Dear Matthew, William, and Adrian, (01)
MW
> “The term THING means the same as the word thing.” This is not
> actually circular. The terms in your ontology are in principle
> labels without any inherent meaning at all. Try telling
> a computer otherwise. (02)
I agree. But that is a primary reason why we should *STOP* using
the label 'Thing' for the top of an ontology. The quoted comment
means nothing to a computer, but people who know nothing about
logic get the hopelessly misleading idea that it means something. (03)
As Pat Hayes noted, there's huge amount of confusion about ontology
in nearly every published ontology. FIBO is an example, but nearly
all the others are just as bad or worse. (04)
People who should know better have been using the label 'Thing' for
the top of an ontology because it gives a "comfy feeling" to those
who know nothing about logic. (05)
But that is an open invitation to *DISASTER*. Don't ever give
people a comfy feeling about something they don't understand. (06)
That is why I recommend the label 'Entity'. It alerts the readers
that they're stepping outside the realm of comfy words into highly
technical terminology. (07)
It's not hard to tell people that the word 'entity' means
"anything that exists or may exist". But as William and Adrian
noted, that is *not* how the word 'thing' is used in English: (08)
WF
> Well, in general, circular definitions are undesireable. (09)
That's true in an ontology. (010)
AW
> Indeed, even though every dictionary of English uses them. (011)
But a dictionary is *not* an ontology. It's a *lexical resource*. (012)
It's a *descriptive* record of the way words are used. It should
never be considered a *prescriptive* statement about how the meanings
of formal terms should be related to one another in an ontology. (013)
The reason why dictionaries have circular definitions is that they
are designed to cover all the ways words are used. It is, in effect,
the union of an open-ended number of theories, most of which are
inconsistent with one another. (014)
Therefore, circular definitions are normal and expected. Any
dictionary without contradictions would be incomplete. It would
therefore be *unreliable* as a description of the language. (015)
Fundamental principle: The first step in learning anything is
to unlearn what ain't so. (016)
Before we can teach people ontology, we have to *STOP* giving
them a comfy feeling that they already know ontology. (017)
John (018)
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