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

To: Avril.Styrman@xxxxxxxxxxx, "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:14:27 -0500
Message-id: <CALuUwtACeGwuGYOgG3bTRUhGb9wH7_JU4ZUZLQMYUHPfZsfBBg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Avril,

Agree with you and all repliers about the excellence of Ed's post on this. 
Following your response, I want to add that

Not only do scientists take what they happen to learn as the gospel, and all else as wrong, so do engineers.   For example, if they take a logic course in which all truth functions are derived from nand, then they believe that all truth functions are 'really' derived from nand, and that those who use the full set of mathematical English truth functional connectives just don't 'know' this basic truth.   In software, and ontology, engineers solve problems more and more with no regard to how these problems might have been elegantly solved in the last 100 years.   They seem to think there own minds, untrained in clarity and precision or even the ability to use Wikipedia, starting on ground zero, will naturally do a better job than the giants on whose shoulders they could stand.

I fear that required courses will not change this.   As do some others on this forum, I see a cultural unmooring from the human knowledge base, evidenced by all to many of the posts on this forum itself.   As one person here said to me, it is our job to speak up when this gets out of hand in an area that concerns us, and remind people that there is some foundational knowledge to be had, for those who trouble to look.


On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Avril Styrman <Avril.Styrman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Quoting "Barkmeyer, Edward J" <edward.barkmeyer@xxxxxxxx>:

> The mind reels.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.

That's well said. It is not just a problem of ontologgers, but a
problem of scientists in general, especially physicists and
mathematicians. Nowadays, a model that one happens to learn is too
easily the final truth. Accordingly, anything that doesn't fit in the
prevailing paradigm (the prevailing ontological commitments) is
automatically rejected as unscientific. Basically, science conquered
the role of the holder of the truth from the church, and now the
scientists say what is true. The long-term solution is to take
philosophy of science as compulsory in all education programs,
especially in universities. This would (hopefully) lead into a more
pragmatic attitude towards competing models.

Avril


Ystävällisin terveisin,

Avril Styrman
avril.styrman@xxxxxxxxxxx
puh. +358 40 7000 589


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