuk, and Mike Bennett presented four thoughtful
and
> well organized talks. Following is the summary with pointers to the
slides
> and the audio recordings:
>
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2013_02_07
>
> On the whole, the presentations were good. But none of them mentioned
four
> *extremely* important points:
>
> 1. Trillions of dollars have been invested in legacy software that
> runs the world economy.
>
> 2. That software will not be replaced for a long, long time. In past
> experience, the lifetime of a large, mission-critical system can be
> 40 years or more. Its replacements must interoperate with it in
> as smooth a transition as possible.
>
> 3. Every attempt to replace a critical, working system with a new
> one that could not interoperate during the transition has failed.
> The greater the discontinuity, the greater the ensuing disaster.
>
> 4. Every successful introduction of new technology interoperates with
> the interfaces, infrastructure, and conventions of the old system
> during an extended, incremental, and evolutionary transition.
> The duration of that transition is usually *decades*, not years. (03)
MW: The whole purpose of an integrating ontology is to be able to leave the
legacy systems alone, but bring together their data in a uniform environment
so that data can be analysed across multiple applications.
>
> There was some discussion of these issues in the email list for the
ontology
> summit. I'll relate some of it to the slides of the talks.
>
> I'll start with Slide 19 in Barry Smith's talk:
> > Candidate Upper Level Ontologies
> > - Domain Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering (DOLCE) -
> > Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) - Upper Cyc Ontology - Basic
> > Formal Ontology - all reflections of recognized need for semantic
> > standardization via upper level ontology
>
> That may be true of what the DOLCE, SUMO, and BFO developers say.
> But it is definitely *not* true of Cyc. Doug Lenat has explicitly said
that
> the upper level is the *least* important. He said that
> *all* the detailed reasoning is based on axioms and definitions at the mid
> level and lower levels. (04)
MW: CYC is not an integrating ontology - granted it is very large, but it
has an entirely different purpose.
>
> The most important role of the upper level is to establish a common set
shared
> terms for types and relations. The top level must be very underspecified
--
> usually with little more than type-subtype and disjoint-from links. The
lower
> level "microtheories" contain the axioms and definitions needed for
detailed
> reasoning. (05)
MW: We are not talking about upper ontologies, but INTEGRATING ontologies,
these will normally include upper ontologies and indeed only Barry seemed to
think it necessary to make a case for using an upper ontology, the other
speakers just assumed it was the only way you had any chance of success.
>
> Cyc has been developing their ontology for over 28 years (since 1984).
> They discovered very early (by 1989) that a single, consistent, monolithic
> ontology was unworkable. Instead, they reorganized the ontology by
removing
> most of the detail from the upper level, and pushing it down to the
possibly
> *inconsistent* microtheories. (06)
MW: Again CYC is doing something completely different. It is trying to
provide a range of different theories that might be suitable for REASONING
in a number of different circumstances.
>
> In the slides by Chris Partridge, I very strongly agree with the first
half
> dozen slides about the need for an architecture based on a "shared
> understanding" among the key developers. I disagree with later points:
>
> From Slide 9 by Chris P:
> > "Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any
metaphysics...
> > and you have found one whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the
> > crude and uncriticizedmetaphysics with which they are packed"
> > (Charles Peirce, Collected Papers 1.129).
>
> I also quote that point, but I disagree with Chris's assumptions about the
> implications:
> > In other words, there is going to be a top ontology anyway, Do you
> > want to manage it directly (or manage the results of a heterogeneous
> > framework on a piecemeal basis)?
>
> I agree that every ontology will inevitably have some kind of top level.
> I also agree that it should be managed on a systematic basis. But I
strongly
> disagree with the following points:
>
> 1. The top level should be based on subtle distinctions that even
> professional philosophers find controversial. (07)
MW: The distinctions were not subtle.
>
> 2. The existing diversity of heterogeneous legacy systems can be
> (let alone, *must* be) replaced by rigid philosophical distinctions
> that will be imposed upon every conforming application. (08)
MW: Chris did not say this, and I consider it really inappropriate that you
should put these words in his mouth. (09)
> Following is a revised version of the recommendations that I proposed in
> earlier notes to the Ontology Summit list:
>
> 1. Avoid subtle and controversial philosophical distinctions in the
> top levels of an ontology. (010)
MW: This just does not work for an integrating ontology. You cannot perform
the integration until you know what the choices are for how you are going to
do the integration. It is frankly ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
>
> 2. Avoid making detailed commitments in the top levels. Push any
> complex details or distinctions into the middle and lower levels. (011)
MW: Rubbish. You should make commitments at the appropriate level. It is
just as stupid to make a commitment about subtype/supertype and
classification multiple times at different levels of your ontology, as it is
to insist on say proper parts as the only way that parthood can be at the
top of an ontology.
>
> 3. Design the ontology in a way that is easy to modify or adapt
> as needed -- preferably by automated or semi-automated methods. (012)
MW: Well I'm pleased to find something I can agree with at last. However, I
think this is as much a design approach issue as it is a tools issue. (013)
MW: I would appreciate it if you could try to react to what is being
discussed, rather than keep mounting old hobby horses. (014)
Regards (015)
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/ (016)
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