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Re: [ontolog-forum] Early use of the word 'ontology' in AI

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Barkmeyer, Edward J" <edward.barkmeyer@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:00:47 +0000
Message-id: <4e5d75a65fa944b09ffe1ff7ca14c886@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
The mind reels.      (01)

The relationship between logical theories and the "real world" is based on the 
phenomenon of "ontological commitment" -- the decision to take certain 
metaphysical ideas to be true.  It follows that a good formal ontology (in the 
knowledge engineering sense) is clear about what those commitments are.  Pat's 
papers were very carefully based on a specific set of such commitments.      (02)

One of the problems with many "ontologgers" is that they have no idea when they 
are even making such commitments.  They don't ask themselves whether there are 
other possible interpretations of their observations; they just write down what 
they think they see.    (03)

With respect to selling the idea of "AI ontology" to skeptics, I stated my 
position at one of the last DAML meetings:  The development of "ontologies" is 
just an outgrowth of "information modeling" which is itself an outgrowth of 
"data modeling".  This is evolutionary in the usual way of engineering 
disciplines -- first you figure out how to do something useful that works 
reliably over many variants, then you develop the theory for why that works.      (04)

[Begin unnecessary treatise]    (05)

Data modelers of the late 1970s and early 1980s were trying to make programs 
and databases that "worked the first time", by having thought through the 
problem of how to represent the world of interest in data forms BEFORE trying 
to write most of the code.  So they abstracted the thinking from the code per 
se, but they ended capturing that model of the world ONLY in some 
implementation language form.    (06)

Information modelers of the 1980s and 1990s were trying to represent the world 
of interest in a way that was independent of the implementation language, and 
thus unburdened by its noisy pragmatic requirements.  But they did not isolate 
their models from what OMG calls the "platform class" -- the kind of tooling 
they will use.  That is why people who design relational databases and people 
who design XML data structures and people who design C++/Java programs came up 
with different models of the same problem space.   The early and most 
successful group was designing databases, the later group was designing 
object-oriented programs, and the final (and least educated) group was 
designing XML schemas.  And every <expletive> one of them insisted that their 
models, which were influenced, even transmogrified, by their implementation 
paradigm, were "natural".   With the exception of ORM and Grady Booch's work, 
none of them had a formal theoretical foundation, as distinct from a so-called 
"formal semantics".  The model ultimately meant: this (presumed) behavior of 
the world of interest will be captured in an implementation in this way.  But 
these approaches were still a great leap forward -- they had the advantage of 
eliminating a lot of implementation noise in capturing and *presenting* an 
understanding of the domain.    (07)

In the same time frames, part of the AI world developed parallel modeling 
approaches, based on different intended implementation mechanisms, notably 
"frame logics" and "description logics".  The difference was that these 
approaches had some formal theoretical foundation at their heart, because the 
implementation mechanisms did.  "Frame logic" models are object models, to 
which a reasoning approach, rather than just a collection of subroutines, is 
attached.  Description logic models are information models firmly founded in 
set theory and restricted by the requirements of a particular reasoning 
algorithm.  These reasoning approaches are simply different implementation 
paradigms.  BUT they are grounded in a formal theory, rather than just a 
reliable engineering practice, and that theory is the basis for the 
implementation paradigm.  That is the difference.      (08)

OWL is not a great leap forward.  It is the next step in learning how to model 
the world in way that can be used in a number of reliable engineering 
practices, without getting deeply into the nuances of those practices.  OWL 
models are not "natural" either -- you can't say anything the extended tableaux 
reasoners cannot handle.  But they are not formally interpreted by engineering 
practice -- the formal interpretation is a mathematical logic theory.  To 
distinguish this kind of approach from the assorted forms of "information 
modeling" of the 1980s and 1990s, we use a new term "ontology".  But it is just 
the third stage of evolution in modeling a world of interest for the purpose of 
automating some tasks in that world.    (09)

As Natasha Noy once observed, a great many OWL models are just UML models.  
Most of the classes are primitive, which greatly limits the value of the 
reasoning algorithms associated with description logic.  All that means is that 
the would-be knowledge engineers are just learning how to do information 
modeling, and using OWL for the purpose (probably because it is a W3C standard, 
i.e. comes from the acknowledged source of all useful references for software 
engineering in the 21st century, as every illiterate software engineer knows).  
In the last 5 years, the UML folk have come up with formal logic models for UML 
interpretation as well (with the probable effect of invalidating the 
engineering interpretations of many existing UML models).  This gives us an 
object-modeling language that has a formal foundation, much like the 
information modeling language ORM (in 1990).  The difference here is that the 
formal foundation does not lead to the use of the model for automated 
reasoning.  OWL makes it possible to do that, even if many of its users are 
just learning to build information models, and thus do not make reasoning 
models in OWL.  (Presumably their intended platform class is different.)    (010)

[end unnecessary treatise, which is probably inaccurate in several areas that 
John Sowa will point out]    (011)

The gist of this treatise is that "ontologies" are just somewhere on the upper 
end of an evolutionary curve in capturing the concepts in a world of interest 
in a machine-readable form, for the purpose of communicating among the 
stakeholders and automating some process.  It is a part of the evolutionary 
process of developing a "computer science" -- a formal theoretical basis for 
software engineering.  It is the current refinement of "world modeling" 
technology after 50 years of development, and practitioners use it with various 
levels of skill.    (012)

-Ed    (013)

P.S. Pat and Chris agreed on the principal reason why people are legitimately 
suspicious of the latest IT buzzword (and "ontology" is among them).  As long 
as press and funding are based on buzzwords rather than results, the whole 
spectrum of professionals, from experts to nincompoops, will very quickly use 
them.  The first step in vetting a speaker is to ask him to define the term.      (014)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Spottiswoode
> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2013 10:57 AM
> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Early use of the word 'ontology' in AI
> 
> John,
> 
> Thanks for the definitions of terms around the word "ontology".
> 
> But may I expand on my request in the final paragraph of my last email?
> 
> I had said:
> " I am busy promoting ontology in a different forum at the moment.  The
> word seems to have some attraction there but I have discovered that, like
> "semantic web", "ontology" is a sure turn-off out there to a significant
> degree.  So I am interested in both the history of the word and the current
> experience of Ontolog folks in this labelling matter."
> 
> On the historical issue, though, Pat did say (in the quote in my email) that 
>"I
> wouldn't be [in favor of introducing a new term] if the term really were new
> (and I resolutely ignored it when it was first introduced) but its no longer
> new, [...]".  That certainly seems to be an insistence that he was not the 
>first
> to introduce the term.
> 
> Then, the quote you attribute to Pat in your email below was in fact from me.
> It was my own tentative exploration for a reading that rendered Pat's
> statements consistent.  I could surely learn from any attempt by this Forum
> to spell out definitions of "logical theory" and "AI" that might clarify the
> apparently diverse origins of the use of the term "ontology".
> 
> Thus the main definitions my exploration invited were those to help
> relevantly distinguish the "logical theory" domain from that of AI.
> 
> I must confess I haven't studied Pat's 35-year-old papers on liquids and naïve
> physics (though I do recall having ignorantly read about them at the time).
> Nor would I characterize  the present central themes of my own current
> project as either 'logical theory' or AI.  Ontology in that project is both 
>most
> strongly philosophical and of great technical value in IS/IT, and the word is
> most useful in capturing that synergetic link.  But I recognize that I do 
>need to
> gear up towards the relevant experts'
> exploitation of the ever more emergent opportunities for both advanced
> 'logical theory' and AI in that project.
> 
> Ha-ha, yes, everyone can surely agree with your observation that "For
> anybody who doesn't [know what they're talking about], all bets are off."
> 
> And one reason why I am still using the word "ontology", more or less in the
> sense that ontologgers use it, despite my own inclinations (that I had
> expressed in the sequel to the 2008 thread I had resurrected in my previous
> email), is that whenever I can have a good conversation with sceptics, from
> whatever field, within or outside IT, they usually end up understanding
> surprisingly well at their respective levels and asking to be kept up-to-date.
> 
> But that experience doesn't resolve the marketing or propagandistic need
> that lies behind my query, in the final paragraph of my previous post, as to
> how fellow-ontologgers experience the problem of the ontology-sceptic.
> Such a sceptic is usually ignorant, as you point out, and is adopting a very
> superficial and usually self-serving position.  So the obstacle to pre-empt
> somehow is the first-glance though ignorant dismissal without the
> opportunity for that "good conversation".  For example, which of the one-
> liners or elevator pitches of recent Summits seem to work best or most
> often?
> 
> Any takers on such queries?
> 
> In the meanwhile I am busy taking my own approach to the whole issue, and
> will in due course draw the Forum's attention to my project's present
> deliverable.  I am sure there are ontologgers who will be able to improve it
> (even if by total replacement...).  But I would much appreciate any
> observations or suggestions in the very short term.
> 
> Christopher
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F
> Sowa
> Sent: 05 November 2013 14:57
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Early use of the word 'ontology' in AI
> 
> Christopher,
> 
> In that note, Pat and Bill were discussing some issues about proper usage,
> but not the question of first occurrence of the word 'ontology' in the AI
> literature.  Note Pat's brief summary:
> 
> PH
> > But the above concerns the term's use as a synonym for "logical
> > theory", whereas the present thread is addressing its use in AI.
> 
> In any case, there is as much confusion about the word 'theory' as there is
> about 'ontology'.  And the term 'logical theory' is less common (199,000 hits
> on Google) than 'formal theory' (300,000 hits).
> 
> I'd say that every ontology is a theory.  But to be an ontology, a theory must
> have an additional claim about the existence of the entities that its 
>variables
> refer to.  I'd also add the distinction of formal vs informal theories and
> ontologies:
> 
> Theory:  A systematic set of assumptions and their implications.
> 
> Ontology:  A theory about what exists in some domain.
> 
> Comment:  Note that a theory or an ontology can be stated in ordinary
> language.  But it must be systematic.  An observation that there is a robin in
> your backyard is not an ontology.  But a detailed theory about birds and their
> characteristic properties and relations could be called an ontology.
> 
> Formal theory:  The deductive closure of a set of axioms stated in some
> version of logic.
> 
> Formal ontology:  A formal theory about what exists in some domain.
> 
> Comment:  The adjective 'formal' as used in both philosophy and computer
> science implies the use of a precisely defined notation for making statements
> and drawing inferences -- i.e., a logic.
> 
> I believe that these four definitions correspond quite closely to the usage in
> both philosophy and computer science -- at least by people who know what
> they're talking about.  For anybody who doesn't, all bets are off.
> 
> John
> 
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