Just my two cents about faceted classification ... (01)
Faceted classification in Library and Information Science (LIS) is a
very simple but powerful idea -- specifying the subject matter of a
document by referencing multiple orthogonal taxonomies -- that was
formalized by Ranganathan. It has found a natural home in many
commercial web sites and in computer ontologies. (02)
Please note that the Wikipedia page on faceted classification is almost
worthless. A person who knew little about faceted classification took it
upon himself in 2007 to rewrite what was there and diminished the value
of that information. At that time, I asked a couple of the real experts
on the topic (Kathryn La Barre and Claudio Gnoli) to consider updating
the Wikipedia page, but they have not done so. (03)
I recommend a few resources: (04)
1. One of Ranganathan's own descriptions: (05)
http://www.isibang.ac.in/~library/portal/Pages/chp6.pdf
<http://www.isibang.ac.in/%7Elibrary/portal/Pages/chp6.pdf> (06)
From (I believe) Library Classification Through A Century. A note
prepared by S.R. Ranganthan. 1971-72 (07)
2. Ms. La Barre's dissertation, "The use of faceted analytico-synthetic
theory as revealed in the practice of website construction and design"
(2006) (08)
... which has been available at
http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/klabarre/www/LaBarre_FAST.pdf (09)
... but which was not accessible at the time I wrote this. (010)
3. And, from a broader LIS perspective, A. C. Foskett's _The subject
approach to information_ (4th edition, 1982) (011)
Phil Murray (012)
Gary Berg-Cross wrote:
> Bruce,
>
> Discussing primitives in terms of communication and conversation does
> provide a language frame including the more cognitive idea of
> speaker's/agent's intentions.
>
> Bruce>A “good speaker” would clarify their intention very carefully –
> and a “good listener” would form from all available clues their best
> interpretation of that intention.
>
> Bruce> My guiding instinct in this – as regards “primitives” or any
> other kind of system built on word-categories with presumed meanings –
> is that they will always fail, and tend to “lock up” because of
> implicit (“unconscious”) factors inherent in their definition.
>
>
> I think we agree that an approach to semantic primitives build on word
> categories is not adequate.
>
>
> I might not agree with some of the term-concepts you used about
> speaker and listen "as One" or in Resonance or Parsing meaning from
> the object of a communication act etc. Metaphors like parsing,
> suggesting processing of a language object may not be a good model for
> what is going on in human communication which I think is more
> interpretive and includes the idea of constructing meaning as a
> interpretation.
>
>
> The constructionist stance is harder to appreciate at first, but it
> seems a better fit for our understanding of how a child comes to
> “know” the world. It is more like Piaget’s philosophy that what passes
> for reality (and hence our knowledge of it and our language about it)
> is better understood as a socially constructed model.
>
>
> This view is more prevalent in the social rather than physical
> sciences. Sociologists like to talk about how people construct their
> knowledge within culturally situated environment and the practices
> that go on there.
>
>
> This is a nod towards a Use model, such as John Sowa mentioned and is
> a more humble and flexible approach. It is less objective, which may
> bother some, since it has the taste that we are not generally talking
> about universally true knowledge when we talk about what human
> understand.We are mostly talking about some practical approximation.
>
>
> This is even true in our formal models which are based on axioms that
> we construct and assemble. It may be as etymologically human-centric
> as a cultural appreciation of a dance which is constrained by our
> species bodily mechanics. and the suite of cultural ideas about dance
> developed over time. The latter may change the environmental
> interactions we an engage in. So dance and experiences can change over
> time. Our children may use the term "smart phone" more than "Louse" so
> it becomes a stable term.
>
>
>
> Gary Berg-Cross, Ph.D.
> gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx>
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GaryBergCross
> NSF INTEROP Project
> http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0955816
> SOCoP Executive Secretary
> Knowledge Strategies
> Potomac, MD
> 240-426-0770
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 12:10 PM, Bruce Schuman <bruceschuman@xxxxxxx
> <mailto:bruceschuman@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> Thank you, Gary.
>
> I am doing what I can to clarify this perhaps confusing notion of
> “distinction” as I understand it – wanting to define it in a very
> primal or basic way indeed – and then, on the basis of that
> definition, build a very fluently adaptive kind of interpreter – a
> “shape-shifter”, so to speak – where the particulars are entirely
> shaped by immediate intent.A “good speaker” would clarify their
> intention very carefully – and a “good listener” would form from
> all available clues their best interpretation of that intention.
>
> My guiding instinct in this – as regards “primitives” or any other
> kind of system built on word-categories with presumed meanings –
> is that they will always fail, and tend to “lock up” because of
> implicit (“unconscious”) factors inherent in their definition.
>
> For me – the guiding phrase for an illuminated solution is “ad hoc
> top-down stipulation” – or maybe “ad hoc top-down decomposition”.
>
> By that phrase, I mean to offer the speaker the absolute
> unrestricted freedom to parse their meaning to the nth degree
> exactly as they intend – while skillfully drawing from the
> shared/common pool of meanings to help ensure that the listener
> can grasp the intended meaning.Colin Cherry cites the thought that
> speaker and listener “are one”.Maybe this goes to the “communion”
> aspects of “communication”.There is a feedback/confirmation
> relationship set up between speaker and listener, where both
> parties can test and confirm the accuracy of the received meaning
> – and when it’s working, the relationship tends to become
> “resonant”.That process might be what is meant by the concept of
> “games” as it has been mentioned in this forum.
>
> For me – the basic “cut” or distinction – the “ultimate primitive”
> – is the prime algebraic definition of distinction – the Dedekind
> Cut – the point at which rational numbers intersect the
> continuum.On that basis, in a purely algebraic way, I am trying to
> build up a model of semantic dimensionality that is “absolutely
> fluent” (“continuously variable in all dimensions”).On this basis,
> I think we can define the fundamental dimensionality of
> “similarity” (and thus create a genus/taxon), and the fundamental
> dimensionality of “difference” (thus creating subtypes within that
> taxon).
>
> If we are talking about “faceted classification” – as per
> Ranganathan(as I understand it) – what we are hoping for is
> absolutely fluent ways to decompose or interpret higher-level
> categories into their particulars.Unlike a rigid top-down
> taxonomy, faceted classification offers multiple alternative ways
> to decompose the higher-level meanings into specifics, depending
> on purpose or
> intent.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faceted_classification
>
> What I am trying to do – by refining the concept of “distinction”
> to its absolute rock-bottom minimalist algebraic meaning, and then
> building up every possible word meaning from there through an
> ascending algebraic hierarchy composed of nested distinctions
> (“similarities and differences”) is create a way that is so
> absolutely fluent that every dimension of difference can be freely
> stipulated by the speaker, exactly as desired, to a highly refined
> and almost-continuously-variable degree.
>
> Thus, my general approach to a so-called universal semantic
> ontology is to begin by asserting that this is only possible (as I
> understand it) within the framework of intentional stipulation
> (where there no rigid adherence to some common/shared pool of
> meanings – a huge international dictionary -- but rather, that
> pool is understood as suggestive).
>
> This approach, I think, can work in a private context, where a
> communicating individual is fully authorized to freely assign
> meaning under their own intentions.This, I think – is what people
> are doing all the time.They say what they want, intending meaning
> as they want, stipulating meaning as they intend, howsoever they wish.
>
> This becomes much more problematic, however, when we are trying to
> define a robust pool of shared meanings that everyone can depend
> on – in every context, for every purpose, in every situation.That
> kind of universality might (?) be impossible – because exact
> word-meaning is always local/ad hoc – and cannotbe rigidly bound
> to a common/shared agreement – like the Dewey Decimal System – or
> for another rock-solid example that seems to work, the Periodic
> Table of the Elements in chemistry.
>
> On that theme – if there is some hope to solve the problem of
> universalizing widely shared meaning, my initial/experimental
> thought might involve some kind of “dimensional negotiation” on a
> large scale.I think we could do this on a small or personal scale
> today.But setting up a widely shared pool of “all meanings for all
> people for all occasions” seems very problematic – and maybe
> crazy.Or – maybe a huge empirical project involving thousands or
> millions of “word senses” could somehow do a very good
> statistical/probabilistic interpretation.A kind of “parser for all
> seasons” with very good first approximations….
>
> But for me, trying to render this idea coherent at all, at a
> minimalist scale – I just want to get the algebraic process
> defined clearly from the ground up – following the principles of
> “conceptual relativity”, more or less as JS outlines them in
> Chapter 7 of Conceptual Structures.
>
> Thanks to all for the very interesting themes emerging
> here.Library science is very relevant and suggestive.
>
> Bruce Schuman
>
> (805) 966-9515 <tel:%28805%29%20966-9515> Santa Barbara
>
> http://interspirit.net | http://sharedpurpose.net |
> http://bridgeacrossconsciousness.net
>
> *From:*ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>] *On Behalf Of
> *Gary Berg-Cross
> *Sent:* Monday, August 12, 2013 7:32 AM
>
>
> *To:* [ontolog-forum]
> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Practical Semantic Primitives
>
> Some of this discussion has involved the idea of
> composition/construction/building of primitive "concepts" into
> more complex concepts.
>
> Bruce, for exampe said
>
> > As regards the ???atoms/molecules??? analogy ??? for me, the
> right approach
>
> >is to look for a ???fundamental particle???. Even atoms are
> composite
>
> >structures. If we are going to take a bottom-up approach to
> constructing
>
> >every possible cognitive unit, we need to build these units from
> something
>
> >truly fundamental.
>
> One point here is that this composition is anything but simple or
> obvious.
>
> We often fall back on some ideas we consider foundational like
> ideas of Constituent Parts into Wholes like words in a sentence.
>
> We fall very naturally into a Katz and Fodor type of additive
> semantic feature model like (Male) + (Human) +(Mature) = Man.
>
> Even this structure semantics appraoch turn out to be pretty
> challenging and just a small area of what seems to be involved in
> semantic processes composing a new concept out of a starter set of
> primitives. After all what does + in such a model mean?
>
> Gary Berg-Cross, Ph.D.
>
> gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GaryBergCross
>
> NSF INTEROP Project
>
> http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0955816
>
> SOCoP Executive Secretary
>
> Knowledge Strategies
>
> Potomac, MD
>
> 240-426-0770 <tel:240-426-0770>
>
> On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Bruce Schuman
> <bruceschuman@xxxxxxx <mailto:bruceschuman@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> Thanks to all for the comments and the replies.
>
> Just to restate this point again -- my use of the word "primitive"
> has probably been confusing -- since for almost everybody it means
> something like "a list of words".
>
> "Aristotle's primitives, which he called categories, include
> Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Time, Position, State,
> Activity, and Passivity. These are ultimate primitives to which
> all other concepts are supposed to be reducible."
> http://originresearch.com/sd/sd4.cfm Many others use the term
> “primitive” in similar ways, looking for some “best” or “correct”
> list of words.
>
> What I have meant by the term “primitive” might be better stated
> as something like “fundamental algebraic distinction”. For me –
> all words – including “primitives” – are composite abstract units
> with implicit/nested dimensional decomposition, and the word is
> the “name” for that composite abstract unit, assembled from
> distinctions.
>
> It might be totally true that “everybody knows what ‘tree’ means”
> (item 23 on the Swadesh list) – but if we need to distinguish
> “tree” from “not-tree” for some reason, we might have to get precise.
>
> “Consider a tree. It has no sharp boundaries between parts; yet
> words divide the tree into trunk, roots, branches, bark, twigs,
> leaves, buds, knots, flowers, seeds, fruit, and even finer
> subparts such as veins in the leaves and pistils in the flowers.
> Even the boundary between the tree and the environment may be
> indistinct: the tree may have started as a sprout from the root of
> another tree and may still share a root system with its parents
> and siblings; insects and animals may be living in the tree; a
> vine may be climbing up the trunk, moss may be on the bark, fungus
> may be growing on a dead branch, and bacteria in root nodules may
> be supplying nutrients.” http://originresearch.com/sd/sd4.cfm
>
> ***
>
> I did take a close look at the "Swadesh List” --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadesh_list -- and yes it is
> interesting, and seems a reasonable stab at "a basic common human
> vocabulary". In the USA, it would be reasonable to expect that the
> Democrats and the Republics and the Tea Party and the Progressives
> would probably be comfortable with this pool of common meanings.
> This is the basis of how we can talk to each other at all. But
> throw a big complex messy abstract word like "Obamacare" into that
> list -- and you've immediately got a firefight -- and a huge
> splintered division over what the word means. Without a precise
> “stipulation” of its meaning, any conversation immediately becomes
> hopelessly fragmented –- and maybe dangerous. When conversations
> are necessarily constrained by psychological bandwidth and time
> limits, the use of broad abstractions in a public context is very
> problematic.
>
> As I was reading through the Swadesh list, I was reminded of a
> constraint mentioned by Smith and Medin (1981) in their important
> book "Categories and Concepts" -- where at the beginning, they
> clarify the meaning of the broad term "concept" to generally mean
> what they call "object concepts" -- things that can be named
> simply, the kind of things that fit into taxonomies. They are not
> talking about "concept" as the term might be popularly used (just
> about anything anyone could think of) -- but in a narrower way
> that reduces the complexity.
>
> On the Swadesh list, the verbs don’t start until item 54. Most
> everything listed before that are basic objects, or the basic
> dimensions that describe objects.
>
> ***
>
> John: I agree that the search for good distinctions and defining
> terms is useful. But the world is a continuum, and the range of
> "games" that people play with words is open ended and constantly
> varying. The common features among the games are fuzzy, rough, and
> squishy approximations, not primitives in a mathematical sense.
>
> Bruce: This thought that “the world is a continuum” is basic to
> any understanding of concept formation – and is connected to the
> essentially ad hoc nature of most word usage.
>
> “Concepts are inventions of the human mind used to construct a
> model of the world. They package reality into discrete units for
> further processing, they support powerful mechanisms for doing
> logic, and they are indispensable for precise, extended chains of
> reasoning. But concepts and percepts cannot form a perfect model
> of the world, -- they are abstractions that select features that
> are important for one purpose, but they ignore details and
> complexities that may be just as important for some other purpose.
> Leech (1974) noted that "bony structured" concepts form an
> imperfect match to a fuzzy world. People make black and white
> distinctions when the world consists of a continuum of shadings.”
> http://originresearch.com/sd/sd4.cfm
>
> The mystery is – why do we choose to parse experience as we do?
> The answer has something to do with motivation – what is our
> point, what are we trying to accomplish? As a “continuum”, the
> “world” or “reality” could be parsed in an infinite number of
> alternative ways – but “for some reason” – we pick some particular
> way.
>
> Your comment that “the games people play are open-ended and
> constantly varying”, as I understand it, has something to do with
> immediate context of communication – everything in the situation,
> everything I know about you and think you know about me. If I want
> to successfully communicate with you, I use words I think you will
> understand – based on any clues at my disposal….
>
> But my thought about “mathematical definitions” and why they are
> important emerges when the conversation becomes uncertain. Item 52
> on the Swadesh list is “heart”. Could usage of that term be
> confusing? Do you/I mean the physical heart that actually pumps
> the blood, or some sense of emotional heart or center (“she’s got
> a lot of heart”), or maybe “the heart of the town”? If we get
> confused on that point, somebody might have to stipulate
> something. Item 93 is “hot”. The question might immediately arise,
> “How hot?” Maybe all we need to know is that somebody thinks it’s
> hot. But if it matters – I’m a mechanic fixing a car, or a doctor
> talking to a mother about a sick baby – I might have to know
> exactly what is meant – and that might require a dimensional
> stipulation. In this sense, “hot” is a (brief/abstract) ordinal
> value for a numeric quantity that might have to be specified
> exactly – or specified within a defined boundary value range.
>
> So – for me, when I see this idea that there are “games” going on
> with word meanings, I’m thinking two things: 1) the exact meaning
> is context specific, and hence plastic and fluent and
> context-dependent, so the “game” is figuring that out, and 2) if
> we are unsure, or feeling some tension, we might have to
> “negotiate” the meaning of the word – “hot” – or “cold” – or “dry”
> – or indeed, many other words on the Swadesh list. Maybe that
> negotiation process is a kind of “game” as we settle in to an
> agreement on what we are talking about (for me, generally settling
> on a mutually-acceptable boundary-value range).
>
> John: Words with similar meanings are the result of common aspects
> of human experience.
>
> Bruce: This is the foundation of basic communication in language –
> and most of these Swadesh concepts have a very limited range of
> possible uncertainty. Generally, “we know what they mean”, and
> their meanings are not highly context-specific.
>
> Gary: On this view the meaning is not in, or embodied in, the word
> symbol. Rather the personal meaning of a word-symbol is the
> totality of what gets activated in a cognitive agent.
>
> John: I agree. As Wittgenstein said, the meaning of a word is its use.
>
> The multiple word senses are the result of the many ways that a
> word is used. For each individual, each word is linked to a
> growing and changing network of experiences. Word senses are
> classifications that some lexicographer derived from citations of
> word uses.
>
> Bruce: And what I would say is – that each use of a word –
> regardless of how widely understood or common the word might be –
> is essentially stipulative. When I use a word in an act of
> communication – it means what I want it to mean at that moment –
> and I HOPE you understand it – drawing from all cues available to
> you, certainly including the common pool of meanings that you and
> I almost certainly share.
>
> See Lewis Carroll on Humpty Dumpty talking to Alice in Through the
> Looking Glass:
>
> "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
>
> Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I
> tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
>
> "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice
> objected.
>
> "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful
> tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor
> less."
>
> "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so
> many different things."
>
> "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master —
> that's all."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty>
>
> Bruce (previously): For me – the word-symbol is a label for a
> composite and implicit block of distinctions and “meanings”. For
> reasons of psychological economy, people use brief word-labels for
> complex ideas – leaving out many specific details and implications
> because we don’t have time for the details (“the weeds”), and we
> hope we can get away with skipping over them.
>
> John: The stable words on the Swadesh list are good examples.
> They're easy to recognize, they're associated with a frequently
> occurring experience, and they're islands of stability in the
> growing and changing network of associations.
>
> Bruce: Yes. A lot like the “concepts” discussed by Smith and Medin.
>
> John: Nouns dominate the list of stable words on the Swadesh list.
> The verb 'drink' is the most stable verb, but it's 38th in
> relative stability.
>
> But note that emotional terms are absent from that list. The word
> 'good' is the only evaluative term, and it's 79th in stability.
> People certainly use emotional and evaluative terms, but their
> meanings are not stable -- i.e., the ways they are used tend to
> change, and the word forms aren't preserved over the long term.
>
> Bruce: Yes, these “qualitative variables” – as I might want to
> call them – are very problematic. So, my approach tends to be
> “dimensional” – with the concept of dimension generalized to
> include qualitative (or “nominal” or “ordinal”) values – “good”,
> “bad”, “better”, “worse”, etc. – with the precise value in some
> particular usage entirely context-specific.
>
> The framework to make this kind of stipulation meaningful is
> absolutely context-dependent. At this level of abstraction, usage
> is totally local and dependent on intent. And we might have to get
> into a bunch of “word games” (or “boundary-value negotiations”) to
> come to an agreement.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Bruce Schuman
>
> (805) 966-9515 <tel:%28805%29%20966-9515> Santa Barbara
>
> http://interspirit.net | http://sharedpurpose.net |
> http://bridgeacrossconsciousness.net
>
>
>
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--------------------- (014)
The Semantic Advantage
Turning Information into Assets
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Web site: http://www.semanticadvantage.com (016)
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