Dear Doug, (01)
> >> > ...
> >> > Chris Partridge made a plea for an architectural approach to
> >> > developing a top ontology, considering the ontological commitments.
> >> > There were two slides in particular that struck me.
> >> > The first listed typical ontological choices that a top ontology
> >> > needs to make,
>
> >> I would challenge the statement that a top ontology would have to
> >> make these kinds of philosophical commitments. I think that John
> >> Sowa also challenged this, but i'd like to explain in more depth.
>
> >> In most instances, the same (non-philosophical) conclusions can be
> >> made no matter which metaphysical commitment is made.
> >> Sometimes things need to be worded differently depending upon the
> >> metaphysics/philosophy chosen, but that seems like an NL issue to me.
> >> If one is generating or interpreting NL, one could use different
> >> modules for different philosophies.
>
> > MW: But that is not the purpose of an integrating ontology.
>
> I'm glad you agree with me.
>
> > The purpose of an integrating ontology is to bring the ground facts
> > into a single view of the world so that they can be analysed together.
>
> I beg to differ. The purpose of an integrating ontology is to enable
> communication among various contexts so that combinations of contexts can
be
> analyzed together. As such, such an ontology should avoid commitments
that
> would be inconsistent with more specific contexts. (02)
MW: Well that is your purpose, but it is not mine. So we had better find a
way of distinguishing them.
>
> The amount of analysis that can be performed should rely upon the scope of
the
> rules and other statements in the narrower context.
>
> If commitment a philosophical issue is not necessary for some class of
> reasoning, that is a good reason to not make the commitment at that
stage.
>
> What applications really depend upon whether time is quantized at
> 10^-44 seconds and distance is quantized at 10^-35 m or whether they are
both
> continuous? Upper ontologies for what fields of study depend upon the
model
> of uncertainty (branching time, etc.) chosen?
>
> What contexts require that the upper ontologies which they import limit
> themselves to 4D or 3D+1 models? (03)
MW: The point is that is you have some data in a 4D application and some
other data in 3D+1 application, then you need to bring them together in one
of those schemes in order to compare them or use them together, at least for
my purposes.
>
> It seems to me that *applications* may chose various of these
philosophical
> dimensions if it assists analysis -- or it assists in the design of an NL
> system for communicating with users -- but i don't see any need for
forcing
> such decisions at an upper or middle ontology level. I understand that
such
> concepts need to be near the top of ontological hierarchies. However,
unless
> a pure tree structure is forced, any connection between non-philosophical
> concepts and the philosophical ones can be made in application contexts. (04)
MW: Yes they may, but the date is then locked into those schemes and your
use of that data is limited by the boundaries of those applications. If you
want to use the data in another application you have to translate it into
the way that that application sees things.
>
> I would be happy to entertain a discussion of the merits of having such
> decisions made at an upper ontology level. If you think that this would
be
> useful, please explain how you feel it would be useful to make such a
> commitment at the upper ontology level. (05)
MW: The purpose of making these commitments at an upper level is so you have
an environment into which any data can be translated into or out of between
any applications, or for applications that use data from multiple other
applications. Now you can do this with point-to-point interfaces between
applications, but this is very inefficient when you get into the tens to
hundreds of applications. (06)
Regards (07)
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/ (08)
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. (09)
>
> Regards,
> doug foxvog
>
> > 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.
>
>
>
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